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“No? Then explain to me how we’re supposed to find me a way home?

What’s the plan? Because you haven’t mentioned it once since we first got here.

You’re too busy doing … whatever this is!

” I wave toward the maps, my hand shaking.

“And I’m supposed to trust that whatever you’re doing is right?

You tell me nothing . For all I know, you’re planning to burn cities or wipe out entire families. I wouldn’t know the difference.”

He straightens. His expression doesn’t change, but the air shifts.

And I step back before I even think about moving.

“Finding your way home requires understanding why you were able to break the binding in the first place. That investigation continues alongside Veinwarden operations.”

“Investigation?” The word is sour in my mouth.

“ What investigation? You haven’t asked me a single thing about it.

You won’t even acknowledge my presence unless someone else looks at me.

You speak in riddles and send me to Mira like it’s enough …

like I’m something to keep busy while the grown-ups work! ”

“The binding that held me was designed to be unbreakable.” His voice is calm. Too calm. “Understanding how you affected it takes time. Care. This isn’t a problem solved by impatience.”

“My entire life was taken from me. You think I care about your process? ”

He doesn’t respond. Nothing . That’s what makes me want to scream.

“I’m not asking to be part of your precious operations. I just want to know what you’re thinking. What you suspect. Is that really expecting too much?”

“The truth is that I don’t know . I don’t know how you broke the binding.

I don’t know why you were drawn to the tower when others weren't. I don't know how to send you back.” His voice doesn’t rise, remains the same calm, quiet level, but there’s a weight to it now—a wall going up brick by brick.

Shadows slither along his hands, coiling in sinuous lines over his wrists.

One disappears beneath the edge of his sleeve.

“The magic that brought you here wasn’t meant to reach past this world.

You were never supposed to be touched by it. ”

“Then tell me what you do know. Stop treating me like I’m some helpless child who can’t handle the truth. ”

My brain is screaming for me to stop talking. I ignore it.

“‘ I don’t know ’ is your default answer for everything. I’m stuck here, and all you can say is I don’t know . You told me you’d help me. But you haven’t tried. Not once!”

The air between us thickens as my voice rises. The temperature in the chamber drops, then rises again in a disorienting wave.

“Do you think I’m hiding something from you?

” His tone isn’t raised, but there’s a bite to it now.

A shape moves over his throat, rising from his skin—a snout, an eye, a curved spine.

Then it flattens again and disappears. “You think I have a secret tucked away? That I’ve been waiting for the perfect time to tell you how to go home, and I …

what?” An eyebrow hikes. “Just decided not to bother? What possible reason would I have for that?”

“I don’t know!” My voice cracks on the last word. “Maybe you kept it from me because you knew I’d walk away. Maybe you're not the one running from danger. Maybe you are the danger. Maybe they were right to lock you away.”

He goes still. Not calm, still . Like a snake coiled and ready to strike. “I told you everything you needed to know.”

“No, you told me what would get you out of that tower. That’s not the same thing.”

“Then tell me.” His voice turns silky, and he steps toward me. “What exactly do you think I’m doing now?”

His eyes darken. The black spreads wider, swallowing the whites. His face sharpens at the edges—cheekbones more refined, lips more sculpted. As though the person I’ve been speaking to has receded and what’s left is … cleaner. Colder .

He’s not angry. He’s not shouting. But he’s no longer hiding what he is.

I stand my ground, while every instinct inside screams at me to retreat. “I think you’re trying to scare me.”

My voice doesn’t feel like mine anymore. My hands are shaking. My head feels tight, the kind of headache that feels like a vice tightening around your skull. My vision narrows until all I can see is his face, his eyes. Those eyes that reflect nothing. There’s a buzzing in my ears.

“I think you know more than you’re saying.”

The pressure in my skull spikes. A noise pulses in my ears—low, electric, not quite sound.

He doesn’t respond. But the darkness around him moves.

Shadows surge toward him, joining the ones already on his skin.

One curls across the side of his neck, and disappears under his collar.

Another tightens around his wrist like a tether, then vanishes.

Something dark flashes across his cheek, then retracts in a quick, unnatural snap.

“I’m stuck here. I’m isolated. I can’t ask for food if I’m hungry. Don’t even have clothes to call my own. And the only person who could help is too busy.”

“Ellie—” It’s a warning, not a plea.

The shadows respond. They lash outward from his back, then snap back into his silhouette like a cloak caught in wind. His jaw tightens. His shoulders lift slightly. A dark shape appears on the table beside him—his raven familiar. Watching .

“I think?—”

The fireplace against the far wall erupts, flame tearing upward in a violent bloom that engulfs the hearth, reaching the ceiling. The roar drowns everything. Light sears my eyes. The heat slams into me, forcing the air from my lungs.

The flames aren’t yellow. They’re white at the center, and edged in black. It moves like it’s alive, furious .

We both stagger back a step.

Shadows twist across the stone, not cast by the flames, but reacting to them.

The ones closest to Sacha don’t just flicker.

They coil. They follow. They surround him like armor.

One wraps around his throat like a collar, then thins to nothing.

And that damn raven doesn’t move from where it perches and stares at me.

My chest tightens, my head pounds. I force myself to look at him.

He’s staring into the fire. And for one second, I see surprise etched into his features. Then it’s gone, the mask he wears falling back into place.

But I saw it. I know I did.

“What was that?” My voice sounds odd, far away.

His head turns slowly toward me. Whatever I saw a moment ago—the black in his eyes, the edge to his face—is gone. Sealed off like it was never there.

“There are remnants of old magic in these chambers.” His voice is softer than before. Almost cautious. “From the days when …” He shakes his head. “Occasionally, it … manifests.”

I stare at him. At the fire. At the way the flames still dance and flare as though they’re alive.

“In the middle of an argument? ”

“Emotion triggers magic. It’s not uncommon.”

He’s lying. I know he is.

Because the flames haven’t faded.

The air still tastes wrong.

And because it didn’t just respond to the room. It responded to us .

Before I can push further, footsteps echo on the stairway. I flinch. The sound is too sharp, too loud. The door opens as Varam enters, his expression tight.

He frowns at me, maybe feeling the tension in the room or smelling the scorched air, then turns to Sacha. He speaks rapidly, pointing at the maps still spread out across the table.

“What is it?”

Varam stops speaking at my demand, and says something else. It sounds like a question.

Sacha shakes his head, then looks at me. “The Authority is planning a sweep of Ravencross. They’ve received information suggesting there might be a high-value target hiding here.”

“You?”

He nods.

I blink hard. The fire is still burning. My skin still feels wrong. It takes me a second to reorient, to move away from the argument, the shift in his eyes, the way his shadows moved.

"What does that mean for everyone here? For us?"

"It means we need to leave. Now." There's a finality in his tone that cuts through everything. He turns back to Varam, speaking rapidly, in a clipped tone. The older man's face pales slightly before he nods and hurries back up the stairs.

Our argument hangs suspended between us, unresolved but suddenly irrelevant in the face of immediate danger. The personal frustrations that felt so important moments ago shrink against the backdrop of whatever threat approaches.

“But no one knows about this place. Why do we have to leave?” My skin is still tingling. My head still aches.

“Because if we remain and we’re caught, everyone you’ve seen here will be put to death.”

“But—”

“The sweep begins at dawn. We need to be gone before then.” He rolls up the maps. “Pack only what you can carry easily. We’ll travel light and fast.”

“I don’t have anything to pack.” He gives me a look that warns me now isn’t the time to argue again. “Where are we going?”

He pauses, head tilting as he considers what to tell me. “To one of the remaining hidden strongholds in the mountains. It’s several days’ journey, much of it through places the Authority doesn’t regularly patrol.”

“And then what?”

The look he gives me this time has very little patience in it.

“Then I continue what I started here.” His voice is flat again, back under control. But the way he glances at the fireplace isn’t casual. “And investigating your connection to this world’s magic.”

I want to argue. I want to scream. I want to tell him not to shut me out again.

But he’s already made it clear that this isn’t the time, and I don’t know how he’ll react if I push too hard.

Would he leave me here, and go without me?

I can’t risk that. Whatever is happening between us, whatever truths remain unspoken, it will have to wait until this immediate threat has passed.