“Stand back.”
My powers are a storm building inside me. Electricity crackles in the air. I throw back my head when energy rushes down my veins, through my blood. My heart slams faster and faster, filling my ears with a dull roar.
Vines break through the stone around my feet and I smile grimly. Stop. When the vines cease, I command them to die. They begin to break apart around us, falling to the ground and withering. That ought to give us enough time to get out of here before the Morrigan attacks again.
Seconds seem like minutes. The fine hairs on my arms rise and the feeling of a storm builds and builds and builds within my chest until it becomes a painful pressure there.
Breathe it out like air, I tell myself. Easy.
I let my power go in a blast that turns the wall to rubble—and all that’s behind it is a hallway identical to this. Well, so much for that.
Another vine breaks through the wall behind us with a thunderous crack. Out of the corner of my eye, I see leaves growing beneath the old dead ones. They shoot out of the walls and the floor faster than before, shattering the stonework all around us. The foliage is bigger and thicker and stronger, with thorns long enough to impale.
“Great work, Falconer,” Sorcha says. “You made the Morrigan angry.”
We’ll have to take our chances in the next hallway. The archways behind us are crumbling, pierced by thorns. A wall next to me shatters and a massive vine comes straight for us.
“Go!” I yell.
We clamber through the hole in the stonework just before the hallway behind us buckles and the plants begin to close in. Brick shatters to the ground, detritus dusts the air. My breath comes out in a cough. I can’t see—
Rebuild. Quickly.
I clench my fist and raise my hand, directing my power to stack the stones, throwing them in place so there’s something stable enough to hold for now. We just need enough time to run. The makeshift wall forms to cover any cracks the vines might come through, and then . . . silence. Only our strained, tired breathing fills the space.
A burst of power pushes against mine. God, the Morrigan is so strong—
“Hold it, Kam.”
Hold it? Is he mad? I shut my eyes, my body straining as the Morrigan’s power fights mine, shoving hard against my makeshift wall.
“MacKay,” I say. “Now isn’t a good time—”
“I need a moment,” he says. Some cold and brutal emotion darkens his expression. “Aithinne, feel for your power.”
Aithinne shuts her eyes. Almost immediately, she frowns. When she opens her eyes, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen her look scared. “It’s there but I can’t . . . I can’t reach it.” Aithinne holds out her hand, like she’s expecting something to happen. “I can’t even conjure a flame. A bloody child’s trick.” She looks at Sorcha with accusation. “What did you do to us?”
“Our powers are bound,” Kiaran says shortly. He pulls Sorcha to him.
I gasp as the Morrigan’s powers crash against mine again. The hallway shakes. Above us, a small portion of the wall crumbles and falls. Hold. Hold, damn it.
“MacKay,” I say warningly.
But Kiaran ignores the chaos around us. His gaze is focused on Sorcha, his grip bruising around her arm. “You knew, didn’t you?”
Sorcha tries to look nonchalant. “I knew that little girl needed the Book.”
Kiaran slams her into the wall and Sorcha gasps in pain. “Explain. For every answer I’m not satisfied with, you’ll lose a finger. Try growing it back without any powers.”
Fear flares in Sorcha’s eyes. “All right,” she says roughly. “All right.”
The Morrigan’s power slams into mine and I bite back a cry. My body is trembling now, my vision hazing. The hallway starts to sway. A brick tumbles from the top of the makeshift pile. “MacKay, hurry.”
Kiaran releases Sorcha. “Talk fast.”
“It’s part of the prison’s design. The Cailleach was able to kill the Morrigan’s body, but she was too strong. The prison dampens her abilities enough that she can’t rebuild her body and escape it.” Sorcha looks at me, at where I patched the hole in the wall. “The Falconer must be immune because it wasn’t created to hold a human. The effect on less powerful fae is almost completely binding.”
“What does that mean?” My voice is hoarse from the effort to hold the wall in place. I shut my eyes briefly against another push. Another. I start to sway on my feet, dizzy.
Kiaran’s curse is loud in the quiet hallway. He pulls away from Sorcha and studies his knuckles. Thin cuts dot his pale skin from when he punched the wall. Blood is dripping across the back of his swelling hand.
His wound isn’t healing.
“It means,” Kiaran says through gritted teeth, “that we can all die in here. And Sorcha didn’t bother to tell us.”
“An opportunity presented itself, so I took it.” Her smile is familiar, terrible and dark. “I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t. I wanted you and I hate her.”
Kiaran’s laugh is low, dangerous. It makes me shiver. “Ah, laoigh mo chridhe,” he murmurs to her, brushing two fingers down her cheek. “I’m going to live out the rest of my existence imagining all the different ways I’d slaughter you if I could.” His voice dips. “Does that sound familiar? How does it feel to be no better than your former master?”
What does that mean?
Sorcha draws in a sharp breath. “Kadamach,” she whispers. Her hand trembles as she reaches for his arm. “Listen—”
The Morrigan slams into the shield of power I’m holding with enough force that I cry out. “I don’t mean to interrupt—” She shoves again, and this time I grit my teeth against the onslaught.
Vines snake their way through the cracks in the rubble. The Morrigan’s power is building around us like an oncoming storm, pushing through mine with an almost mocking delight.
A voice whispers in my mind, cold as ice on the wind. A human with my sister’s powers. Now that is interesting.
Now she knows my weaknesses. She knows I’ll die if I keep trying.
Kiaran is next to me. “Kam?”
I try to concentrate but my muscles hurt. My body strains with the effort to keep the Morrigan at bay, to keep the wall up. “I can’t hold it.”
“Let it go and run when I say,” he tells me. Then he counts in my ear. One. Two. Three. Go.
I drop my powers and we race down the long hallway, my boots hitting the onyx floor hard. Behind us, the wall bursts open. Vines crawl along the ceiling, thicker now. Thorns tear through the bricks like paper.
As we speed past cracks forming along the stonework, the Morrigan is in my mind, digging, digging, digging. Reading me. Assessing my powers and looking for another weakness. I can’t stop her. I can’t keep her out entirely, not after holding her power at bay. She knows that and—
I swear I can feel her smile.
The hallway shakes and I’m thrown off balance. Something slams into the bricks. “Do you feel that?” I say to Kiaran, panting hard.
He shakes his head once as if to clear it. His answer is strained. “Aye.”
A moment later, the ground beneath me gives way.
CHAPTER 27