SERAPHINA’S POV
I came back to myself like I'd been dropped through layers of collapsing glass as the world reassembled itself in fragments.
Cold stone beneath my feet.
The heavy, damp breath of the underground hall.
The cathedral-like chamber rising around me in warped arches of blackened metal and carved stone, lit by those same sickly, ritual-blue veins of light that pulsed faintly through the walls like something half-alive.
And Catherine.
She was exactly where I’d left her, standing at the center of the chamber like she was the sun the universe gravitated around.
But something was wrong.
The smug composure that had once clung to her like perfume was gone.
Her face was tight now, stripped of its certainty, her eyes sharp in a way I had never seen before—actively straining, as if she were listening to something only she could hear.
And she didn’t like what she was hearing.
Her hand was lifted, fingers trembling as she spoke into the empty air beside her.
