Page 58 of The Fallen Kingdom

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 Ihateher.”

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. Nowthatis 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

MY STOMACHdrops. I bite back a scream as I plunge through the floor and into the darkness. Broken bricks crash into the walls below me. I feel the rough grasp of Kiaran’s fingers on my clothes, pulling me closer. He says my name and it echoes around us.

I manage to open my eyes to see below and...there is nothing—nothing. Just a pit, endlessly black, with no visible bottom. I had taken a risk, made a wager that I was going to find the Book, and now my only thoughts are that I’m going to die and fail the people I care about. Only this time, I’ll be gone for good.

This time, there’s no coming back for me.

“Kam.” Kiaran’s sharp voice draws me out of my thoughts. He has a bruising hold on my arm, and jerks me to him in a rough embrace as the air rushes around us.How far have we fallen? How far do we have left?

“Keep your body straight.”

---