Page 63 of A Touch of Madness

And I don’t know which one terrifies me more.

There is one person I’d go to when I needed something—anything. She may not be thinking clearly right now, but I still need to see her again. One more time before I make a decision that will change everything forever.

I steel myself and push open the door.

The chamber is dim, the light from the hovering witchlights too pale, too weak to chase away the darkness curling along the edges of the room. The air is thick, too still, as if it holds its breath in anticipation. The runes along the walls pulse faintly, reacting to my presence, but my gaze is already drawn to the figure at the center of the room.

Lara.

She is exactly where I left her, bound to the reinforced iron chair, her wrists and ankles encased in glowing sigils designed to suppress whatever unnatural force lingers within her.

“Lara.” The word comes out harsher than I intended, and she stirs.

It feels unnatural. Not like a person shifting into wakefulness.

Like a puppet whose strings have just been pulled.

Her head snaps up, her chin lifting too fast, her body jerking against the chair like something unseen has yanked her back into herself. Her limbs remain bound, but something in the air shifts, thickens, as if the magic holding her is fighting to keep her in place.

The room warps, the shadows stretching wider, deepening.

And then she opens her eyes. I will never get used to the emotionless void staring back at me.

A poor imitation of what once was.

A sickness twists in my gut.

“I was wondering,” Lara murmurs, her voice a soft, saccharine drawl, “how long you were going to make me wait.”

I feel the others tense behind me, although I told them to wait.

Lucian. Dorian. The Girls. The elders. Ravenna.

They rest just outside of the room, but I feel them.

I square my shoulders. “What did they do to you?”

Lara tilts her head, the motion eerily smooth, the corners of her lips still curled, her amusement stretching too thin.

“You act like you don’t already know.”

A shiver crawls down my spine.

Her fingers flex against the restraints, nails scraping against the iron again in that familiar rhythm.

“The nightmares,” she whispers, her voice slithering through the room. “You’ve seen them, haven’t you? The pieces they let you have.”

My breath catches.

She knows.

She knows about the visions.

“Do you know why, Sylvie?” she continues, her voice sickly sweet. “Because you and me? We are not separate. We never were.”

I shake my head, refusing to let the weight of her words dig into me, refusing to acknowledge the way my blood thrums at the sound of her voice.

“No,” I whisper.

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