Page 84 of A Fate Everlasting

He released me, but the cold of his touch lingered far longer.

The truth felt like a brand, scorched into my skin in a way that would never heal right. I was the only one of my kind. A girl born not to live, but to repay a debt, bound to Elsewhere before I’d even drawn my first breath.

He’d left me in the library. I had to get out. If I stood still any longer, I’d shatter beneath the weight of it—the knowledge, the horror, the inevitability of what I was.

My hands clenched into fists, nails biting into my palms. Had my mother known? Had she felt me inside her, growing, and thought,this is the girl I am damning?

I scanned the room.Anything.A book, a map, a hidden door. I needed a thread of knowledge I could pull until this entire place unraveled at my feet. Because I wasn’t just someone’s forsaken daughter, a thread fate had tried to cut. That couldn’t be how my story ended. It couldn’t be all I was meant to be.

From the moment we met, Dante hadn’t just been trying to break me, he had been using me. It had always been about dragging me under before I could escape, forcing me to Fall. Maybe that was the cruelest part of all—that he’d never even needed to lie. He just left out the truth and wound the clock, waiting for all of this to detonate when the timing was right.

Tension locked in my chest. I hurled myself at the door, bracing for impact, but at the last second it swung open. I stumbled forward, crashing to my knees against the cold marble. It had never been locked. Yet another of his games.

The marble corridors of the Sanctum stretched out before me, impossibly empty. The torches flickered, their flames burning too long, their shadows stretching too far. No, he hadn’t needed locks because this place was vast. The Sanctum was far bigger than I had anticipated. I’d never find my way out.

I continued down the darkened marble-floored corridor.What if—What if freeing the Archangels was a mistake?I forced the doubt down. I wouldn’t let him into my head. Again.

A gust of wind swept through the corridor, tugging at the ends of my hair. It howled and howled, shrieking until it simmered into silence.

Then, a hand snatched my arm. I twisted violently, heart roaring in my ears as I looked up.Dorian.

“It’s fine. I’ve got you.” His face was pale, drawn with exhaustion, but his grip was firm as he drew me into his chest. His breath came in bursts, chest heaving like he’d been running for his life. “But we need to leave. Now.”

“What are you doing down here? Are you hurt?” I demanded. He had been dragged away from the Sanctum’s entry hall when I last saw him. If Dante caught him down here again, I dreaded to think what he would do.

“I’m fine. I got my mother to tell me where they were keeping you.” Dorian worked his jaw. “Listen to me. Things are moving fast up there.” He nodded above us. “If we don’t go now, you’ll never leave. You’ll never get out. It’s the High King, he wantsyou.”

For a moment, I stood frozen, my brain scrambling to catch up. The High King and his court, Verrine and Dante, all needed me to Fall. For a reason I didn’t quite understand, my choice mattered.

“I know.” I nodded. “But leave? Ican’t. Dorian it’s the Archangels—” I felt tears pressing against my eyes. “They’re trapped. That’s what’s in the Arcana deck.”

“I know, Davenant.” He let go of me, pained, hands raking through his hair. “I already know.Esmerelda told me everything before they dragged her away. The cards, the Archangels, the lot. With them caged away, there’s a massive power imbalance. The High King can claim the entire Afterworld.”

“We have to get them back,” I pleaded. He reached for me again, this time to drag me forward. I drove my heels into the marble floor.

“We don’t have time for this. You have to go. Now.” Dorian tugged my arm. “The Rift’s in two days?—”

“I know,” I cut in. “I saw my name drop. But Ruby?—”

“Scores are tanking everywhere. They’re planning to mark most of Lower Sixth as Fallen. Twelve graduates only, Arabella. And they’re being funneled straight into Elsewhere.”

My breath caught.Twelve.Just twelve. “And the rest?”

“Erased.” He looked away. “Or worse.”

“So it’s over? That’s it?”

“That’s it, Davenant.” His hands dropped to his sides. “We can’t let them take us.”

The Rift would arrive in two days, and when it did, they wouldn’t need to chain me anymore. The ether would mark me, brand me, twist me into exactly what they needed.Forever.

40

The passage reeked of damp earth, like something buried that shouldn’t have been unearthed. The walls sweated with it, pulsing with something that felt alive, something that coiled through the narrow tunnels like it had been expecting us. The corridors had faded from marble to stone, a sign that we had gone terribly wrong or that we were close to getting free.

Cobwebs tangled in my hair as I pressed forward, the rough grooves in the stone catching at my fingertips. My body was a raw wound of exhaustion, but we didn’t have time to stop.Why were we descending? Shouldn’t we be climbing?

Behind me, Dorian moved in silence, his violet eyes flickering in the dim torchlight, his body stiff with tension. He looked like hell—uniform torn, dried blood caking his collar, fresh crimson trailing from a cut above his eye.

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