THE EARTH LET OUT ANOTHER VIOLENT RUMBLE. CASSIE REELED back, shielding her head from the storm of debris raining down around her. She grabbed the bloody knife from the floor and stumbled across the room, skirting the flames just as another quake gripped the cavern. She clutched onto the door frame as the world shook, watching in horror as the tunnel caved in ahead of her.
Wheeling around, she tried to remember what Tremain had said. There was another exit, right from the main doors. She felt along the wall until she found the ridge of a hidden door. She wrenched it open and raced into the tunnel just as the ceiling gave way behind her. Stumbling and gasping, she ran, grabbing a torch from the wall to send shadows bouncing along the wall as she plunged deeper into the dark.
Cassie felt a black fear grip her heart as she ran. This was the place of her dreams. The tunnels, the torchlight. Her feet were bare on the dusty ground and she gripped the knife tightly in one hand. She heard echoes of the ritual chanting humming off every wall, and she told herself it was all in her mind. It had to be. A shadow suddenly reared up in the gloom, and she stumbled in fear, falling hard on her hands. But there was no time for pain, not with the knife gripped, slick in her hand, or the faint clatter of footsteps getting louder. Closer.
Scrambling to her feet, Cassie plunged on, climbing higher up the twisting staircase until she stepped through an open door and emerged with a gasp in a dungeonlike room. There was light through a slim window ahead, the surface at last, but Cassie’s relief only lasted for a split second.
Inside the room, Olivia stood over Charlie’s crumpled body, her eyes black, her smile a mask of cruel delight. “You’re too late,” she told Cassie, breathing heavily. “He was delicious. Like Evie,” she added with a smirk.
Cassie had no time to think. With a cry of rage, she launched herself at Olivia, sending them both crashing to the ground. Olivia clawed at her, nails scratching at Cassie’s skin, but Cassie still held the knife. With all the force she could muster, she thrust the knife into Olivia’s stomach.
Olivia let out a cry, going rigid against her. Cassie pulled the knife out, and Olivia flinched back, whimpering in pain as she clutched at the wound.
Cassie scrambled away from her, her hands wet with blood. “Charlie?” she cried, panic freezing her blood to ice. “Oh God, Charlie?” She crawled over to him, reaching out, cradling his head in her hands. “Please,” she whispered. “Oh God, please, Charlie. Please wake up!” Terror and guilt crashed over her. He was the one good man, the one good soul in all this.
He let out a low moan. Her heart surged. “Wake up,” she whispered. “It’s okay, I’ve got you now.”
Slowly, his eyes fluttered open. Cassie let out a sob of relief. “Are you hurt?” she asked, brushing his hair back from his forehead. “What did she do to you?”
Charlie stared back blankly, his blue eyes empty and expressionless. Cassie felt her blood turn to ice. “No,” she gulped. “No, you’re going to be okay. You have to be!” She tried to reach out with her mind, to smooth and mend the damage Olivia had left behind, but she was too weak. She could barely touch the edges of his broken mind. She shook him, desperate, but he just lolled back, a rag doll, unseeing. Unthinking.
“Charlie!” Her sob broke. She felt the earth quake again, but Cassie didn’t care. She clutched his body, sobbing, as grief shattered around her. He shouldn’t have been there, shouldn’t have paid the price for her fight. She was the one who deserved this, not him.
There was another violent shudder, and the door from the tunnels burst open. Hugo stumbled into the room. His eyes landed on her, frantic. “We have to go!” he ground out. “The foundations gave way. The whole place is caving in!” He moved past her, toward the last steps to the surface. “Cassie, come on!” Hugo grabbed her hand, trying to drag her to her feet.
Cassie resisted, blind with tears. “I can’t leave him!”
“It’s too late,” Hugo exclaimed. “Cassie, we have to go!” He pulled at her, but she clung to Charlie, refusing to let him go. She was suspended between them, strung taut.
And then she realized.
Cassie sucked in a breath, and before she could think twice, she reached out with her mind again—not to Charlie this time, but to Hugo. She latched on tight to his mind, clawing deep in a savage sweep that made him cry out in pain. Cassie gripped deeper, pulling at all that darkness, that ancient force, so fresh and ripe in his mind. She drank it in, dizzy with the sudden rush of power, filling her up to the brim.
Then she cast it out. Into Charlie, into his empty mind. She poured everything she had into Charlie and then more besides. She reached with her mind, smoothing over the broken, jagged edges, filling him with power and potential again.
“Cassie,” Hugo gasped, falling to his knees beside her. But Cassie didn’t stop, didn’t pause for a second as the life rushed out of him, flowing through her in a thick rush. It glittered in her veins, channeled into Charlie, making him whole and new until his eyes flew open and he lurched forward with a gasp.
“What . . . ?” he panted, clawing at the air. His gaze met hers, widening with blessed recognition this time. “Cassie? What are you doing to me?”
It beat around her, a crescendo in her ears. She felt it flow, calling to her, demanding.
“Cassie?” Charlie’s voice seemed distant and weak. “Cassie, let me go!”
She jolted awake, wrenching free from the darkness with a gasp. Charlie gripped both her hands, searching her gaze, alert. “Can you hear me, Cassie? What did you do?”
She gulped, her heart racing. “I brought you back.” She turned. Hugo lay motionless on the ground beside his cousin, Olivia’s blood pooling around them both.
The earth gave another shake. “Come on.” Charlie pulled her to her feet and dragged her to the stairs. She stumbled upward behind him, her limbs like a deadweight. “Almost there,” he urged her on, half carrying her up the stairs.
They stumbled through the doorway into the shock of freezing night air. Cassie looked around, blinking. They had emerged on the far side of the college, through an opening in the very walls of Raleigh itself, the thick stone hiding their tunnel escape. Across the meadow, she could see the sandstone of the college lit up. The North Tower was engulfed in flames, blazing against the dark night. Sirens sounded, noise and commotion filtering through the dark. Cassie sank to the wet grass.
“It’s over.” Charlie gripped her tightly. “You did it. You’re okay.”
Cassie didn’t reply. She held him in the darkness and listened to the sirens scream.