Chapter 98

Sloane

In the dream, the slab came down again.

It always started the same way. The corridor. The dust. Malachi’s voice saying my name, half a warning. Then the weight, and the sound my leg made, and the dark.

Then his back, walking away into the dust with Cressida.

In the dream, he never came back.

I woke with a scream already in my throat and my hands clawing at a stone that wasn’t there. The room was black. Something heavy was on my leg, and I fought it, and the pain that tore up from my shin was so real that I sobbed out loud.

The lock turned. The door opened.

“Sloane.”

Light from the main room fell across the floor. Malachi stood in it, still dressed, his shirt untucked, as if he hadn’