Book 18: Alcohol Doesn't Help

Zayn

The air is stale and silent in the rustic stone manor attached to the far side of the Mecca, the grand fortress that governs all of KiloKilo and marks its capital. Even in the violet glow of the earliest hours of the morning, the palace casts its shadow through every window in the manor, turning its already dark and sparsely decorated interior an inky kind of black.

No one lives here. No one has for years. Cobwebs still hang from the highest rafters of the room where Fallon is curled in the fetal position on a bed with fresh sheets, at least, her small body swallowed by the darkness all around her.

I leave the door open even though I’ve already dropped powerful wards around the manor and its slice of a front garden. No one can enter or exit without me knowing. No one can so much as open a door without alarm bells ringing through my skull lou