rippling the sides until every hanging portrait and candle and ornate table came crashing down in a wave.
“Kallia!”
Mild annoyance, at best. At her back, he stomped over glass and debris, each step shaking the ground. Her muscles tremored in tune with the loss and surge of energy, running high and low as her eyes darted everywhere until landing on the stairs ahead.
Kallia cried out as the long hallway rug yanked violently, tripping her. Dragging her back in the opposite direction from where she came.
“Please, firecrown. Stop running.”
The nickname sounded wrong, all wrong. Rage that had been simmering, that had been buried so deep she’d forgotten its name, seared through her. She gritted her teeth and thrashed to the side off the moving fabric. Kallia could barely hear what he said next as she ran for the stairs, only her heart thundering. The roar in her ears, deafening.
Flying down the grand wooden stairs, she clawed the air at her back. With each step down, the one behind her collapsed. One by one, the levels cracked and caved after contact with her heel until the thick bannister snapped. The entire structure, fallen by force.
Kallia couldn’t even tell if he was still following her. She expected staff to come running at her from all directions, but the entire first floor was chillingly empty. The main door at the entrance, unguarded.
The quiet around her broke under a voice, calling her name from behind. A muffled echo. It could’ve been Jack’s. It could’ve been anyone.
Kallia ignored it and wrenched her gaze away from the broken staircase. Ears ringing, breath held, she headed straight for the door.
To the forest that had held her prisoner for as long as she’d known.
* * *
The voice persisted.
Kallia, stop.
Kallia, wait.
Her feet plodded through the lawn’s damp grass, her focus shooting straight ahead yet acutely aware of each marker in the corners of her gaze.
Through the twisted metal archway.
Over the cement pathway that ended in grass.
Past the groundskeeper’s shed on the left, the horse stables to the right.
Inside the House, she’d been restless. Stirred by the storm beating inside her skin, looking for a way out. Now that she’d found one, the storm took hold. Guiding her.
“Kallia, wait!”
Mari. Kallia paused long enough for her friend to catch up, out of breath and red-faced. “I’ve called your name dozens of times, what happened?”
There were no words, nothing but fragments. A hand closed over hers, slowing her but not enough to stop her. Kallia didn’t have the luxury of stopping.
“You look like you ran through hell.” Mari shook. “Wh-where are you going?”
The chilling sound of a chuckle finally burst from Kallia. “I’m going into the woods no one dares enter, to the city nobody speaks of.”
“What?” The girl stumbled with a shriek. “That’s not funny, Kallia.”
“I’m not joking, Mari. I can’t go back.”
Kallia had thought about the people who’d left the House over the years. Who had formed such holes in her heart. She could’ve gone with them. Should’ve. If she had known, if they had said good-bye, she would’ve begged them to take her along.
“Well, you can’t go out there,” Mari pleaded. “It’s dangerous.”
“I’ll manage. I know people on the other side.”
Her intuition teased at the possibility that her old tutor and dance teacher had made their way to Glorian. Unless they had the fortunes to pay their way to the eastern cities, which Kallia doubted, it was a natural next step after Hellfire House.
Kallia clung to that hope fiercer than anything, imagining their faces when she strolled into town. Sanja would berate her for forgoing a horse in these Woods to journey on foot. Mistress Verónn would be even more horrified, for the sake of her feet.
Mari hurried after her. “I meant the Dire Woods. You know it’s cursed.”
Kallia inhaled roughly. She’d heard the stories. People would enter the forest clearheaded and leave losing their minds. Guests of Hellfire House, especially. There were numerous accounts of those who wandered through the trees drunkenly, only to come running back sober as death. If they found their way out.
Maybe those were more lies Jack had planted. But even he rarely ventured into the Dire Woods, despite owning horses. Animals were far more attuned to the ever-changing rhythms of the Woods. Only customers who could afford travel by carriage would venture to the club because of it.
And yet, Kallia marched onward. “I don’t care.”
“You may be a magician, but not even you’re immune to the Woods or the travel.” Mari’s panting grew more labored.