A glow spread along Lehabah’s body.
So Bryce climbed. And with each painful step upward, she could hear Lehabah whisper, almost chanting, “I am a descendant of Ranthia Drahl, Queen of Embers. She is with me now and I am not afraid.”
Bryce reached the top of the stairs.
Lehabah whispered, “My friends are behind me, and I will protect them.”
Screaming, Bryce shoved the library door. Until it clanged shut, the enchantments sealing, cutting off Lehabah’s voice with it, and Bryce leaned against it, sliding to the floor as she sobbed through her teeth.
Bryce had made it up to the showroom and locked the iron door behind her. Thank the gods for that—thank the fucking gods.
Yet Hunt couldn’t take his eyes off the library feed, where Lehabah still moved, still summoned her power, repeating the words over and over:
“I am a descendant of Ranthia Drahl, Queen of Embers. She is with me now and I am not afraid.”
Lehabah glowed, bright as the heart of a star.
“My friends are behind me, and I will protect them.”
The top of the bathroom door began to curl open.
And Lehabah unleashed her power. Three blows. Perfectly aimed.
Not to the bathroom door and Archangel behind it. No, Lehabah couldn’t slow Micah.
But a hundred thousand gallons of water would.
Lehabah’s shimmering blasts of power slammed into the glass tank. Right on top of the crack that Bryce had made when the n?kk threw her into it.
The creature, sensing the commotion, rose from the rocks. And recoiled in horror as Lehabah struck again. Again. The glass cracked further.
And then Lehabah hurled herself against it. Pushed her tiny body against the crack.
She kept whispering the words over and over again. They morphed together into one sentence, a prayer, a challenge.
“My friends are with me and I am not afraid.”
Hunt wrested control of his body enough that he was able to put a hand over his heart. The only salute he could make as Lehabah’s words whispered through the speakers.
“My friends are with me and I am not afraid.”
One by one, the angels in the 33rd rose to their feet. Then Ruhn and his friends. And they, too, put their hands on their hearts as the smallest of their House pushed and pushed against the glass wall, burning gold as the n?kk tried to flee to any place it might survive what was about to come.
Over and over, Lehabah whispered, “My friends are with me and I am not afraid.”
The glass spiderwebbed.
Everyone in the conference room rose to their feet. Only Sandriel, her attention fixed on the screen, did not notice. They all stood, and bore witness to the sprite who brought her death down upon herself, upon the n?kk—to save her friends. It was all they could offer her, this final respect and honor.
Lehabah still pushed. Still shook with terror. Yet she did not stop. Not for one heartbeat.
“My friends are with me and I am not afraid.”
The bathroom door tore open, metal curling aside to reveal Micah, glowing as if newly forged, as if he’d rend this world apart. He surveyed the library, eyes landing on Lehabah and the cracked tank wall.
The sprite whirled, back pressed against the glass. She hissed at Micah, “This is for Syrinx.”
She slammed her little burning palm into the glass.
And a hundred thousand gallons of water exploded into the library.
80
Flashing red lights erupted, casting the world into flickering color. A roar rose from below, the gallery shuddering.
Bryce knew.
She knew the tank had exploded, and that Lehabah had been wiped away with it. Knew the n?kk, exposed to the air, had been killed, too. Knew that Micah would only be slowed for so long.
Syrinx was still whimpering in her arms. Glass littered the gallery floor, the window to Jesiba’s office shattered a level above.
Lehabah was dead.
Bryce’s fingers curled into claws at her side. The red light of the warning alarms washed over her vision. She welcomed the synth into her heart. Every destructive, raging, frozen ounce of it.
Bryce crawled for the front door, broken glass tinkling. Power, hollow and cold, thrummed at her fingertips.
She grabbed the handle and hoisted herself upright. Yanked the door open to the golden light of late afternoon.
But she did not go through it.
That was not what Lehabah had bought her time to do.
Hunt knew Lehabah was killed instantly, as surely as a torch plunged into a bucket of water.
The tidal wave threw the n?kk onto the mezzanine, where it thrashed, choking on the air as it ate away its skin. It even blasted Micah back into the bathroom.