This chapter took four drafts.
Four different versions, and four times I broke it apart, rewrote it, and tried again because I wanted this chapter to be worthy of the journey that brought us here.
Chapter 28 left Max holding Seth while something watched from the other side of that fracture.
Chapter 29 begins exactly where we left them.
I have very little else to say without giving something away.
So, for once, I am going to behave myself.
Mostly.
Welcome to Chapter 29.
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The silence feels hollow.
Seth lies across my lap with his head against my arm, heavier now that I have stopped searching for the pulse that refuses to meet my fingers. His face still looks like his, close enough that some stubborn part of me keeps waiting for his chest to rise.
It never does.
My palm cups his cheek. Warmth still lingers beneath my fingers, fading slowly as I pull him closer and press my face into the curve of his neck. My eyes close against his skin, and for a few seconds, I hold him tightly enough to pretend I am holding Seth instead of what death has left behind.
"You said we would marry after this."
The words barely make it past my throat.
"You said I wouldn't lose you."
The silver inside me goes still.
For one heartbeat, it holds beneath my skin as though my words have reached somewhere deeper than my own grief.
Then the Breath moves.
Silver slips across my arms and pulls towards Seth. Thin currents rise from beneath my skin, stretching across the space between us until they reach his chest, his throat, his mouth.
They gather against him.
They wait, but nothing comes back to us.
Seth remains still.
The silver tries again.
This time, it pushes harder.
I tighten my arms around him as the currents wrap his chest and search across his skin. They retreat after several seconds, only to surge towards him again with enough force to pull at my clothes.
"I know," I whisper.
Silver trembles around my wrists, the thin currents faltering after finding nothing waiting for them in Seth.
Heat answers beneath my skin.
Gold gathers around the trembling silver, tightening with every uneven movement it makes. For one heartbeat, they remain impossibly close.
Then the Breath reaches for Seth again.
The Living Scripture twists through my arms as silver pulls towards him. Gold follows the movement, and pain tears from my elbow towards my shoulder when the two forces cross.
My breath catches as both recoil inside me.
The silver barely retreats before its anguish tears through me.
The feeling catches beneath my ribs and crashes straight into my own grief. I curl over Seth instinctively, shielding him against my chest while the force of it steals what little control I have left.
The Flame reacts with me.
Heat surges through my arms, fierce and immediate, while silver turns cold beneath my skin. The two currents cross inside my chest, and the impact snaps through my body hard enough to loosen my grip on Seth.
His weight shifts suddenly in my arms.
I drag him securely against me before he can slip any further.
"Please, both of you, stop."
The plea changes nothing.
Silver keeps pulling towards Seth, forcing its way through me in another attempt to reach him. Gold flares wherever it passes, and the pressure between them folds me over Seth as pain drives through my chest.
I press my face against his hair and hold on.
Whatever is happening inside me, I cannot separate them without knowing how, and I cannot release either one.
Another pulse drives through my body, stronger than the last. Gold flashes across one arm while silver tears through the other, and for one terrifying second they meet beneath my sternum.
I scream.
I know what my screaming does to the dimensions between worlds now. I know what can split open when I lose control like this, and somewhere beneath the grief, I probably understand that I should care.
Right now, I don't have to.
The fracture behind me answers with sudden movement.
Alec comes through first and lands badly enough to stumble across the stone. Jamey follows almost on top of him, catching himself against the floor before scrambling upright.
Both of them stop when they see us.
Whatever Alec was about to say disappears from his face.
I pull Seth closer.
"Your scream opened the rift," Alec says, already moving towards me. "We saw you through it."
He drops beside us and reaches for Seth's throat.
I watch his fingers.
Every part of me watches his fingers.
Alec shifts them once.
Then he tries again.
His eyes lift towards mine, and the grief already gathering there tells me what his mouth has not.
I refuse to accept it.
"Save him, Alec."
My voice sounds distant even to me.
Jamey drops beside my other shoulder. His hand closes around my arm, and his power moves carefully into mine, pressing against the violent surge of gold and silver without trying to overpower either one.
The pressure inside my chest eases enough for me to breathe, and I turn towards him.
"Make him wake up."
Jamey's face crumples before he can hide it.
I see the answer there too.
"Please, Jamey."
His fingers tighten around my arm, but he cannot give me what I am asking for.
Alec looks towards the fracture. "We need to move. Whatever is happening inside you is getting worse."
He reaches beneath Seth.
My arms tighten automatically.
Alec stops.
For several seconds, neither of us moves.
"Max," he says quietly. "I need to carry him."
I look down at Seth.
My fingers are still twisted into his shirt.
Making them open is harder than it should be.
Alec waits until I finally let go before lifting Seth into his arms. Jamey keeps hold of me as I stand, and gold flashes beneath my skin when Seth's body moves away from mine.
I nearly reach for him again.
Jamey's arm comes around me instead.
"Stay with us, Max."
We cross through the fracture together.
Home waits on the other side, but the grounds are no longer empty.
People fill the space ahead of us.
Nobody speaks as Alec carries Seth through them. Jamey stays against my side while faces turn towards us one after another, and I realize with a sick drop in my stomach that I know some of them.
They are the people who saw us.
The people my scream reached.
Alec keeps walking with Seth in his arms.
I follow because I cannot do anything else.
Lady Elsa stands below us with her full team. The Judicars have gathered beside them, along with the warriors from the waterfall and others I recognize from the impossible connection that dragged them into my grief.
Samuel and Campbell are among them. Both are back on their feet, although Campbell still looks unsteady and Samuel has one arm wrapped across his ribs.
Eric stands farther back.
Everyone looks towards us.
Then they see Seth.
The change moves through the gathering without a sound.
I barely notice.
Alec is carrying Seth ahead of me, one arm beneath his shoulders and the other beneath his knees. He keeps looking down at him as though checking that his head is supported properly, adjusting his hold whenever Seth shifts with his movement.
He knows he cannot feel it.
He does it anyway.
Jamey stays close enough that his shoulder keeps brushing mine. His eyes are red, and every few steps he looks towards Seth before quickly turning away.
Neither of them says anything.
They don't have to.
Gold flashes across my hands.
I stop walking.
Silver surges through my chest a heartbeat later.
"Max?" Jamey turns towards me.
Pain folds through my abdomen before I can answer. I catch myself against him as the Breath tears towards Seth again, silver streaming from my shoulders and arms in thin currents that stretch towards Alec.
They almost reach him before Flame erupts beneath my skin.
Gold cuts through the silver.
Both powers snap back into me.
My knees buckle.
Jamey catches my arm while Alec turns sharply, but I force myself upright before either of them can reach for me again.
"Keep going."
Alec hesitates.
"Get him inside."
That gets him moving.
Another surge tears through my chest before we make it much farther. Silver races beneath my skin while Living Scripture twists around it, the characters breaking formation wherever the two forces meet.
Heat strikes first.
Cold follows immediately.
My breath catches as both spread through me at once.
I press one hand against my sternum and keep walking.
Jamey stays beside me. "Max, you're getting worse."
"I noticed."
My voice sounds steadier than I feel.
Silver surges through me again, and the Flame rises hard against it.
Their collision drives me onto one knee.
Several people move towards us, but I throw out one hand before they can reach me.
"Stay back from me."
I know these two are not making anything easier, and I never expected them to. What I need to know is why they are tearing through my insides and how the hell I make them stop. I can worry about understanding them after I survive whatever argument they are currently having inside my body.
Gold and silver burst from my palm together.
Everyone around me stops.
I stare at my own hand, and what just happened frightens me more than the pain because I cannot tell which power moved first.
Another pulse tears through me before I can make sense of it. The world tilts as living characters race across my wrists and silver forces its way between them, both spreading farther with every beat of my heart.
My body is losing the argument.
I grip Jamey's arm and force myself upright, but standing does nothing to stop the pressure crushing through my chest. My legs shake beneath me while I drag one breath in after another, waiting until the estate stops shifting around me.
Jamey keeps one hand locked around my arm. "Max, stay with me."
I blink until his face comes back into focus.
Then I realize what I cannot see.
"Where is Seth?"
Jamey's face tightens. "Alec has him."
I find Alec immediately.
Seth is still in his arms.
The sight steadies me enough to take another step.
Then another.
Staying conscious takes more effort with each one. My thoughts keep slipping whenever gold and silver collide, leaving holes between one moment and the next. I hold onto the only thing that still matters.
Alec has Seth.
Keep walking.
A shimmer opens behind the gathering.
I almost miss it.
The air bends once, then draws inward with a movement disturbingly close to a breath.
Jamey turns before I do.
"Please tell me that's ours."
The opening widens instead.
A black-clad figure steps through, followed immediately by another. More appear behind them until the opening seems to pour bodies onto the estate.
They never hesitate.
Each one moves aside the instant their feet touch the ground, taking position without looking towards the person beside them. Rows form with barely a sound. Blades remain sheathed, hands stay loose at their sides, and masked faces turn towards us at almost the same moment.
The air bends once, then draws inward with a movement disturbingly close to a breath.
Jamey turns first.
"Please tell me that's ours."
It isn't.
A black-clad figure steps through, followed by another. More appear behind them until thirty masked figures have crossed onto the estate.
They spread out without a word, each taking position with the kind of precision that makes my stomach tighten.
I stare at them through the pressure building behind my eyes.
Ninjas.
Apparently today still has room for ninjas.
A blond man steps through behind them.
The formation parts immediately, the masked figures moving aside in perfect unison to create a path for him.
He walks through the opening they create, his attention already fixed on us.
Then I see his eyes.
That is where my attention catches.
They are empty in a way the rest of him is not, cold enough to strip every trace of beauty from his face. He looks directly at me while thirty masked figures wait around him, and something in my stomach tightens.
Alec reaches the others with Seth still held carefully against his chest. His head comes up as he takes in the formation around us.
"Jamey, get Max out of here!"
Jamey looks from Alec to me before his attention shifts towards the blond man at the center.
The color drains from his face.
Wonderful.
Apparently the beautiful stranger with the private army is exactly as dangerous as he looks.
My attention returns to his eyes, then drops to the symbols visible above the collar of his clothing.
Reversed lines cut through the markings.
I have seen that pattern before.
Samantha's book.
The Hanged Man.
He found us first.
Pain drives through my spine as I straighten.
"Jamey, get out of here and take the others with you."
Alec lowers Seth carefully beside Lady Elsa. "Please take care of him."
His voice almost holds.
Lady Elsa is already kneeling before Alec has fully released him, one hand moving towards Seth's chest while the other supports his head.
Alec reaches me a heartbeat later.
His arm locks around my waist as another collision of gold and silver drives through my body. My knees give beneath me, but Alec takes my weight before they reach the ground.
"I can stand."
"You can barely breathe."
"Those are separate problems."
My fingers close around his forearm anyway.
The Hanged Man begins walking towards us.
He takes his time.
That frightens me more than a charge would have.
Thirty masked fighters surround him, Alec is holding me upright, and whatever Flame and Breath are doing inside me is getting worse by the second.
He has already noticed.
Gold bursts from my chest before I decide to use it.
The strike tears towards him.
A shimmer appears several meters ahead of his body, and the Flame hits it hard enough to spread gold across an invisible surface. Light ripples outward before the entire strike breaks apart.
The Hanged Man never flinches.
Alec's grip tightens around me. "I don't think they came with good intentions."
"The matching masks gave me a clue."
His attention stays fixed on the man approaching us.
"There is something powerful coming from him, Max."
I can feel it now that he is closer. The pressure has none of Anderson's violent corruption. This is quieter, older somehow, and contained so completely that I cannot tell where the man ends and whatever he carries begins.
"I know."
Another pulse of pain moves through my chest, and I force air into my lungs until the darkness gathering at the edges of my vision retreats.
Jamey steps in front of us.
His power spreads gradually.
The pressure in the air changes as his influence reaches the invisible barrier around the Hanged Man. Its surface ripples again, this time without being struck, and Jamey lifts one hand as though testing the resistance.
The barrier bends towards him.
Gold steadies beneath my skin.
Silver slows with it.
Alec feels the change at the same moment I do.
He releases me only when my legs hold, then steps beside Jamey.
They don't speak.
Jamey's hand closes.
The barrier distorts around the movement, folding towards the pressure he has built against it.
Alec attacks.
Lightning tears from his body and strikes the weakened barrier before it can recover. The first impact turns the entire surface white, revealing its shape for a fraction of a second before cracks race across it.
Jamey pulls harder.
Alec sends another strike through.
The barrier breaks.
Lightning floods through the opening and branches towards the masked figures behind it. Several manage to move before the first bolts reach them.
Others never get the chance.
Bodies lock beneath the current as lightning jumps between them, driving several fighters backwards and dropping others where they stand.
The entire attack lasts seconds.
I stare at Alec.
Apparently he has been holding out on us.
Another collision inside my chest wipes the thought away.
Silver surges towards my shoulders while Flame drives against it, and my fingers dig into my palms as I fight to remain upright.
Whatever brief balance Jamey gave them is already disappearing.
The Hanged Man watches from beyond the fallen barrier.
Then his eyes return to me.
He knows.
He can see exactly what is happening inside me.
For the first time since he arrived, he smiles.
The Hanged Man barely reacts.
Several of his fighters lie motionless across the estate, yet his expression remains unchanged. He raises one hand and points two fingers towards us.
The remaining fighters move.
They surge forward together, blades already drawn.
Alec reaches me first.
His arm catches around my waist before he carries me back towards Lady Elsa and Seth, setting me down beside them with considerably more care than the situation allows.
"Look after her too," he says.
Then he is gone.
I catch sight of Jamey several meters above the ground. Two attackers have him pinned between them, their feet braced against empty air while one draws a dagger.
Alec reaches them before the blade does.
His hand closes around the attacker's wrist, and one sharp turn sends a crack across the battlefield. The dagger falls first. Its owner follows seconds later.
Eric enters from the left while Gabriel cuts through the fighters approaching from the opposite side.
Jamey twists free.
Alec launches himself into the next wave.
Lightning follows every movement, striking where his body cannot reach and forcing attackers apart before they can regroup. Eric drives another fighter backwards while Gabriel's blade catches the next across his weapon and tears it from his hands.
The formation breaks.
Several fighters retreat into the air while the others struggle to recover around them.
The Hanged Man reaches inside his coat.
My attention locks onto his hand.
He removes a small black object and rests it against his palm.
It looks harmless.
Every instinct I have disagrees.
"Jamey."
He turns towards me.
"Whatever he's holding, stop him."
Jamey moves immediately.
He is still too late.
The Hanged Man closes his fingers around the object.
The air changes.
Sound dulls first.
Light follows.
A pressure passes through the estate and catches beneath my skin with such precision that my stomach drops.
The object answers my power.
Except the response is wrong.
It copies the shape without carrying what belongs inside it, reproducing the frequency closely enough that my own power reacts before I understand why.
The Hanged Man opens his hand.
The black object pulses once.
The ground answers.
"Everybody move!"
Darkness spreads beneath the battlefield in widening circles. Figures begin rising through it before anyone reaches the edge.
Wings appear first.
Huge forms follow, lifting slowly from the darkness with their wings folded close and their faces hidden behind shifting veils of ash. Their bodies refuse to hold one shape for long, fading at the edges before gathering themselves again.
The pressure of their arrival forces the air from my lungs.
I know what they are.
"The Sable Choir."
Jamey looks towards me.
"That's the Sable Choir?"
I nod once.
The repentant angels are free.
Around us, the fractures still hanging over the estate begin to flicker.
Faces appear beyond them.
The people who witnessed what happened in the Forgotten Quarter have never stopped watching.
Now they see the Choir.
The first person crosses through.
Another follows.
Then dozens more.
Warriors, allies and people I have never met pour through the fractures until the estate can barely contain them. Nobody waits to be invited. They see what has risen and choose their side.
The Sable Choir moves first.
One of them turns.
Its veiled face fixes on Alec.
Then it strikes.
Alec disappears beneath a sweep of ash and reappears above it with lightning already gathering around his arms. He drives the charge straight through the angel's chest.
The body tears apart.
Ash scatters across the air.
Before Alec can move away, the pieces reverse direction and pull themselves together.
"That's inconvenient," Jamey mutters.
The angel reforms.
Then the rest attack.
Chaos tears across the estate.
Gabriel's blade cuts through one set of wings while Eric drives another creature away from the people crossing through the fractures. Samuel slips between two advancing forms and strikes before either can turn towards him. Samantha moves several steps behind him, watching where the Choir shifts before choosing her opening.
Nothing stays down.
Every broken form gathers itself again.
Alec's lightning tears through another and buys only seconds. Jamey pushes against the strange pressure rolling from them, redirecting enough of it to keep the nearest fighters standing.
I try to move towards them.
My legs refuse.
One hand hits the ground before the rest of me can follow.
"Max!"
I barely hear whoever calls my name.
The black object is still in the Hanged Man's hand.
Its pulse matches mine.
That is when I understand.
The attack is not only happening around me.
He is using that thing against me.
I force myself upright.
Pain drives beneath my ribs, followed by a violent surge of power that blurs my vision. I wait for it to pass and make myself take another step.
Seth is behind me.
Everyone else is fighting.
I refuse to become another person they have to protect.
A fracture flickers at the edge of my vision.
Someone steps through.
At first, I think she is a child.
She looks no older than fifteen, barefoot beneath a simple robe, with silver-gold hair catching the fractured light around her. An armored woman follows and stops several paces behind her.
Neither joins the battle.
The girl looks directly at me.
I stare back.
She knows something.
Whatever it is, she makes no attempt to tell me.
Movement cuts across the edge of my vision.
The Hanged Man steps into my space before I can react.
His arm drives forward.
My body jolts with the impact.
For a heartbeat, I feel only pressure.
Then pain tears through my chest.
My knees strike the ground as I look down and find his hand wrapped around the hilt of a blade buried beneath my ribs.
Black glyphs crawl across the metal.
For several seconds, I cannot breathe.
Then the blade changes.
The glyphs writhe across the blade.
Their shapes keep changing, folding over one another in patterns my eyes cannot follow. A whisper moves through them, too low for me to understand, and every trace of power inside me recoils.
My vision blurs.
Iron floods my mouth as my fingers dig into the soil.
Someone shouts my name.
Alec reaches me first in the distance, followed by another voice I cannot separate from the noise around us.
The black object pulses in the Hanged Man's hand.
Whatever it copied before becomes stronger.
The false frequency presses against everything inside me until I can no longer tell where the interference ends and my own power begins. My lungs seize while the battlefield stretches into streaks of color around me.
Then everything becomes still.
Pain disappears with it.
So does the ground beneath my hands.
I am standing somewhere else.
The battlefield remains below me, although I cannot feel the earth beneath my feet or the air against my skin. People are moving around a body lying at the center of the chaos.
Alec reaches it first.
I stare down at him kneeling beside me.
My body lies beneath his hands.
The blade is buried through my chest.
I should be frightened.
Instead, I feel nothing.
Alec bends over me.
Lightning explodes across the sky.
The first strike tears through the clouds before another follows, then another, until white light spreads across the estate. Wind crashes through the trees as rain begins falling hard enough to blur the battlefield below.
Alec throws his head back as lightning tears through the clouds above him. His mouth opens around my name, his face twisting with an anguish I have never seen on him before.
I hear nothing.
From where I stand, even his grief cannot reach me.
I move towards him instinctively, but the distance between us refuses to change. Alec remains below with his hands pressed against my body while the storm builds around him.
Then something brushes against the silence behind me.
A breath.
Soft enough that I almost miss it.
Every part of me stills.
I know that sound.
I turn towards it.
Seth is standing there.
For one impossible moment, everything else disappears.
He looks exactly as I remember him before Anderson's corruption took him. His eyes are blue again, his face untouched, and the terrible stillness I held in my arms is gone.
"Seth?"
He holds out his hand.
Every thought inside me stops.
I move towards him.
The distance between us refuses to close.
I reach farther, stretching until my fingers ache with the effort, and Seth reaches for me from the other side.
Our hands never meet.
"Please let me stay."
Seth's gaze stays on mine, but something changes behind his eyes. The warmth remains while the hope disappears, and my own begins to follow it.
Then he lowers his hand.
Dread moves through me before I understand why.
"Seth, please don't."
Something pulls at my back.
I twist towards the battlefield and see my body below us. Gold is spreading beneath its skin while thin currents of silver gather around the wound.
The pull becomes stronger.
I turn back towards Seth.
"I don't want to leave you again."
His eyes remain on mine.
Then his lips move.
I cannot hear the words.
The force behind me tightens.
"Seth!"
I reach for him with everything I have.
His hand lifts towards mine once more.
Then the pull takes me.
I fall towards the battlefield, faster than I can fight it. Seth disappears above me as the distance collapses and my body rushes closer.
Gold flashes beneath my skin.
Silver gathers around the wound.
My spirit strikes my body.
For one suspended heartbeat, I feel nothing.
Then everything reconnects.
Pain arrives everywhere at once.
Air tears into my lungs as my back arches from the ground. The blade remains buried in my chest, but gold is already moving around it, living characters racing beneath my skin and gathering at the wound.
Silver follows.
My whole body tightens in anticipation. I know what comes next because I have endured it again and again, each collision tearing through a body already struggling to hold together.
I wait for the impact.
It never comes.
The silver reaches the Living Scripture and moves alongside it.
For a heartbeat, I can only lie there and feel them.
Neither force retreats. Neither overwhelms the other. Gold continues through me while silver moves within its path, close enough to touch without either breaking apart.
The absence of pain catches somewhere beneath my ribs.
After everything this body has endured, after Seth slipped beyond my reach and I was dragged back without him, this sudden gentleness hurts in a way the violence never did.
My breath catches.
The Breath is still here.
Seth isn't.
That truth nearly breaks me.
Gold curves around silver without forcing it away, while silver passes through the spaces between the living characters without disturbing their formation. For the first time, my body stops feeling like a place they are trying to survive.
They simply move.
Together, but still themselves.
The pain changes.
I gasp as the blade shifts inside me.
Golden characters climb across the black glyphs carved into the weapon. Silver threads between them seconds later, and the corrupted markings begin disappearing beneath both.
The Hanged Man's attention drops to the blade.
Whatever he sees makes him retreat.
Alec reaches my side as the weapon moves again.
"Max, stay with me."
His hand hovers over the hilt before pulling away, unwilling to touch whatever is moving across the metal.
Another inch of the blade pushes free.
My back arches against the ground as agony tears through my chest. My fingers claw into the soil while the weapon continues forcing itself outward, golden characters consuming the last of the black glyphs along its length.
Alec catches my shoulder before I can twist beneath the pain.
"I've got you."
The blade finally tears free and drops beside me.
My body falls flat against the earth while Alec's hand remains against my shoulder.
For several seconds, the sky is all I can see.
Then warmth spreads beneath my skin.
Gold travels across my chest while silver moves between the living characters, gathering around the wound as torn flesh begins drawing together beneath the blood.
I drag air into my lungs.
This time, my body keeps it.
Alec's storm still hangs above the estate, rain suspended across the air while lightning burns silently inside the clouds.
Inside me, the Living Flame moves.
The Breath answers.
I tense instinctively, waiting for the pain that has followed every meeting between them since Seth placed his hands over mine.
It never comes.
Gold reaches silver, and this time neither one forces the other away.
They move together.
The change passes through me so deeply that my breath catches. Heat spreads through my chest while silver follows its path, and for the first time my body opens around both without being torn between them.
Then the feeling leaves me.
It rolls across the estate.
Alec turns first.
His storm quiets above us as his eyes find mine. Jamey's head lifts a heartbeat later, followed by Eric and Gabriel, while weapons lower across the battlefield without anyone giving the order.
Even the Sable Choir feels it.
Their vast forms turn towards me as one.
The Hanged Man stops moving.
For the first time since he arrived, the emptiness in his face gives way to something I understand.
He felt it too.
I press my palms against the earth and push myself onto my knees. My arms tremble beneath my weight, but they hold while gold and silver continue moving quietly beneath my skin.
Nobody resumes the fight.
Their attention stays on me.
I look down at my hands, half expecting them to belong to the body I watched from above.
They still look like mine.
Relief catches painfully in my chest.
Then my eyes find Seth.
He is still lying beside Lady Elsa.
The relief disappears.
I was with him moments ago.
I reached for him.
I begged him to let me stay, and now I am back inside a body that lives while his remains terrifyingly still.
My hand presses harder into the earth.
I want to go to him.
The Hanged Man moves first.
He steps backwards.
My attention snaps towards him.
He stares at me differently now, his gaze searching my face before dropping towards the gold and silver moving beneath my skin.
He cannot see what is coming.
Neither can I.
But we both feel it.
Behind him, the silver-gold-haired girl watches from beside her protector.
She feels it too.
Her smile tells me she understands more than either of us.
I plant one foot beneath me and force myself upright.
The Living Flame rises through me.
The Breath rises with it.
Across the estate, everyone feels them move together.
And something inside me answers.
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One more chapter to go.
Chapter 30 will mark the end of Arc One: Flame and Breath.
I think Chapter 29 has done enough damage for one day, so I am going to resist the temptation to say anything that might spoil what comes next.
Thank you for staying with Max, Seth, Alec, Jamey, and the rest of this slightly traumatized cast. This chapter was not an easy one to write, and if parts of it hurt to read, they hurt to write too.
We have one chapter left.
And considering where I just left Max, I suspect you already know it will not be a quiet one.
See you in Chapter 30.
Let me know your thoughts, or simply take a breath. Either way, you made it here.
And we are not done yet.