SERAPHINA’S POV
Panic clawed its way up my throat.
I reached for Kieran, lightly squeezing his outstretched hand.
“Kieran.”
My voice echoed too loudly through the room. Kieran didn’t move.
My pulse thundered against my ribs.
No, no, no.
Had I hurt them?
I turned sharply toward Alois. “Alois!”
Not even a blink.
Fear crashed through me hard enough to make my hands shake.
I could still feel the remnants of power crackling beneath my skin, silver and volatile, like lightning trapped inside my veins. The energy had not fully settled after what I had done inside the puppet’s mind.
I gasped as heat unfurled across my lower back in waves, almost like something alive shifting beneath my skin.
Then, without warning, a strange instinct surfaced in the center of my mind.
Not words exactly.
More like…a knowing.
The same force that had frozen them could release them.
Tentatively, I swallowed and looked at Kieran again.
“Move,” I whispered.
The effect was immediate.
