"Get behind the pillar and do not look back, Ivy!"
Ergi projected his voice across the darkening length of the main corridor, his words slicing through a sudden, heavy pressure that made the stone walls groan. The transition from the dining room had taken mere seconds, but the grand hallway of Obsidian Manor already looked entirely altered. The high, vaulted ceiling was obscured by a thick, writhing fog that carried the freezing scent of stale copper and burnt iron. Every decorative glass lamp along the wood panels shattered in rapid succession, spraying small shards across the carpeted floor.
Ivy did not argue, her boots skidding against the runner rug as she threw her back against a reinforced structural column. She pressed her right palm hard over her left wrist, where the thorny c
