EMMA
Gravity vanished as the stone lip of the waste chute slipped from beneath my fingers.
The descent was a violent, vertical nightmare of friction and darkness. I pressed my back and boots against the smooth basalt walls, trying to create enough drag to keep my internal organs from liquefying upon impact. The air in the shaft was a freezing gale, screaming upward like the breath of a dying god.
Above me, the silhouette of Gabriel was a massive, descending shadow. Even in the dark, the Silver Thread was a jagged, electric wire connecting us. I felt his agony as the silver manacles still clapped to his wrists sparked against the stone, sending plumes of white-hot pain through our shared consciousness.
Slower, Emma. Push harder, his voice rumbled in the back of my skull.
My oxblood dre
