Larent didn't move closer. He stood at the breadth of the dragon's head, power bending beside him like servants, too far to touch her. But his voice found her anyway — low, clear, cutting through the noise of the crowd and the cracking of the garden.
"Chloe," he called. Not a plea. An order. "Repeat after me."
Chloe's red eyes bled. Her hands still shook from mending Felix. She didn't want to.
Her eyes scanned the crowd. At the people who would kill him. The people he was trying to save. And her heart hardened.
She saw Linda's knuckles white around Felix's sleeve. She saw Deena's thumb press into her shoulder, not hard, not soft. Just there. An anchor she hadn't asked for.
Her red eyes trembled with pain as they matched his black eyes. "I don't know how to—" her voice was weak and small.
