Chapter 50 Beneath The Echoes

• The fall should have shattered bones. Instead, it was like plunging into water—thick, suffocating, but strangely soft. Lucia hit the ground hard enough to jar her teeth, yet when she gasped and scrambled upright, she found herself standing on stone that rippled faintly beneath her palms like the surface of a disturbed pond.
• Her crown’s silver glow flickered, stabilizing only when Kelvin landed beside her, claws out, his body braced to fight. “Lulu!” His voice echoed, too many times, as though a hundred copies of him shouted back from the dark.
• “I’m here,” she breathed, steadying her pulse.