Page 68 of Hero of Havoc

“And it’s working,” I mumble.

“Ivy,” he repeats, desperation in his tone, and I shake my head.

“I have to understand. I know so little. About my heritage, my life, my mother, all of it. I want every glimpse I can get my hands on.”

“At what price?”

My eyes find his as I gulp.

“There isn’t a price. He said it’s on the house.”

He cocks a brow at me. “And do you truly believe that?”

My muscles clench, the inability to answer stealing my words.

“At least think about it, Ivy. We need to be calculated, not lured into another one of his traps.”

“I won’t be,” I insist, my eyelids clenching shut.

I can’t look at him.

I know he’s right.

I just don’t want to admit it out loud.

“Ivy, I’m never going to stand in your way. Well, I’ll try my best not to, at least,” he corrects, his gaze glancing toward the door for a moment as if he’s replaying the mess from earlier before his focus returns to me. “But we can’t keep being reactive, Ivy; it keeps him in control.”

My stomach clenches. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” I whisper, my mind already made up.

His shoulders sag, disappointment clear in his frame, but to my surprise, he reaches for the relic.

Caution gets the better of me when I see it in his hands, making me freeze as I catch my breath.

“Together,” he says, the same statement as before, and I shake my hands nervously.

“Together,” I repeat as I press my fingertip along the engravings.

My vision flashes white, my fingers tingling as my surroundings shift, and when my sight returns, I’m somewhere entirely new.

Mildew tingles my senses, moisture filling the air, as the eerie echo of dripping water stiffens my spine. I shiver. The cold chill is so striking that it immediately seeps into my bones.

Wherever I am, I don’t like it.

I find myself surrounded by rough walls in a narrow corridor, every surface covered with a thin layer of moisture as I dare to put one foot in front of the other.

“Ivy?”

Terror snaps up my spine as I glance over my shoulder, and my jaw falls slack.

Archer stands two steps behind me, scrubbing at his forehead.

“How are you here?” I blurt, and he tilts his head.

“Where is here, exactly?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, banding my arms around my middle. “But there is something here for me to see, to learn, to understand, and I have to find it.”

He nods. “Is this what it was like last time?”