Chapter 231
The weight of what I’ve just done settles over me, but there’s no time to fully grasp it. My pulse is still racing, my breath unsteady. The air in the elevator feels heavy, thick with the tension of everything that has just unraveled and the implications of what I’ve managed to do.
Cora is the first to break the silence, her voice barely above a whisper, disbelief thick in every syllable. “You…stopped time?”
I swallow hard and nod. “And then threw it in reverse. Right now, Lily St. Cloud is watching a bunch of her lackeys unprepare an exam room for an empty cryopod.” The absurdity of my own words almost makes me laugh, but the tension in the room is suffocating.
Peter stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. His brow furrows, confusion warring with sheer incredulity. “What the hell are you talking about?”
I let out a long, slow sigh, running a hand through my damp, tangled hair. “Listen, you’re a couple of steps behind, and there’s no time to get you caught up…well, actually, I guess there is.” I shake my head and push forward before he can interrupt. “Okay, so you know how sirens have some preternatural abilities? Enhanced speed, strength, healing properties in their blood and saliva?”
Peter frowns, still reeling but at least trying to follow. “And a screech that can put you in a coma? Yeah, I remember.”
I wince. Right. That exact thing happened to Peter when he’d gotten a little too close to me for Wake’s comfort. The memory still makes me feel guilty, though not nearly as guilty as Wake did after.
“Yeah, well, some sirens have straight-up superpowers.”
Peter’s face goes blank. His mouth opens slightly, then closes again. “What now?”
I sigh, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. “They’re extra-preternatural abilities granted to the descendants of a group of ancient sirens that trapped a primordial monster in limbo at the bottom of the Arctic Circle, then ascended to godhood. What about that is hard to understand, Peter?”
Peter’s jaw hangs open for a moment before he finally says, “Okay.” It’s the kind of “okay” people say when their brain is actively short-circuiting.
I push on, eager to get to the important part. “Since we succeeded in turning me into a mermaid, turns out I’m the current recipient for some of those powers. Some are pretty straightforward, like having lightning hands, but others…not as clear. Like turning things into crystals. And, apparently, dominion over time and space.”
Peter exhales sharply, pinching the bridge of his nose. “So right now…”
I nod. “Time is stopped for everyone but us. Or at least, I think it is. I doubt I’m pausing all of time for everyone, everywhere…for all I know, it could really just be the elevator that’s frozen.” I turn to Cora, hoping for some kind of clarity. “Grandma, do you have any further insight?”
Peter’s eyes widen. “This is your grandmother?!” His gaze flicks between us, clearly trying to reconcile this new information with the chaos surrounding us.
Cora barely spares him a glance before answering me. “Phoebe, I haven’t told you much about our homeland.”
I cross my arms, arching a brow. “Trust me, I noticed.”
Cora sighs, shaking her head as if berating herself. “It’s because, despite having one of the largest lines of any Clan, we’ve had remarkably weak Heirs. The last one was my own grandmother, and she could hardly cast a spark. The fact that you’re so powerful is an anomaly.”
I frown. “So you mean you don’t understand what’s happening any more than I do.”
Cora looks guilty. “It’s possible that there are others who know more, but I was only little more than a child myself when we left.”
I let out a slow breath, rubbing at my temple. “It’s okay, Grandma. If Electra herself couldn’t explain her own powers to me, it’d be a stretch to expect you to.”
Cora’s eyes go wide. “You spoke to Electra?”
I shift uncomfortably under her scrutiny. “A couple of times. But this time felt…different. This time, I was touching both you and Delphinium, which I think made Electra stronger, but it also made her a hell of a lot more cryptic.”
Peter makes an exasperated sound, rubbing a hand over his face. “Okay, mind-blowing revelations aside—what now?”
I shrug. “I guess it depends on how far this extends and how long I can keep it up. If it all goes our way, we could find the others and…walk right out of here.”
Cora frowns. “And then where would we go? The ship is gone.”
I nod, acknowledging the problem. “Tai still has The Flounder. If we can contact him, we can come up with a plan.”
Arista, who has been quietly absorbing all of this, crosses her arms. “Our belongings were confiscated and placed in a storage locker near the crew’s cells.”
I grin. “Perfect. Then we find the crew, we find our things, and then we get the hell out of here.”
I take a steadying breath and let go of my grip on time just as the elevator reaches the upper floor.
For a split second, everything is silent.
Then—chaos.
The alarms blare, the shrill sound slamming into my skull like a hammer. The hallway beyond is bathed in red strobe lights, flickering like some kind of horror show, the shadows stretching and retracting with each pulse of red.
Well, I suppose that answers that. My influence over time isn’t omnipotent. Even though I could suspend it for those of us inside the elevator, the world outside continued marching forward.
The facility knows something is wrong.
And then, the moment I process the alarms, I register who is standing before us.
Four Enkians.
Tall, lithe, dangerous. Their sleek, black wetsuits seem almost woven into their skin, their presence commanding without a single word spoken.
None of them are people I know. But the man in the middle—the one standing with his arms crossed over his chest, his dark, glowering gaze cutting through me—
He looks so stunningly familiar that my body reacts before my mind does.
My breath catches.
A strange sense of danger wars against the recognition I feel. The devil you know versus the devil you don’t.
Still, I find myself searching for the scent of petrichor and brine.
The man with Wake’s face tilts his head, taking me in, his sharp features unreadable, carved from the same dangerous beauty that makes my mate so breathtakingly inhuman.
Except he isn’t Wake.
The realization slams into me, a chilling dissonance unraveling inside my chest.
He studies me like I’m something worth measuring, something worth analyzing before deciding whether I live or die.
“I take it you’re the one behind this racket,” he says smoothly, his voice cutting through the space between us like a blade.
His voice is deep, smooth like velvet, but it’s not Wake’s voice.
His black eyes flick to Delphinium’s still body and back, his lips twitching just slightly in something that isn’t quite a smirk, isn’t quite approval.
“Well then, sister,” he says, his voice carrying something I don’t understand. Something heavy.
The way he says it makes my blood run cold.
“Aren’t you just full of surprises.”
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