Page 92 of Mantle

In the next moment, we were both pushing back our stools and hurrying out of the classroom. “Mind-link Ari,” I told him. “Tell her not to worry when she shows up in class and we aren’t there.”

“Will do.”

We burstinto the Ruminat hut that Vorzyr had scent-tracked Nyx to.

The moment we crossed the threshold, we both choked and pulled up short at the shock of the sight before us.

There Nyx was sprawled out on the floor.

Fuck.

“Nyx!” Vorzyr bolted forward and skidded to his knees.

He gathered Nyx into his arms, shaking him in a state of panic that was rolling right through me in equal measure. “Wake up! Wake up!”

I dropped beside them, checking his pulse and magically scanning for disruption.

“Nothing,” I reported. “His pulse is steady. There’s no sign of interference keeping him unconscious.”

“Then what is—”

Nyx coughed, his eyes snapping open. He grabbed fistfuls of Vorzyr’s shirt in his startlement.

It took him a few seconds, then he registered the two of us there, looking on extremely concerned. With a whole lot of disapproval from me, because I’d warned him about doing this, about pushing his memory in this way.

“It must have overwhelmed me.”

I shot back to my feet. “Of course. I told you not to force it.” I winced at the blunt and harsh way my words had come out. But…fuck…seeing him like that… what did he expect?

“It’s a good thing I did.”

“Why?” Vorzyr asked, raising an eyebrow.

Nyx’s expression turned grave, sending a chill through me.

Hell, through the room.

“I remembered… one of the scientists. They were working on him… two others… he killed them.”

“Who killed them? Ketheron?” Vorzyr asked, as he helped him to his feet.

“No. The one left remaining.”

“Who?” I pushed.

“Corvin Morvain.”

“Masquerade,”I seethed.

“That slimy piece of shit that Ariana was with?” Vorzyr asked.

“The very one.” Just the thought of it made me sick. Because ofhim, because of how manipulative I knew Corvin to be. “He’s been underground and not seen or heard from pretty much since then.”

“Now we know why,” Vorzyr said.

“It wasn’t just him wanting peace or something along those lines. He was doingthis,Kai!” Nyx cried. “He was there in the lab where I was being hurt! I saw him clear as day doing the same to Ketheron when they thought I was too medicated to understand what was going on.”

Before we could even begin to reconcile that, a burst of white power had the three of us flinching, and then Cassius materialized—right in the middle of the Ruminat hut.

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