“Can you—” Jason started.
Muriel was already kneeling, hands pressed to the earth. The ground buckled and the iron bars groaned, bending outward.
It was enough. Jason kicked the window in, and Muriel didn’t think twice about diving in.
The drop was only six feet—the root cellar built into the hillside, partially underground but with one wall at ground level. Muriel landed on packed earth.
Brandon was tied to a support post, blood on his face, but his eyes were sharp and aware and brilliantlyaquamarine.
“Thought you’d never get here,” he said weakly, but he was smiling.
She was across the space in seconds, hands going tohis face, checking the damage. Split lip. Swollen eye. Bruised jaw. Ribs that made him hiss when she touched them. “Can you walk?”
“Once you get these cuffs off, yeah.” He nodded toward his wrists. “I've been working on them for hours. They're almost broken.”
Jason landed beside her, moving to examine the suppressants. “Clever. You've been channeling natural magic through the gaps.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not like I had anything better to do.”
Muriel knelt beside Brandon, and theCodexpulsed as if happy to see him. She suddenlyknewwhat to do. She could see the framework he'd been weakening, see exactly where to apply pressure.
She pressed her palms to the cuffs, and her magic crushed what was left.
The metal crumbled.
Brandon sucked in a breath as his power flooded back, green light flaring around his hands. “Oh, that'smuchbetter.”
“Can you stand?” Jason was already cutting the ropes.
Brandon pushed to his feet, swaying slightly. Muriel caught his arm, and through the bond she felt his pain—but also his stubborn refusal to show weakness.
Above them, the sounds of fighting intensified. A wolf's pained yelp made Muriel's stomach drop.
“They're getting pushed back,” she said.
Brandon's jaw tightened. “Then let's help them, shall we?” He looked at her, and something passed between them—determination, understanding, and that pull she'd been fighting since they met. “Together?”
“Together.”
They climbed out of the root cellar, Jason boosting them up. Muriel emerged to find the battle had shifted—Zarek's team was holding but barely, two vampires injured. The wolves were regrouping, but the Collectors’ leader—Medraut, Brandon's memories supplied—was casting a spell that made the air crackle with power.
“Muriel,” Brandon said quietly. “Can you feel the ley lines?”
She could. Beneath the mountain, they ran like rivers of molten gold.
“Yes.”
“Good. Because I'm going to show you something my great-however-many-times grandfather figured out.” Brandon's hands moved, pulling power, and Murielfeltit—his magic reaching for the same sources hers did. Natural magic. Primal magic.
“Our magic is the same,” she breathed.
“Almost exactly. Which means...” He grinned, fierce and sharp. “We can pool it.”
He showed her how. Not with words but through the bond, the connection blazing bright as he opened himself completely to her. She felt his magic like an extension of her own, felt how it moved and flowed and answered the same call.
Muriel reached for the ley lines. Brandon reached with her.
Together, they pulled.