She let the door swing shut. She turned, finding Magnus and Hope waiting for her where she’d left them, watching. Then she moved forward as if in a dream, not even flinching when the helicopter exploded into flame and a writhing ball of orange fire engulfed everything around it, including her.

SEVENTEEN

“Are you going to tell us what this is all about?” asked Beckett gently, looking over Lu’s shoulder as she drew in bold, broad strokes across the standing black chalkboard erected in a corner of his lab.

She didn’t respond. Magnus watched, fascinated, from the back of the lab while she carried on with the drawing. Her slender arm moved ceaselessly, outlining the shape of a tall, wide cylinder, with a hollow core and identical levels, spaced evenly from top to bottom. On the three floors nearest the top, she drew a series of oblique shapes flaring out from the hollow center in a spoked pattern, like a spider’s web. The other levels she partitioned into dozens upon dozens of small squares. The lowest level she shaded all in red, holding the chalk on its side for greater coverage. When she finished, she stood staring at the object on the board with her hands propped on her hips, silent.

Then she threw the chalk at the board so hard it shattered into dust.

Magnus shared a weighted look with Christian and Xander, both of whom stood near the opposite wall. They were joined by Morgan, Demetrius, Jack, Hawk, and Ember, while Honor stood alone, arms crossed and silent, by Beckett’s collection of clocks stacked in crates.

Lumina hadn’t spoken a word since they’d returned from topside. Magnus had watched her, pale and trembling, emerge from the wall of flame that had engulfed the helicopter, and had been momentarily surprised by the realization that she’d somehow retained all her clothing, unlike earlier with her encounter with Honor. But then she’d strode past him without even a glance, her eyes dark, pupils dilated. He’d sensed her fury like a thousand tiny pinpricks on his skin.

After what she’d said to him just before going to the helicopter, Magnus had assumed her fury had been directed at him. Watching her now, he wasn’t quite so sure.

“What is that you’ve drawn, Lumina?” he said into the hush.

She unclenched her hands from her hair and turned slowly, looking around the group. “That’s the Imperial Federation’s international headquarters, which also functions as a maximum security prison.” She paused a beat. When she spoke again, her voice shook with fury. “Which is where they’re keeping my parents, and four thousand nine hundred eighty-seven others.”

The gathering was stunned into silence. Then Honor said with hushed awe from her place alone by the clocks, “You took the pilot’s memory.”

Lumina’s gaze cut to her sister, and Magnus had never before in his life felt someone exude such pure, unadulterated rage. “All those medicines the Phoenix Corporation makes? All those profits that support the IF, and that bastard Sebastian Thorne and his empire? They’re made from us. I’d heard all the rumors, but the reality is so much . . . what the IF does to them . . . it’s . . .”

She broke off with a choked cry of rage. Magnus pushed away from the wall, propelled by an almost violent urge to take her into his arms and say or do anything to soothe her, to take that anguished expression from her face. He crossed the room in several long strides. “Lumina. Look at me.”

She did, and Magnus watched as her face cleared, the pain in her eyes replaced by calm, at the exact rate his own calm was being replaced by sickening, overwhelming, vicious rage.

“No!” Lumina stepped closer, understanding dawning in her eyes. “No, don’t you dare!” She reached out and shoved him in the chest.

She was strong, and he was unprepared, and her push sent him staggering back a few paces before he recovered himself. She closed the few steps between them quickly until she stood mere inches away, staring up into his eyes, solemn and so beautiful it distracted him for a moment from the furor burning through his veins.

“Give it back.”

He’d been angry before many, many times in his life, but Magnus hadn’t felt this particular, rabid brand of rage. He felt as if the emotion he’d taken from Lumina was so blindingly hot and encompassing it was the equivalent of standing on the surface of the sun. He couldn’t stop his hands from shaking, or his nostrils flaring, or the way every one of his muscles had tensed.

Her gaze still locked on his, Lumina said, “It’s not yours. It’s mine. Give it back.”

Everyone else in the room was watching them, arrested by this little melodrama and momentarily distracted from the reason they were here in the first place.

Magnus growled, “No.”

She stepped even closer, and he had to restrain himself from recoiling. Not because he didn’t want her so near, or because he didn’t like the looks that were flying back and forth between the others, the obvious surprise that he’d allowed her to get so close, but because it was all he could do to resist the urge to reach out and grab her, and pull her hard against his chest.

Desire for her pounded through him, so strong he could hardly breathe.

“Magnus,” Lumina said solemnly, “thank you. I know what you’re trying to do, and I appreciate it, I really do, but I need that feeling you took away because it’s going to help me get through this. It’s going to help me deal with what I have to do next. Without that anger, I’m just going to be so sad I’ll want to slit my wrists, so I’m asking you please to give it back.”

Shaking with her fury and his own wretched desire, Magnus hoarsely said, “I can’t stand to see you suffer, Lumina. Not if there’s anything I can do about it. I’m sorry, but the answer is no.”

She looked at him a long, silent moment. She released a quiet breath. Then she said softly, “All right. Have it your way. But just remember: You brought this on yourself.”

Then she rose up on her toes and kissed him.

It was exactly as he remembered from a thousand beautiful dreams. No—it was better. Her lips like velvet, the soft, languorous stroke of her tongue against his. The fever that crackled through him, burning, her scent flaming hot in his nose, the lush warmth of her body. All of it conspired to wipe every thought from his mind, every hesitation and the final shred of his will, so that he closed his eyes, crushed her against him, and kissed her back so hard he bent her back from the waist.

The collective gasp from the gathered group barely registered in his consciousness. Because now Lumina wound her arms around his shoulders, moaning into his mouth. An erection charged to life between his legs.

He had no idea how long the kiss lasted; time had lost all meaning. Then there was a change from one moment to the next, a loss of the warmth of her mouth, a withdrawal of her body heat, and he opened his eyes to find a roomful of shocked Ikati and one very pissed off Lumina.

Wordlessly, she snapped, Now we’re even. With her thoughts echoing in his mind, Magnus realized with horror that she’d reclaimed more than just her own pain.

She’d taken the one thing that kept him sane.

She returned to the chalk drawing, leaving everyone gaping in her wake.

“We need to find this structure. It’s massive, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Beckett, since you seem to be the resident computer genius, do you have any current maps of the IF?”