I swore I would protect you. That I would keep you safe . . . I’ve done all I can to honor that promise.

How the hell has he honored that? How could he possibly think it was safe to leave a piece of my soul vulnerable in this room? I crumple the note and pitch it at his toppled desk. He knew the havoc Doug would wreak on this place. So why did he leave the orb here, my soul and magic trapped and exposed, where Doug was sure to find it? Why not hide my smaze, too?

I bury my head in my hands, elbows on my knees, staring at the chaos on the floor. The room looks like a tornado rolled through it.

I lift my head.

Bending to retrieve a curved shard, I hold the piece of the orb in front of me.

Letting you go hasn’t been easy. I can only hope, in the end, it was the right thing to do.

Ignoring the sting, I drop to my knees in the glass and sift through the debris.

“Jack,” Kai whispers, “what are you doing?”

I turn over books and papers, shove aside a fallen lamp. “It’s not here.” Hope swells inside me as Lyon’s message begins to make sense.

“Whatever you’re looking for, Doug probably destroyed it. And if any of his Guards find us in here, we’re definitely going to be next!”

I push aside empty drawers and Lyon’s scattered files. “Not the orb. The pedestal. The pedestal is missing.” The bronze stand that held up my orb . . . I don’t see it anywhere. If Doug had shattered the orb, the stand would be here.

With an impatient huff, Kai peels herself from the doorframe and gets down on her knees a few feet away from me. Glass tinkles and papers shuffle. “Please tell me why we’re risking our lives searching for a glorified cake stand.”

“Because I don’t think it’s here.”

Kai stops rummaging. She crouches on the other side of the desk, gaping at me as she brushes her sweaty hair back with her sleeve. “And this makes sense how?”

“I don’t think Doug shattered the orb. I think Lyon did.” Even if Lyon couldn’t see beyond his own death in the staff, he had to know the Observatory would crumble under Doug—that the entire place would fall into chaos. It’s easy to conceal something in a mess. “I think he shattered the orb and set my smaze free, then hid the stand so Doug wouldn’t know what he was looking at when he got around to searching in here. If my smaze is free, I can still find it.”

And once I do, I’ll be strong enough to get Fleur and Chill out of here.

Kai disappears behind the desk. A soft creak is followed by a hollow thud. “Whoa,” she whispers.