His chest glows like amber fire as he collapses. Lightning flashes. Ice and snow whip my skin. I cover my ears against a deafening roar. Then everything goes black.

I awaken sprawled on the floor, gasping and coughing as the tremors quiet. Glass tinkles as I push myself upright, brushing shards of porcelain and plaster from my shirt. My throat burns. I ache everywhere, and there’s an acute, pulsing pain under my breastbone that’s hard to breathe through. I blink, but there’s not a speck of light in the room.

My leg brushes against a shoe. I scoot away from it, bumping into the desk. I hear Doug’s slow, steady breaths, and I hold perfectly still as they become irregular and shallow.

He groans. I grope around me for his staff, my hands moving wildly over the carpet. Doug sucks in a sharp breath as a shard of glass catches my palm. Ignoring the sting, I feel around me on hands and knees. My fingers close around a cold metal pole as Doug’s clamp down next to mine.

“Don’t be stupid, Fleur.” His voice is gravelly and tight, his grip on the staff unbreakable. I throw my weight backward, but Doug rips the staff from my grasp, leaving me dizzy and unmoored in the dark. I back away from the direction of his voice. My heel connects with the desk. Feeling along its edges, I trace my way to the leather chair. Then to the wall.

“Where are you going?” He grunts, glass crackling as if he’s sitting up.

The door is right behind me. I reach for the knob. As my hand closes around it, a tight fist seems to grab my mind. I cry out as the muscles in my legs contract and my backside hits the floor. My head smacks against the desk as I fall back on my elbows. Stunned, I rub the throbbing ache at the base of my skull, struggling to figure out what just happened.

Doug goes very still.

I roll onto my side and push myself upright. I reach out with my magic, but it feels caught on something, like a loose thread of a sweater that’s snagged on a nail. The more I try to reel it back to me, the harder it pulls.

Closing my eyes, I trace the magic to the point where it’s stuck. It’s like chasing a string through a dark tunnel. Nothing about this place feels familiar. I’m not inside a root. Or a rhizome. But this place is alive. Breathing. A rhythmic thump beats inside the walls.

A dim light glimmers at the far reaches of my consciousness, and my mind follows it into a glowing chamber. My thoughts jolt to a stop. My magic is coiled in the middle of a vast space, surrounded by glittering stars.

No. Not stars. . . .