There was only one person who could wrap themselves in shadows like that. Ruby emerged from the darkness, her cloak dragging over the marble. “Hi, Ruby,” Echo said, slipping the key into the zippered pocket of her jacket. “Fancy meeting you here.” Ruby’s smile was as false as ever. “Echo, always nice to see you. But I have a feeling you’d much prefer to see who I brought with me.” A figure stepped out from the shadows behind Ruby, and Echo’s heart stuttered in her chest. “Rowan?” He looked almost exactly as he had when she’d left him in the Avicen cells. The bronze armor had been swapped for jeans and a black hoodie, but the concern in his eyes and the tight set of his jaw were the same. “Echo?” Rowan asked. “What are you doing here?” His gaze darted between Echo and Caius. “With a Drakharin?” “Get back,” Caius said. He shoved Echo behind him, drawing both knives from the sheaths on his back. It felt like hiding, but Echo was glad to have him as a buffer between herself and Ruby.
