The light ripped through the room like it wasn’t just trying to brighten it, but tear it apart from the inside. The walls looked like they were warping under it, bending in strange ways, as if reality itself didn’t know how to hold together anymore. It was so blinding Alessio almost thought he’d gone deaf too, because for a moment, all the sound around him was swallowed by the roar in his own skull, a deep, pounding, vibrating noise that made his teeth ache and his stomach twist.

He ...