by E. Menozzi
The spirits disappeared, and the chains clattered to the stones at my feet. Only, I knew the spirits were connected to Edric and would return so long as he remained. I would only have a few precious minutes before they reappeared. I reached for my magic and tried to conjure myself away. Nothing happened. That’s when I felt it. The place had been cloaked in protection spells, not unlike what I’d done around Lydbury. Spirits and demons didn’t have this kind of magic. One of my kind was helping the enemy. I needed to get Evelyn and get out of here to warn Arabella.
I turned and found Nigel facing me. “Where is she?” I asked.
He flashed a sly smile. “Now, why would I tell you that when I could just take you to her?”
“You’ll need better goons than those if you think you’re going to take me anywhere.” I shifted the knife in my hand. “I’ll ask you again. Where is she?”
I crouched and took a step toward Nigel. He backed out of my reach and we began to circle each other on the flat rock. The two spirits began to flicker into being again, just beyond the edge of the stones and out of my reach.
“Thought you could take us on all by yourself, Fae?” Nigel taunted.
“Since when did demon folk start doing dirty work for the spirit world, halfling?” I swiped at him, but he slid out of reach.
“What makes you so sure that we’re not the ones in charge here?”
“Joined the Wild Hunt, have you, then? Losing your touch with the ladies? Decided clubbing them over the head is a bit easier than turning on the charm these days?”
Nigel flashed a signal at the spirits and they flew at me. I took my eyes off Nigel for a moment and moved to defend myself against the spirits. As soon as I took my eyes off him, Nigel attacked. He grabbed the knife from my hand and slammed the butt of the blade into my skull. My vision swam, and my knees buckled.
“Not a half-bad idea, that,” Nigel said, dusting off his black trench coat. “Cuff the bastard.”
The spirits slapped the cuffs around my ankles and wrists and chained them together. I was beginning to regret my decision not to send for Arabella and the Queen’s Guard before rushing into this fight.
Nigel stood facing me. He spat on the ground. “Cocky faerie bastard. Your kind will never learn, will they?” He took a step closer to me and turned to the spirits who were holding on to my arms. “Hold him up!”
The spirits yanked at my arms and forced me to my feet.
“Wanted to do this last night,” he said. “Better late than never, I guess.”
His fist connected with my jaw and my head twisted. Pain sparked through my face and my vision went blank. Nigel’s laughter haunted my last conscious thoughts like the beginning of a bad dream.
11
My body felt sore all over and my head throbbed. I closed my eyes and rubbed the lump forming on my head, trying to remember how I’d ended up here. I’d been on an errand for my aunt. The last thing I remembered was standing in the road and seeing men on horseback with dogs riding toward me. There had been a hunting horn and Liam’s voice calling to me, then nothing.
I sat up slowly and realized I’d been lying on a dirty, cold stone floor. I scooted backward until I could lean my back against the wall. When the wave of dizziness passed, I studied my surroundings. This wasn’t a room. It was a cell with three thick stone walls and bars closing off the fourth side. There were no windows, and the candles that gave me just enough light to see by were both located outside the thick bars.
I pushed myself up, using the wall for support. Then I took a few tentative steps toward the bars of my cell. The room shifted as I tried to focus and keep my balance. The blow to my head was making me see double. But I managed to stay upright, setting one foot in front of the other until I clasped my hands around the cold steel bars. I pressed my forehead into the gap between the bars and let my temples rest against the cool metal. I closed my eyes and leaned against the bars until I felt steady. Then I opened my eyes and waited for them to focus. Without moving my head, I glanced to my right and to my left, hoping I’d recognize something, anything, that would give me a clue as to where I was being held prisoner.
Shuffling footsteps made me suck in a breath and hold it. I listened, my heart beating madly. I turned my eyes in the direction of the sound but didn’t dare move my head. If I moved, I knew my vision would blur and the dizzy, nauseous feeling would return.
A robed figure appeared at the end of the corridor outside my cell. The hood of the robe cast a shadow over the figure’s face, and the thick fabric folds obscured the rest of the body. With each step toward me, metal scraped against stone. I glanced down at the figure’s bare feet, which were poking out from under the robe with each step. Shackles circled each ankle, just visible beneath the hem of the robe, and chains dragged against the rough stone floor.
I shivered. I was being held prisoner and no one knew where to find me. I released one of the bars and reached for my phone, but my pocket was empty. That’s when I remembered I’d left my phone in my room at Aunt Vivian’s house. I groaned.
The robed figure stopped in front of my cell and extended a bowl toward me, slipping it between the bars. They kept their head down and their face hidden in shadow.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Food.”
I reached for the bowl, trapping their hands under mine and holding tight. The figure’s head snapped up, and their hood fell back just enough for me to catch a glimpse of the face underneath. Piercing blue eyes peered out at me from above a delicate, thin nose and lush, full lips framed by long golden hair. A woman.
“Where are we?” I asked. “Who are you?” If this person was also a prisoner, maybe I could get them to help me. After all, they were at least moving around while I had been locked in this cell.
The woman shook her head slightly in answer to my questions.
“Eat,” she said. Her eyes traveled to the gold band around my wrist, then flicked up to meet mine. I released her hands and backed away from the bars, hugging my wrist against my chest and out of her reach. She said something in a language I didn’t understand. Then, without waiting for a response, she turned and shuffled back down the hall.
I lifted the spoon from the bowl she’d handed me and stirred the contents. The foul odor made me wrinkle my nose, but the food was hot and my stomach was empty. I lifted the spoon to my lips and tilted it onto my tongue. The sour broth made me wince, but I forced myself to swallow and keep it down. I stirred again and scooped another spoonful, bracing myself for the taste. I slurped the liquid off the spoon and swallowed.
By the time I’d finished the bowl, my head had stopped throbbing and my vision had cleared. I set the bowl down just inside the bars and paced to the wall, where I could sit and stare down the corridor, watching and hoping for the woman to return.
The longer I waited, the harder it became to keep my eyes open. Just as I’d let myself begin to drift off, two men appeared, supporting a third between them. They tossed the third man into the cell across from me and slammed the door. They didn’t even spare me a glance as they returned the way they’d come.
“Wait!” I called. “Wait!”
They didn’t respond, and their backs disappeared around the corner.
“Damn!” I picked up the empty bowl and threw it against the wall, shattering the clay and sending the metal spoon clattering to the ground.
The prisoner across from me moaned. I turned to face him, two sets of bars between us. I squinted in the dim light, but they’d thrown him to the back of the cell and his face and body were hidden in shadow.
“Hello?” I whispered. “Hello? Are you okay?”
He moaned again and rolled onto his side. “Eve,” he whispered.
“That’s me,” I said, shocked that this person would know my name. “Do I know you?” I squinted harder into the shadows.
“Must. Find. Eve,” he panted, stopping to breathe be
tween each word. He shifted again, and I saw his matted brown hair.
“Liam?” I grabbed the bars and shook them. “Liam? Is that you?”
He moaned and pushed himself to a sitting position. He raised his head and his hair fell back from his face. I cried out when I saw the blood. “What did they do to you? Are you okay?”
The robed woman shuffled into view between us.
“Shh,” she said.
I turned to her. “Help him!” I said. “Can’t you see that he’s hurt?”
“Eve?” Liam said, blinking at me across the corridor.
“It’s me, Liam. I’m right here. What happened? Are you okay?”
“Hush,” the woman said. She stepped closer to me, blocking my view of Liam. “You shouldn’t talk to him,” she said. “It will only make it worse for you both.”
“Make what worse? How could it be worse?” I shook the bars to illustrate my point.
She placed her hands over mine on the bars, her eyes going once again to the bracelet on my wrist, then shifting up to meet mine. “Hush.”
I grabbed her wrists and pulled her against the bars. “Tell me where we are.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She just shook her head.
“Why am I here?”
“The Master will make it clear when he sees you. But first I must ready you.”
Behind her, Liam lunged for the bars of his cell. “Let her go!” he said. “Take me instead.”
The woman turned her head to look at Liam, but I didn’t let go of her wrists. She pulled against my hands, trying to get a better look. She said something to Liam in a language I didn’t understand.
Liam pushed himself to his knees and blinked at her. Then he said something to her in response. They spoke the same language. She made a wailing moan in response to whatever he’d said to her, and then she dropped her head to her chest. I could feel the sobs shaking her body as I held on to her wrists.
“What did she say?” I said.
“Eve,” Liam said. “Tell me what she looks like.”
The woman looked up. Her wet eyes met mine.
“Golden-blond hair,” I said. “Blue eyes. Do you know her?”
Liam moaned. Then he spoke again in that language.
The woman bit her lip and sobbed again. “Let me go to him,” she said.
I let go of her wrists and she flung herself across the corridor, sliding on her knees to face Liam. She reached for his face and my heart sank. They were speaking rapidly now. I took a few steps back from the bars and started to turn away.
“Eve,” Liam called. “Wait.”
“It’s all right,” I said. I turned and paced to the back of my cell.
“No, you don’t understand,” he called to me.
The woman stood and approached the bars of my cell. “He is my kin,” she said.
My head snapped up. “Kin?”
“Eve,” he said. “She’s going to help you.”
“But I’m not leaving without you. And you’re hurt,” I said. “She should help you.”
“I’ll be fine. Just promise me you’ll listen to her.”
The woman looked nervously over her shoulder down the corridor. “I must go,” she said. “They must not find me here. Stay quiet. I’ll return soon.”
She disappeared down the corridor, and I paced back to get a better look at Liam. His face was swollen on one side, and a bruise darkened his jawline. The blood dripping from his nose had mostly dried, but the front of his shirt was spotted with it.
“How did we get here?” I asked, keeping my voice barely above a whisper. “Do you know where we are?”
“You were captured,” he said. “Don’t you remember?”
“No. I remember shouting and dogs barking, and a horn. I remember hearing your voice calling to me, but I couldn’t see you. I don’t remember anything after that.”
He sighed. “Some men, wild men that come out on the night of the solstice and get a little crazy, grabbed you. I chased them, trying to rescue you.” He grinned. “I guess I made a mess of that.” He ran his fingers over his bruised jaw and brushed away some of the dried blood.
“But what is this place? What do they want?” I sank to the floor and sat facing him.
He shook his head. “They’ve mistaken you for someone else. I hope when they realize their mistake, they’ll let you go. It’s me they want.”
“What do they want with you?” I knew he’d been hiding something.
“It’s a long story,” he said.
“Well, we’re not going anywhere.” I waved a hand at the bars separating us.
He sighed. “True.” He leaned his head against the bars and met my eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“You didn’t kidnap me and drag me here.”
“No, but it may be my fault. They want something from my family, but we don’t have it to give.”
“Money?” I really should have known better than to hook up with my uncle’s secretary, especially after I’d already suspected he was up to no good.
He shook his head. “No. If it were that easy, this would have been settled long ago.”
“Well, what do they want, then? Does it have to do with that woman? The one who said she’s related to you?”
“In a way. She was also taken by them. We thought she was dead.” He shook his head. “They think we have something of theirs. But we don’t.”
“Are they like the Mafia? Or terrorists or something? I don’t understand.”
He shrugged. “Not quite. More like a family row. Sometimes they get a little mad and rough us up a bit, trying to get us to admit we have what they’re looking for.”
“But they took me.” There was no way someone would mistake me for being part of Liam’s family.
“I think they took you to get to me.”
“They took her because they think she’s one of us,” the robed woman said. She had returned and was carrying another, larger bowl and a clean cloth. She also had a key.
“One of you? You mean part of your family?”
Liam said something to her in that language of theirs, and she responded. It definitely didn’t sound like any language I’d heard before. Maybe Liam’s family came from one of those Northern European countries. Maybe it was Danish or Icelandic, or whatever they spoke up there in those frozen Nordic countries. I wanted to ask, but I didn’t want to be rude. If they wanted me to understand what they were saying, they’d speak English.
The robed woman took a step toward the door to my cell.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “I don’t need that. He’s the one who’s been bleeding. Help him.”
The woman shook her head and inserted the key into the door to my cell. “I need to get you ready to see the Master. He’ll be calling for you soon.”
“But Liam—”
“It’s okay. I’ll be fine. Whatever happens, listen to her. Do what she says.”
I had no reason to trust this woman, but I had to admit he had a point. If I could manage to get out of here, I could get help.
“Fine,” I said.
The robed woman stepped inside my cell and shut the door behind her. I glanced at the key in her hand and considered making a break for it now while I still could.
“There’s nowhere to run,” she said. “They’ll catch you before you even make it down the hall.”
“I doubt that.” Even if she hadn’t been shackled, I was confident I could outrun her and anyone else down here. Four years on my university track team and a pile of medals from national competitions meant outrunning a bunch of thugs should be no problem for me.
“Your overconfidence will get you killed,” she said. “When you see the Master, you must be silent. Invisible.” Whoever this Master was, he was clearly someone of whom this woman was utterly terrified.
�
��Listen to her, Eve, please,” Liam said. He sounded like he was in pain. I resisted my urge to run. If she could get me out of here and Liam trusted her, I’d listen. For now.
She walked toward me with the bowl of water. “We need to get you clean.”
“Why?” This part made no sense to me.
“The Master is very particular.” She handed me the bowl. An herbal fragrance wafted up on the steam rising from the liquid swirling inside. “And we need to do something about that.” She pointed at my wrist.
I set the bowl down on the stone floor and clasped my hand over the bracelet. “You can’t have this,” I said, hugging my arm to my chest.
“She’s right, Eve,” Liam said. “If anyone here sees you wearing that bracelet, they’ll never let you go.”
“How am I going to explain to Uncle Oscar that I lost his family’s precious heirloom?”
The robed woman’s face creased in anger, and she said something low and menacing in that other language. Liam responded in a soothing tone. Her mouth softened, but her eyes remained narrowed and suspicious.
“Give her the bracelet,” Liam said.
“Why can’t I just give it to you?”
“It will be worse if they find it on me,” he said. “Please, Eve. She’ll return it once we’re free. You need to listen to her.”
The woman held out her hand and took another step toward me. I slipped the bracelet off my wrist and stepped to the side so I could see Liam. He nodded at me. I took one last look at the bracelet and placed it in the woman’s hands. I really did not like this plan.
“Quickly, now,” she said, closing her fingers around the gold. “We don’t have much time.”
I watched my long-lost aunt, the youngest of Godda’s sisters, prepare Evelyn for presentation to Edric. She washed Evelyn’s face and hands and made her change into a simple white gown. Then she brushed out Evelyn’s hair until it flowed in dark waves down her back. Evelyn was beautiful. I feared for her life.
