I probably should say thank you, but all of this, and I mean all of it, is actually his fault. I open my mouth to elaborate, but he turns and stalks off, taking my opportunity with him.
“Come on,” he says over his shoulder. “I have a job for you.”
He sets a quick pace across the courtyard.
It’s pretty dismal. White rocks that reflect the glare even on a cloudy day, the walls of out-buildings on three sides and the castle proper right there for the sorry souls being punished to stare up at all day long. This is a space just for punishment. No grass. No trees. One door in and that leads directly into the castle, so before we even reach it I know that without the Silvari that I’m trying to walk behind, I wouldn’t get through. That’s assuming I somehow magically got my own ass out of that wooden trap.
I don’t spare a glance behind me for the people still in those things. I can’t help them – and that makes me a horrible person. You break the rules and you get punished. Only for servants the rules are blurred and the punishments extreme. Helping each other on Lord Martin’s estate was the only way to survive.
The big guy with a spear that steps into the doorway and manages to fill every inch of the space is a really good distraction from my conscience.
“Seth,” the guard says, stone faced. “Playing with the servants?”
Everything about Seth is a combination of self-assured calmness and a puppy who fears no master. The way he walks in relaxed strides, the way he angles his shoulders, like he might be preparing to pounce. He gives the guard a little nod and the guy steps out of the way. Without Seth needing to say a thing we walk through the doorway and into some kind of office with a heap of desks. But only the one guard, and he’s already let us past.
“You’ll probably forget she was here, but just in case,” Seth says.
He clicks his fingers and the place explodes with papers. Like the air itself just lost its mind. The guard curses, I throw my arms up for cover, and Seth just keeps walking like nothing is happening.
I follow behind Seth and stop in sheer shock just outside the office door.
“What just happened?” I ask.
He shrugs, but doesn’t stop, so I start trailing after him again.
“Did you do that?” I demand.
“Sure did.” This time he glances back, looking way too proud of himself.
“So you can make things explode?”
He shrugs again. “I exist with Chaos. I don’t usually bother to stop and choose what Chaos wants to do. I just set the wheels in motion. Keep up.”
I’m about to point out that I’m right behind him and keeping up just fine, when he surges forward and starts running down the hallway. It’s clearly built for use by Sabers and not servants – the windows that you can actually see out of are a dead giveaway.
I stare after Seth. He looks like he’s running. But he’s already at the other end of the damned hall and turns right before I’ve even begun to move.
Trying to pick my jaw up off the floor as I kick myself into gear. Rushing to catch up. Then again, I could just turn around and go the other way. Find an exit. Just keep walking. I’m sure I have the stamina for days of walking, and I’ll keep to the shadows and out of sight. Would anyone in this place really notice I’m gone when I’m not even supposed to be here?
Still analyzing this thought, I turn the corner and run straight into someone’s chest.
Seth’s chest.
There’s a sharp movement across his muscles as he tries to suppress a laugh, but I’m too busy taking a giant step backward and out of his range.
If Pax wants to kill me, and Four wants to hold me while his boss paints the walls with my blood, and Roarke wants things that could actually be worse than what Pax wants, then what does Seth want?
Swallowing hard, I decide with a sharp certainty that I need to run in the other direction. Seth moves at exactly the same moment I do, looping his arm around my waist and pulling me back into him.
I ram my elbow into his stomach, which hurts me a lot, but doesn’t even make him flinch. A few other options come to mind – name-calling, kicking, biting even.
“Let me go,” I say between clenched teeth, but that feels underwhelming compared to the sense of desperation rushing through me.
Seth sets me on my feet and steps away from me, all the way back until he’s leaning against the wall. He isn’t bouncing and bubbly now. He’s frowning.
At me?
I stumble, finding my balance against the wall opposite him.
“I’ve never hurt you,” he says.
So the guy noticed I was in distress, but he hasn’t got the brains to work out why?
He opens his mouth, then shakes his head as if to clear away whatever he was going to say.
“I’ve got a job for you,” he says.
“Ask someone else.”
“I can’t,” he admits, a tinge of mischief creeping back into his blue eyes. “It requires your kind of special skills.”
I practically snort at the guy. “You need dishes washed?”
He straightens from the wall, giving the hall a quick glance before stepping toward me. Whatever he wants to say, he wants it to be kept a secret, but he hesitates.
“I don’t plan on hurting you,” he says, his arms out as if to show me that he doesn’t have any weapons.
Which means nothing when he can crush metal in his hands.
“I don’t plan on letting you,” I say.
He shakes his head, looks into my eyes and tries again. “Name your price then.”
“To do what?”
He shrugs. A clear sign that he’s not going to say anything else until I’ve shown him exactly what it’s going to cost to get me to do this job for him.
At least I’m pretty sure it won’t be the dishes.
“Get me out of here. Drop me off wherever the bralls you want outside this chuckin’-crazy-ass forest.”
One brow draws down, a slow calculation crossing his playful gaze.
“What?” he asks.
“What what?”
“What is a bralls and how do you chuck it?”
I snort, managing to control the rolling hysterics in my chest.
“You know what a Brahman is?”
“A cow?”
“Brahman balls are bralls.”
“No, they're not.”
“They are to me. And chuckin’ is what a crap darts player does to a dart.”
“So you’re throwing cow’s balls at a dart board?”
This time I can’t keep my laughter down. “No,” I manage, gasping for air before I can keep talking. “Bralls are just Brahman balls and chuckin is just crazy or stupid or stupid and crazy – and definitely losing your game of darts.”
He cracks a smile. “I like it, but I thought you didn’t want to be dropped off at Drayden.”
“That was before I ended up here and I saw a wall disappear.” I almost declare that Lord Martin’s estate is looking pretty good right now, but I know what the Manor Lord will do to me if I turn up there. I also have a pretty clear idea what Pax is going to do if he sees me again. Leaves me with one solid option – Drayden. “I’d rather walk from door to door begging than see any of you again.”
The grown man resembles a puppy whose new toy just got snatched away before he turns and walks off like a normal person.
“Don’t insult a guy until after he’s done what you ask him to,” he says without looking back.
“So you’ll do it?” I ask, running up beside him.
He smiles crookedly at me. “After you do something for me.”
“Fine, what?”
With a nod in the direction we’re going – which is toward a wide staircase – he says, “Potions Lab, but we have to hurry.”
Then he’s loping down the hall again.
Hurry means run, which for him looks easy and covers great distances. For me it means lung pain and sweat – all of the way from the bottom level to gods knows where wit
hin the castle.
“Will you please let me carry you? You’re pretty slow, and this is time sensitive,” he asks as we emerge at the top of the second flight of stairs.
“Where is everyone?” I gasp.
The halls are all empty.
“You let my brother carry you,” he says, ignoring my question.
I double over and drag in a few deep breaths.
“Let me guess, you’re the youngest in the family,” I say before repeating, “Where is everyone?”
“Weapons drills, for the next ten or so minutes.”
“And I didn’t let your brother carry me. I didn’t ask him to, I didn’t give him permission. I bloody hated it, and it’s never happening again.”
Seth leads the way down the hall, past big wooden doors made of oak, carved with whole forest scenes, and shaped into a point at the top. Set against the white walls, it’s all very beautiful.
“That’s why you put a taco in his boot?” he asks.
“A what?”
“The food, it was a taco right? It looked like a taco.”
He pushes one of the doors open, walking in backward so he can keep quizzing me. I’m not listening anymore, though. I’m too busy looking.
The walls are still white, but the window frames, tables, high beams in the roof, narrow staircase up to a big row of bookshelves that get their own loft, and the floor, are all a honey oak color. Everything is carved, polished, and sculpted into perfection. There’s a big glass ball filled with a liquid of some kind in the middle of the room. Tables are arranged around it with papers and glass tubes and other odd things neatly decorating all of them. Except one, one table clearly looks like it’s currently being used – but there are no people in here. There’s one extra-large table at the front of the class. It’s the only one that looks less like a table and more like a desk, complete with enclosed sides and a large leather chair.
My attention draws back to the glass ball. I could almost climb into the thing, it’s so huge.
“What is that thing?” I ask as I approach it.
“Containment,” he says, strolling around the room. “For potions. Stops the mistakes from escaping.”
I manage to make an, “Oh,” noise.
Stopping right next to the perfectly clear sphere, I peer into it, around it, even underneath the thing. It’s big and strange, but beautiful at the same time.
It looks cold.
Are you cold?
Carefully, I rest the very tips of my fingers against the glass.
Ice crystals form, growing out from my fingertips in slow delicate swirls. Barely noticeable until I lean in close. And I’d swear they’re growing inside the glass.
“This one,” Seth says, making me jump and pull my hand back.
He nudges a page on the recently-in-use desk with one finger.
I inspect what he’s looking at from the other side of the table. It’s paper, and there’s writing on it, that much is clear. But the scribbles aren’t anything like I’ve ever seen, and I can’t read anyway.
“I can’t interfere, one of Pax’s orders,” he says.
“Interfere with what?”
“Their potions test. But you can.”
“I can?”
“Sure you can,” he says, pulling a small blue jar out of his pocket. “Just tip this, on there.”
He motions to the pages, and with the cork still in the bottle, he mimes covering the pages with whatever liquid is inside.
“Why don’t you do it?” I ask as I edge closer, dodging around the leather satchels sitting on chairs – chairs that aren’t even neatly tucked in.
Seth was right; people will be back in here any minute now. Whatever they were doing, they’ve stopped right in the middle of it for weapons training and they’re going to freak out if they walk in and see me here.
What’s the punishment for not learning from your last punishment?
Seth holds his hand out to me, palm up. A blue bottle balanced in the center.
“I can’t. I can’t even open the damn bottle,” he says.
“Pax’s orders?” I ask, rolling my eyes.
“Exactly. And these are Logan’s papers.”
He smiles, and I snatch the bottle from him – because I’m not against messing with Pax twice in one day, and I’ll never be against doing damage to Logan.
“Just tip it on the pages?” I ask.
He nods.
“Why, again?”
“Because it’ll be funny when the Potions Master tests them on this particular potion and instead of predicting the future in that glass.” He motions to the giant ball beside us. “It runs through the highlights of their childhood. Baby drool and shitty bums, if we’re lucky.”
Men. What’s funny about that?
He cocks his head a little and takes a guess at what I’m thinking.
“They won’t know it’s their past. They’ll be thinking the next twenty-four hours of their lives includes babies. Their own babies.”
I roll my eyes. That might actually be remotely funny. Better if Pax himself was the one casting the potion.
The cork comes out easily, but the blue liquid spills very slowly. Not like liquid at all, more like mist. It’s practically evaporating as I pour it, and next to nothing is landing on the pages.
But where it does, the writing twists, rearranging itself.
Seth makes an excited little noise, almost like a chirp, and rubs his palms together.
A single loud chime fills the room, and Seth’s smile broadens.
I stop pouring the liquid, which should be all gone by now but the bottle still feels full.
“Now you take me home,” I say.
Seth smiles at me, showing more teeth than before.
“Now we hide,” he says, grabbing my arm and manhandling me to the far end of the room.
I let out noises of resistance, a growl, a hiss when his thumb digs into the soft tissue on the inside of my elbow, but that hardly slows him down.
Ultimately, I find myself being dragged around and behind the big desk. It’s lucky that the person who sits here has long legs or Seth wouldn’t even fit. But he does. Not that he’s paying much attention to me. He’s already twisted toward the door, and I get the impression there’s a gap or hole that gives him the perfect view.
And the impression that this isn’t the first time he’s played this prank.
“What are we doing?” I demand.
“Waiting.”
“For who?”
“The Potions Master. Then Logan’s triune. Then the Potions Master failing them.”
He reaches out, grips the hem of my tunic and tugs me down under the desk.
I land with a soft thud practically in Seth’s lap and instantly the doors open, voices stream in, and the doors swing closed again. Those sounds are easy to decipher, and it’s clear that it’s too late to object to being forced to hide behind a desk now. It’s also too late to mention that I’ve left the half-full bottle of misty-blue stuff out there on the table and all that’s in my hand is the cork.
From here, all I can see is the huge expanse of the back wall and the series of three windows with stained glass images of trees on them way up near the ceiling. All of the action is happening behind me.
“Who has the recipe?” a guy asks. It’s a gut-churning familiar voice – Logan.
“Of course I have it,” a girl says. “And you owe me. Do you know what I had to do to get this? It better be worth it. What does this thing even do?”
“You’ll see. You’ll even enjoy this, and my uncle will reward you, Asanta,” Logan says.
“I don’t want the crown’s coins. I just want revenge. Now get this done, because I’m not even in your triune,” Asanta says, her voice part way between grumbling and singsong.
“Door’s jammed,” a third person says – a guy who sounds really freaking excited.
“Check it, Tray,” Logan says in that slimy tone of his that makes my skin crawl.
&n
bsp; A rattling sound fills the room. Tray, double-checking the door. Sounds like there are three people in here. Asanta, another guy and Logan.
“Dwain is holding Potions Master Rycian up,” Tray says.
“Asanta, unlock her cabinet already,” Logan says.
None of them sound like a Potions Master, and none of this sounds like an official test. It doesn’t even sound like they’re trying to cheat.
There’s a bit more shuffling around in the room and the click of a door unlocking – an old, groaning door. Someone lets out a slow, dark-giggle. Which wouldn’t mean a thing to me if Seth – with one arm loosely around my waist and the other propping himself at an angle – didn’t just shift from relaxed and amused to tense and muffled anger.
I draw in a slow breath. There’s no way for me to see what’s going on out there without sticking my head over the top of the desk, which would be stupidly risky. So I settle for listening to their mutters and movements.
Glass shatters, making me jolt. Seth twists sharply, ignoring his spy-hole, and wrapping both arms around me. We both freeze.
“It’ll work,” Tray growls.
“Unless you ballsed it up,” Asanta responds. “I did my part, hunting down this damn recipe.”
Seth’s breath hitches, and I try to inch away. Not possible while Seth has two arms wrapped around my middle and holding onto me like maybe this is actually life-threatening.
“Be still,” he whispers into my hair.
Done.
No magical alluring-voice needed.
“Bottle it,” Logan orders.
“Get me the tongs, then,” Asanta says. Then after a second, she adds, “It won’t go in the bottle. You shouldn’t have knocked crap off the table in the first place.”
A blue mist creeps across the floor, lapping at the edges of the desk. It’s eerily similar to the stuff I poured over someone’s books.
“What is that?” I hiss.
Seth leans out and dips the tip of one finger in the not-quite-liquid stuff. Then shrugs.
I wish I could see what they’re doing out there. It sounds funny.
But Seth is my new measure of funny, and the big guy sitting behind me is not laughing.
Logan growls, followed by what can only be a table being thrown across the room.
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 8
