by Brenda Drake
On either side of a wide staircase were two openings leading to the back of the castle. The corridor on the right brought me to the kitchen, and I doubled back. Across the corridor, a narrow stairway went down and disappeared in the darkness.
A dungeon? I hope. Dungeons are always underground.
The stairs were slick and dangerous as I plunged down them into the unknown. Small sconces, casting dim light throughout the narrow corridor, gave a sense of doom over the iron doors with small barred windows lining the walls. Like a victim, I pushed all reasoning aside and headed down it.
Score. I was right. Definitely, a dungeon.
A Russian man’s voice came from behind me, saying something I didn’t understand. I spun to face him. Two men filled the corridor in front of me, both heavily armed.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Russian man spit out more foreign words.
“What?” My breaths turning shallow, I backed away from them slowly. “Um, I was looking for a bathroom.” Lame.
“You’re American?” The other man spoke English, albeit with a very heavy Russian accent. “What are you doing down here?”
I recognized him. “You were with Arik at the Boston Athenæum and then at Professor Attwood’s office,” I said without really thinking.
The guy’s eyes widened.
The other man looked puzzled and said something in Russian to him.
“Edgar, right?”
“Who are you?” Edgar focused on my face.
“Gia. I’m—”
“Gianna Bianchi. What are you doing here? You’re exposing my cover.”
From the other man’s face, it looked like he was figuring something out. He pulled a dagger from his belt and pointed it at Edgar, saying more stuff in Russian. I made out Arik’s name and a word that sounded like spoon.
“Spy?” Edgar acted stunned and readied his fists.
The man repeated the word and lunged at Edgar.
Edgar dodged the attack and caught the man in a wristlock. The dagger clanked to the floor. “Hand me the dagger,” he said.
I snatched it up and gave it to him. “What are you going to do?”
“I have to kill him.”
“What?” I stumbled backward, shocked. “You can’t kill him.”
“I have to. He knows who I am.”
“Then you are a spoon, I mean, spy?”
Edgar grinned. “If you’re on the right side. Are you a spy?”
“Um, yes?”
“Carrig is down the hall.” The man struggled in Edgar’s grip, and Edgar tightened his hold. “I’ll get rid of Val here and distract the other guard. Get out of here fast, you hear me?”
“Where’s Sinead?”
“Who?”
“She’s a faery. Carrig’s wife.”
“I haven’t seen her. Now hurry and get out of here.”
I nodded and watched as he shuffled away with the man.
“Go!” he yelled over his shoulder.
I bolted down the corridor. “Carrig,” I whispered through the small barred windows in each door I passed. If Carrig was still locked up, where was Ricardo?
Something thudded against the metal door at the end. I stopped short and flattened myself against the opposite wall. Crap. What the hell is that? I heard it again, then, “Oomph,” and then, “Shite! Who be there?”
Yep. It was Carrig. He sounded just like Sean McGann. I went to the door and pulled on the handle. Of course, I should have expected a locked door, but I was hoping for one of those doors that locked on the inside and not on the outside.
“Stop hitting the door,” I said. “I’ll find something to get you out.”
“What the bloody hell are you doing here?” His voice was dry, like sandpaper dragged across each word.
A guard station was at the end of the hall. I hurried to it and riffled around the desk, hunting for a set of keys to unlock the cell door. Each drawer I searched came up empty. I blew out a frustrated breath and glanced around at the walls.
A rack in the corner held encased swords, but there were no shelves to hold anything else. The walls were bare. There wasn’t even a nail to hold a ring of keys. Rust-colored stains spotted the wall directly across from me. The splatter surrounded a chair pushed against it. I was sure I didn’t want to know what had happened there.
Hurry. Hurry. Despite the chill, sweat was running down the back of my neck. I was running out of time and options.
While dashing around the desk, my scabbard caught on an open drawer, and I tugged it free. The hilt of the Chiave glinted against the dim light. Agnes had said it was the destroyer of all swords. Could it cut through all metals? I hustled back to the dungeon door.
“Deidre, your sword won’t budge this door,” Carrig said through the bars of his cell as I lifted the Chiave above my head. “You’ll just mangle the blade.”
“It’s not an ordinary sword.” I swung the Chiave hard against the top hinge. The blade sang against the steel, breaking the first hinge, the vibration stinging my hands. I did the same to the middle and bottom ones.
“Move aside,” Carrig ordered. He threw himself against the door, and it fell outward, smashing onto the tile floor with an echo that thundered down the corridor. If the bad guys didn’t know we were here before, they did now. He stepped over the door and out of the cell. “Deadly brilliant, Deidre.”
He thinks I’m her. I decided we didn’t have time for a meet and greet. “We have to hurry,” I said.
“I don’t understand. Why did you come for me?”
“It’s a long story. We must find Ricardo.”
“He’s with you?”
“Yes. He came in before me.”
“Shite.” His fist tightened, and it looked like he wanted to hit something. Hopefully, not me. “That thickheaded mongrel. This will be his death. How long has he been here?”
“An hour,” I said. “Maybe a little more? There’s one more problem, though. The guards have Sinead.”
“Daft, daft woman—she’ll kill me, I swear.”
He didn’t notice I called her by her name instead of Mom or Mother. I wasn’t even sure what Diedre called Sinead.
He rushed to the guard station and grabbed a scabbard and sword from the rack against the wall. He strapped them on and ran down the corridor.
I chased him up the stairs and into the kitchen. He plucked a butcher’s knife out of a wooden block and handed it to me. “Put it in your boot. There be a pocket on the side.” He grabbed a boning knife and gave that to me, too. “And put this one in the other boot.”
I bent over and found a pocket on the inside of both boots, slipping a knife into each one before straightening. Carrig was sliding a knife into his boot.
“Now, keep close behind me.” Carrig stormed out of the kitchen.
My boots slipped across the tiles as I struggled to keep up, the handles of the knives pressing against my skin. He was definitely more in shape than his changeling was. Plus, his response to me was a lot friendlier. We searched each room on the first level and continued to the second floor.
A woman’s voice hummed from somewhere down the hall. I stopped on the landing. “Do you hear that?”
He froze and held his hand up. “It’s Moon Glory—one of the fey’s songs.”
“It’s her,” I whispered.
“Smart woman, that one.” There was pride in his voice. “Leading us to her without alerting her captors of it.”
We followed the song down the hall to the third door.
“I’m in here,” Sinead called out.
“Step aside,” he said at the door. He backed up and spoke a charm, a green globe forming on his palm. He hurled it at the door. Wind blasted the door off its hinges, pitching it across the room. Splinters and debris swirled around in the aftermath.
“How come you didn’t do that to your cell door?” I asked.
“The cell was charmed to disable battle globes.”
Sinead clambered over the rubble and
threw herself into Carrig’s arms, kissing him all over his face before stopping at his lips.
I averted my eyes. “Hate to break up your love-fest,” I said over my shoulder, “but we’re busted.”
Two guards came charging down one direction, while a third came at us from the other way. Carrig stormed after the two guards. I yanked the boning knife from my boot and threw it at the lone guard, aiming low so I wouldn’t kill him. The blade sunk into his leg. Blood sprayed from his wound, and he fell to the ground, groaning.
Sinead rushed by me, holding a small statue in her hand. She smashed the guard over the head, knocking the man out cold.
Carrig had knocked out one guard and was now fighting the second. The two foxtrotted around each other in a series of long, slow steps and short quicker ones. The clang of sword beating sword rang down the corridor. Panting. Grunting. When Carrig had an opening, he sliced the guard’s arm and slammed the hilt of his sword against the man’s head. The guard slumped to the floor. Carrig nudged him with his foot before rushing down the hall to us.
“Do you know where they took Ricardo?” He pulled a tapestry off the wall and wiped his blade clean with it.
Sinead looked up from bandaging the guard’s leg, putting a final knot in the table runner she’d shredded with her dagger to use. “They took him outside.”
“Leave him. We must hurry.” Carrig flew down the corridor, a determined look on his face.
Sinead grabbed my hand and towed me after her. We raced down the steps, through the corridors, out a side door, and onto clumpy grass.
“How are we going to find him?” I panted.
Carrig stopped short ahead of us. Sinead and I halted just behind him. Shock screamed through me at the sight, wrenching my insides, keeping me frozen. All I could do was stare.
Ricardo hung from a tree trunk, held in place by a silver stake pinned straight through his heart and into the bark. It was more like a petrified image of him. Blood streaked his shirt and the tree trunk below him.
Sinead threw her hands over her mouth. Carrig pulled her into his arms, and she sobbed against his shoulder.
A pendant dangled from a silver chain around his neck. My legs were shaky as I shook off my stupor and stumbled over to the tree. The stone features of Ricardo’s face looked peaceful. The pendant had twisted around so the back showed. Etched in the silver base was the name Faith. I turned it around. It was a gothic-style pendant with a circle of thorny, silver-stemmed roses surrounding a blood-red crystal. He did care about her.
I undid the clasp of the necklace and removed it. With shaky hands, I refastened it around my neck. Faith would want something to remember him by. The thought of telling her about his death sickened me.
“I’m so sorry, Ricardo.” My voice trembled. “How could they be so cruel?”
Carrig came to my side, swiping tears from his cheeks. “Crazy eejit, you should have left me here.” He choked back a sob. “Rest in peace, my friend, for your soul be saved.” He yanked the stake out of Ricardo’s body and it crashed to the ground, breaking into several pieces. The pieces turned into ash and flew off in the breeze.
“Carrig!” Edgar’s voice came from the direction of the castle. He raced down the hill, slipped to his knees, and scrambled back to his feet. “Hurry! Get to the exit. The guards are coming.”
Sinead grabbed Carrig’s arm with her slender hand. “We must get Gia to the shelter.”
Carrig shot me a puzzled look. “Gia?”
Carrig’s eyes, the same green as mine, stared at me. He mumbled something under his breath. Looking from Sinead to me he said, “You be Gianna?”
I nodded. “Yes, I’m your real daughter.
Tears glossed his eyes, and he took a deep breath, pulling me into a tight hold. “When they took me, I worried you be found. I be out of my mind worrying that you were alone, facing this unknown world without me.”
I swallowed hard, trying not to lose it right there. “I’m fine.”
“I have dreamed of this meeting many times. Of course, it be in a better surrounding.”
“Sweet reunion,” Edgar said. “But it’ll be short lived if we don’t get out of here.”
Carrig released me and looked at Sinead. “Diedre?”
“She’s safe,” she said, her tears different. It was like they had glitter in them.
“A’right, then.” Carrig patted my back. “Keep running and don’t stop or look back.”
“Okay.”
We ran, not stopping at the sounds of men and growls behind us.
My heart ached as I trekked back along the tunnel with Edgar, Carrig, and Sinead. In the little time I’d known Ricardo, he had been kind to me. Both Carrig and Merl considered him a friend. He must’ve been a better person than Faith had led me to believe.
“Why did you say Ricardo’s soul was saved?” I asked Carrig, regaining my composure.
“Laniars lost their souls long ago,” he said. “It be said one killed an angel. The entire race was damned to Hell, unless they be giving up their life to save another. When they do, their soul comes back to them. I’ve known Ricardo a long time. He saved me life once—and now, twice. He’ll be greatly missed.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Carrig nodded with a grateful smile. He was quiet all the way through the tunnel and to the library.
Sinead sniffed back tears as she searched the gateway book for a library.
We had to jump in and out of three libraries to avoid Conemar’s forces. When we made it to the Senate Library in France, the sprites had a Sentinel from Couve waiting for us. He led us to the shelter through a small, two-hundred-year-old library in a French countryside village.
The black of night had turned purple with the morning rising. The neoclassical manor of the shelter stood stoic in a pasture. To the south of the manor, a clear lake glistened like ice beneath an enormous moon.
A river ran beside the manor and dumped into the lake. We crossed a bridge arching over the river and walked on a cobbled pathway that cut through a row of tiny cottages. Most of the early risers greeted us in French. Sinead spoke to them in their own language.
Warm light engulfed us as we entered the foyer of the manor. Familiar voices echoed down a hallway. We followed the voices into a large room. Arik, Bastien, and the other Sentinels sat around a game table in deep conversation. Pop sat with Afton, Nick, and Deidre by a large hearth with lit logs. There was a collective intake of breath when we moved into the room.
Pop got up, charged over, and pulled me into a death hug. “Thank God you’re safe. When they said you should’ve been here, and you weren’t, it worried me sick.”
“Easy.” I wrapped my arms around him. “You’re going to crush me.”
He released me, his eyes assessing me for damage and mine looking for Arik.
It was like a family reunion with everyone embracing each other around the lodge-style room. I finally found Arik across the room. Edgar was telling him something—probably informing him about what went down in Esteril. Arik was definitely confident. A real leader. He shoved his hands into his pockets, tilting his head as he listened. Just the sight of him ignited tingles in my stomach. I wanted to hold him and tell him how glad I was that he was okay. That I missed having him with me in Esteril. I was more confident as a warrior and conjurer with his leadership guiding me.
“We were so worried about you,” Afton said.
Bastien approached. “You certainly know how to make an entrance. And she’s right. We all were concerned. So glad you all made it out safely.” Again, the way he looked at me with such tenderness stirred something deep. Arik was a leader, all right, but Bastien was also—his ability to rise above his grief to show compassion for others inspired me, too.
“I’m sorry—” But we all hadn’t made it out. Ricardo was dead. For some reason, I couldn’t say that. Saying it would make it real.
“What’s this?” Nick motioned to my coat as he ambled over. “I thought you were against we
aring fur?”
“Well, it was cold, and there wasn’t anything else. You know what?” I said, exasperated. “It’s not like I killed the poor thing myself.” I angrily removed my scabbard, wiggled out of the coat, and draped it over my arm.
“Whoa, no worries. I’m just teasing you.” Nick sniggered.
I ignored him. “Besides, it smells ancient. The animal would probably be dead by—” The way the light hit Nick’s face stopped me.
His brows were crinkled, the right one higher than the other. “Gia, I said I was teasing.”
Conemar’s eyebrow had done the same thing when he attacked my globe. Nick’s eyes were the same deep brown and shape as Conemar’s eyes. Same thick eyelids. Same dimple on their left cheeks. If Nick were thicker and had graying hair, he would be the exact copy of Conemar. My breath hitched. All noise in the room vanished behind the blood rushing in my ears. I had to get out of here. I couldn’t let him see my fear. Arik. I had to find Arik.
Bastien captured my elbow. “What’s the matter?”
I cleared my throat. “Um. Nothing. I’ll be right back.”
“After what you’ve been through, I want you to rest,” he said.
“You want me to rest?” Again with the arrogance. Someone else telling me what to do. I slipped from his grasp. “I’m not one of your subjects or whatever you call them.” I had more important things to worry about. Like what I’d just noticed about Nick.
I kept my breath even and slowed my anxious steps as I crossed the room. It can’t be. I’ve just been through too much. I’m seeing things.
Carrig was sitting beside Arik, recapping our escape. “Her instincts are amazing,” Carrig said. “She just broke the hinges on the cell without thinking.”
“Excuse me,” I interrupted. “Arik, can I have a word with you—alone, please?”
As I turned to go, I was barely aware of Arik’s hand brushing mine lightly. He gave me a curious look as he walked with me out into the hall.
Arik turned to face me. “What’s the matter?”
I rubbed over my scar. “I’m not sure. It’s kind of crazy, but I think I just discovered something. It has to do with Jacalyn Roux.”
