Chapter 35
S O R E N
I t’s as if Cypress wanted this.
Wanted this misery.
Why else would she keep us all in the dark? Why would Jane be sent into such a situation, alone, when all of us could have done something? Formed some kind of escape route for her? I could have placed my mask in her neck, right next to the ruby.
A calm, almost apologetic energy within tells me I know the answer—we’re not supposed to function to such a specific degree. For this to work properly , there needs to be chaos. Actions made within the heat of desperation.
I just hate believing those words, because it means Cypress is our puppeteer, and that terrifies me. She is not known for taking care of those who she makes dance for her.
“You’re sure you can feel Anya?” Ritter asks, pulling me out of my damn head as if I was underwater.
That man’s heart is readable once more. Maybe he chucked the ring, for all I know, after all the shit it caused. All that’s clear is the sensation of Cypress’s magic seems absent from him.
“She’s at the castle. When I put my mask on, I can sense a dungeon,” I answer, gripping the rail at the prow of Fury, staring out into the empty, dark night.
“What’s that like? How can you tell it’s a dungeon?”
Lowering my gaze to the pure darkness of the waters ahead, I try to find a way to describe what is something one can only understand if felt . “I get the overwhelming sense that if I looked around, I’d see stone walls and chains. The more I concentrate on envisioning Anya’s face, the pain sharpens, especially in my chest and ankle, and all my mind’s eye can perceive is stone . Then iron, metal. I assume that means a cell. That’s how I know.”
Ritter’s energy stiffens, as if the crumbs of this truth are feeding a starving man. “And she visited Jane?”
“Maybe,” I force out, a bitterness coating it. I felt so much change in Anya that I had to put the mask on, and it felt like she was broken again, like when I pulled her out of that river. “She was unusually sentimental, and I kept wanting to look for red hair.”
It’s too gutting to consider the notion that they could mutilate Anya, break her down.
“What are they doing to Jane?” His voice is lower, shaken.
“I don’t know.” The admission grates at me. I abhor that I can’t feel her, no matter how I stare in the direction of Ashfire. And yet, I’m grateful Misery cannot touch her heart. “She’s in a tower, though. It was a long journey Anya had to take after the sentimental feelings were cut off, and I kept getting the sense of being lower .”
“That’s impressive you managed to get your mask into Anya’s skin.”
“I got the idea from your ring. I just had the overwhelming desire to try it, and I was able to actually chip a piece off.”
The mask has mostly been on my face the entire time, only removing it periodically. It’s the only connection I have to Jane. To Anya, who is being forced to relive her darkest days. Misery. I bet he has a Sensor, and is learning about her, trauma by trauma.
I won’t lose the trail this time.
Jane’s dagger is even at my thigh. In the name of her reclamation, I’ll properly bloody it for her with the life force of her enemies. I bite the inside of my lip harder when recalling how she knew she couldn’t take it, because she didn’t want it to be ripped from her and tossed away.
What are you planning, Jane? What information do you have that you withheld?
I want to help her.
I want?—
My gaze drops, looking down at my arms that are crossed. “Ritter,” I say, breathing slowly. “We need to speak with Cypress.”
“I swear if we have to fucking look at her, one more time…”
“She knows what Jane has planned,” I say, resoundingly. “We can’t help her by being blind. Whatever task she was given… it has to be effective against Misery. What if… what if Cypress didn’t involve us for a reason ? I know it’s hard not to consider the witch using us, but she’s only appeared to help Jane and left us in the dark. She hasn’t… I—I don’t know how to describe it.
“My magic is calm. My heart is enraged, but my intuition tells me we’re exactly where we need to be. Just like when I went searching for Jane initially. I knew she was south, and as long as I was moving in that direction, everything felt calm . Cypress knows we won’t fucking sit around. She knows we will take action.”
The words smooth something out within him, a sensation of control returning, even if small. “I worry she sent Jane to her death and doesn’t give a shit. I know Jane is her kin, but I can’t shake the worry that Cypress might sacrifice us for her god. Maybe it’s some sort of ultimate sacrifice, or some bullshit. She could easily lie to us that Jane won’t die.”
Sure, it’s a thought process I can’t let go of myself. But if I really tease it all apart, then I know it’s my heart worrying… not the powers that guide me. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and Jane knew something for weeks but didn’t say a word. I know she doesn’t want to risk us getting hurt, but if that was the true motivation behind her silence, she would have run away. I’m almost certain of that. She didn’t say anything because something stopped her, and it wasn’t just to save us .”
“How does that help?” he asks, his tone exhausted.
“Everything in me screams to get to Ashfire with this ship. To use the plan you concocted with the sirens. Just even the acknowledgment in my heart that I’ll commit to that calms my magic almost instantaneously. I think,” I say, my sight heavy and sharp. “I think Cypress may have set this up to help us. I don’t think Jane needs our rescuing, so much as she needs our help . Our manpower. We have a solid plan, a solid point of entry. And now that I know there’s a tower that Jane is in, we can keep studying maps of the castle. We will reach her.”
If my powers truly serve me, then my experience would say I’m fucking right about it.
We just need to get ourselves to the island.
The silence that now stands between us is so loud, raw emotions slamming through Ritter. I don’t know if it’s agony or fatigue in Ritter, but his more vulnerable side is raw to me. “It is so hard to trust Jane out there. Not because I don’t believe in her, but because there’s so much about the fucking world I was unable to teach her. I dread facing judgment that I failed her by the fates presenting me with her body?—”
He goes quiet, and I don’t press him.
Perhaps he and I are battling much more than just being worried for her. The world has burned us in ways that we can’t see straight, because we know better. For now, I have to trust my desert rose can handle herself, and that soon, we’ll be there for her.
And when this is all said and done, I’m never even breathing the air near a witch again.