23. Kat
Kat
B astian pulled me behind a tilted pillar, caging me in with his arms. We stood in tense silence, breaths held, listening. I gripped my magic tight—or tried to. If I let go, the Horrors might smell it.
Something scraped over rock, followed by the clack and thud of stone hitting stone and a heavy object landing.
Bastian’s moonlight eyes fixed over my shoulder for a long while before he peered out. He eased back into our hiding place and ducked closer. “There’s one ahead,” he breathed in my ear. “We’ll cut through this building. Keep quiet.”
Hand-in-hand, we picked through the debris.
Sweat slicked his palm, though the day was far from warm.
Still, I clung to him. Heart pounding, I tried to place my feet exactly where he did, but my legs were considerably shorter than his, and at times I had to find my own path over fragmented wood and fallen granite.
When I wasn’t watching my step, I watched him. He’d been even tighter than yesterday, and since we’d spotted the town, the deep gold of his skin had turned ashen. It wasn’t fear that marked his movements and expression, but… guilt… shame…
And he thought he’d been here before it had been ruined?
Something was very wrong.
The sounds grew quieter as we emerged on another, narrower road. Bastian looked left and right, then pulled me across the street. We took a right turn and paused in what had once been a doorway, though the timber had long since disintegrated to splinters at our feet.
“There.” He pointed out a house at the end of the lane, on a T-junction, set back behind dead shrubs and the remains of a garden.
Despite being abandoned for so long, there was startlingly little life around the town. The copse where we’d left the stags was full of stunted, sickly trees.
Even nature knew to stay away.
He gripped my shoulders. “We go in, find the fireplace. I get the box. You stay close. Understood?”
I swallowed, nodded, then we were hurrying down the lane. We paused at the T-junction, listened, peered around the corner.
Nothing.
We stalked across the road, Bastian’s hand tight around mine. No magic surged between us, but his grip still felt like a lifeline.
The way his breaths heaved and his jaw ticced, I wasn’t sure whether that lifeline was saving me or him.
No roof remained on the building Elthea had sent us to. The walls were partially collapsed, but thankfully a chimney stack still stood at its heart like a beacon.
As we stepped across the threshold, a low sound rumbled through the air.
I froze, stomach dropping. Bastian raised his free hand, the grip on my fingers tightening. That was the only thing that stopped me fleeing. Head canted, he surveyed the ruined room, then pointed to the far wall.
That was when I heard it.
The crunch of something large moving just the other side of this building.
He pressed a finger to his lips and led the way.
Heart hammering, I tiptoed around broken glass—the shards of a mirror reflecting the clouds overhead. I hardly dared to breathe knowing only an ancient wall stood between me and something the fae found so terrible they called them Horrors.
Great windows had once graced the next room. Now only their metal frames remained, open to the other side.
We crouched below the level of the cracked windowsills and crept along.
The sounds of movement grew louder, accompanied by a series of low, rasping huffs.
Was it sniffing the air?
Could it smell us?
A chill sweat trickled down my spine as I followed Bastian dumbly and tried to keep my breathing under control.
We reached the end of the run of windows, and as I straightened, I caught a glimpse of sunlight gleaming on something outside. A rainbow sheen marked the sleek, dark segmented body, like oil on water. I could only see part of it, but…
It was fucking huge.
Bastian’s hand on my back urged me through the next door. Despite a crack running its full height, the back wall of this room stood between us and the Horror, tall and relatively complete. My breaths eased a little, though my pulse still throbbed in my throat.
We’d reached the fireplace.
Almost done. Then we could leave this damned place and never return.
Bastian started towards it, but I grabbed his arm. I tapped his shoulders, then pointed out the width of the fireplace—or rather the lack of it. His broad shoulders would never fit, and Elthea had said the box was on a shelf hidden inside the chimney.
He scowled at the narrow opening, but that didn’t make it any wider.
I pressed my hand into my chest and mouthed, “I’ll do it.”
His scowl grew sharper and he shook his head.
But he didn’t have any other choice. I raised an eyebrow and gave him a look.
On the other side of the wall, the Horror dug through rubble. It had to be searching for enchanted objects to feed on. Its rasping breaths came closer, like it was snorting against the back wall.
The purple stain coated my fingers fully now. Was that what it could smell?
We didn’t have long, and I didn’t have enough control over my magic to rein it in—not when I was worried about Bastian and terrified by what these monsters would do if they got hold of us.
I pushed past him and into the soot-streaked fireplace. He made a low sound of protest but didn’t try to stop me. I turned and raised my eyebrows at him. My hips and shoulders just about fit in—he would’ve stood no chance.
Brackets fixed in the wall must’ve once held grates for cooking on, and I made use of them as footholds. Hands braced on the blackened walls, I climbed up.
The narrow space echoed my breaths back at me, making them seem deafening in the darkness. No light filtered through from above—something must’ve blocked the chimney—so I felt my way.
It was an age before my fingers found the underside of a ledge on the front wall, just as Elthea had described. “Found the shelf,” I whispered as quietly as possible.
“Hurry up,” came Bastian’s tight response.
I slid my hand to the edge, but found nothing. Still, the shelf was deep. I reached for another foothold, toe scraping on stone before I found it. My thigh muscles hummed as I heaved up.
A high, clicking call pierced the air. It chilled my bones as my fingers found something smooth.
“It’s caught our scent,” Bastian hissed. “Get out.”
“Hold on. I’m almost there.” Right on the edge of my reach, I couldn’t quite get hold of it. But I had it. Almost. I walked it towards me, inch by inch.
Another call. This one sounded like a question. Where are you, tasty morsels?
“Katherine, we’re going.”
“No.” Just one more inch. “I’ve almost got it.”
The walls around me rumbled. Outside, something crashed. I grabbed the shelf, only staying up because there was no space to topple backwards.
More clicks, then a piercing screech.
I blinked in the darkness, breaths bursting shallow and tight. “Bastian?”
Nothing.
“Bastian?”
Every hair on my body rose. I didn’t dare call him again. Was I safer in the chimney or should I slip out and run? Where was he? Had the Horror got him?
I reached for the box, needing a distraction from the sudden and terrible quiet and images of Bastian being torn apart.
Something grabbed me.