Chapter 56. Grayson
Grayson
I’m wrapped up in a cocoon of vines like I’m waiting for a goddamn spider to eat me. I push hard, but my hands remain pinned to my sides with zero wiggle room to cast.
I thrash, getting so frustrated that I let out a growl.
Screw this. I’m about to start shouting for Guardians, when boots sound on the smooth wooden floor. But the footfalls don’t belong to a Guardian at all. They belong to a student—one I wouldn’t have expected in a thousand years—Adrien? And now I don’t know whether to feel suspicion or relief.
“Grayson,” he says, eyeing me. I scent his hesitancy immediately. But it also doesn’t escape my notice that there is a dagger in his boot.
“Unwrap me, Adrien,” I say like the threat it is.
“You didn’t think that would actually work, did you?” Adrien asks. “That you’d tell me to unwrap you and I’d just … do it?”
“Eloise is in that room,” I say, jutting my chin at the training room door and losing my patience. “And she’s in danger. You remember her—the girl you’ve been making a sad attempt to flirt with?”
“Do you think I’m an idiot? Eloise—”
“That’s exactly what I think,” I interject.
He sneers. “Eloise was taken by the Lawless.”
“Yeah, well, she’s back,” I say.
Adrien stiffens slightly, but shakes his head. “I can’t help you.”
“Cut the damn vines, Adrien,” I say slowly.
“It’s not my call,” he replies tightly, which is when the full weight of the situation hits me.
“You’re joking,” I say. “My uncle has you in his pocket?”
His jaw tics, but he doesn’t respond.
Suddenly it dawns on me. “You’re the one who kept reporting my movements to the Chancellor, weren’t you? When I went to the lounge and left Eloise alone. When we called the Key at your house.”
Adrien doesn’t answer but I can scent his smugness.
“If you think this is going to win you favor, you’re wrong—” But I don’t get the rest of my sentence out before there’s a cracking noise and Adrien’s head whips to the side as though someone landed a knockout punch.
He drops to the ground like a bag of rocks.
In the space Adrien once occupied, Maggie becomes visible. And now I’m dumbfounded. I know she has the ability to go invisible, but it never occurred to me that I wouldn’t know she was there, even so.
“I didn’t scent you,” I say under my breath.
Maggie yanks Adrien’s dagger from his boot and immediately starts sawing away at the vines that bind my hands.
“Invisible means invisible, prince,” she says. “And don’t ever insinuate that I stink again or I’ll do the same thing to ye that I did to Adrien.”
The vine snaps and I yank one of my hands free. I immediately cast a spell to unwind the rest, and Maggie stands, reaching for the wall for support.
I spring up, grabbing her arm to help, but she swats me away.
“I just saved you. Don’t ye dare hover,” she says. “Tie him up and open that fecken door so we can get our girl out.”
I cast a spell to bind Adrien’s hands and feet. “Problem is, I can’t open that door.”
“Then ye better Alchemy an axe and remove it!” she demands.
“Even if I did, we wouldn’t find Eloise on the other side,” I say.
She curses. “Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph, you two eejits found the Archive Door, didn’t you?”
“How much do you know?” I ask.
“Enough,” she says. “I went invisible to sneak out of the healers’ hut and go after Eloise.”
Of course she did.
“But just as I was leaving,” she continues, “the Chancellor stormed in. And what’s stranger is he was asking about me.
Someone he’s never talked to. At first, I thought it was on account of Eloise, but I just had this gut feeling something wasn’t right.
Especially with the way Eloise has been acting recently. So, I stayed invisible.”
“That might be the smartest thing you’ve ever done,” I say.
Maggie nods. “I followed him outside the hut and Adrien was waiting for him. The Chancellor told him to find me and restrain me in any way necessary. And the twat didn’t even blink.”
By her scent, she definitely wants to kick Adrien even though he’s unconscious.
“So, I stayed invisible, trying to learn what I could. I was actually on the lawn when I saw you speed past. Couldn’t catch ye, but I saw you two open the door with the Key.” She raises an eyebrow.
She was there when we opened the door and yet Akari didn’t sense Maggie, either? Now I’m jealous of her invisibility.
“Did you learn anything? Anything I need to know—” I ask, but I’m cut off by the sound of footsteps at the end of the hall.
We both turn just in time to see Akari headed straight for us.
Maggie winces, but she doesn’t go invisible. Probably can’t given how much magic she’s used tonight.
I lift my hand to cast, ready to grab Maggie and make a run for it, but Akari draws her throwing daggers.
“Cast that wind spell, Stone, and I’ll skewer you to the wall before you move an inch,” Akari says calmly. Akari notes Adrien, knocked out on the floor and tied up, eyeing us suspiciously.
Maggie and I make eye contact, and for a split second I know we’re both considering fighting Akari, however stupid that choice might be.
That is, until Akari sighs. “Explain and do it quickly,” she says.
For the second time tonight, I’m completely dumbfounded. Akari wants to know what happened? She’s not going to throw me in a hole somewhere until my uncle can deal with me?
Only before I can get a word out, the door to the Archive Room cracks open.