37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
Something was cold about the night. It hit me in the gut like a punch, harsh enough that I struggled to focus on Sapphire and Calista’s idle chatter.
But when a scream tore through the tunnels, every fiber of my being cracked in half.
I lunged over the open flames and sprinted toward Aurelie and Azalea. Sapphire was a beat behind me, orbs of starlight shooting ahead of us and lighting our path. Before I could even make out Azalea’s thin figure, fire bloomed into the darkness and lit the stone tunnels aflame. I screeched to a halt and covered my eyes, hissing out before looking through the cracks.
Azalea stood in the aftermath, clumps of skin and gore thumping to the floor in front of her. For a moment—a terrifying, blind moment—I wondered if she’d just murdered her daughter.
But when she fell to her knees, bleeding from the shoulder, two gashes sliced through her skin, I knew it wasn’t Aurelie she was fighting.
I hissed out a curse before jolting forward and joining her. I squinted through the flames, seeing nothing but blood and guts scattered across the floor. “Where is—”
“I don’t know,” Azalea said, shuddering. Hissing cackles echoed ahead, and my eyes widened. “One second, she was in front of me, and the next, she was gone. The Underfae were already jumping at me before I knew what had happened.”
“She’s gone?” I asked, deathly cold coloring my voice. “What do you mean you. Don’t. Know?”
“Just as I told you, fae bastard,” she hissed and jerked from my hold. She stumbled onto her feet and balled her hair at the scalp, muttering to herself over and over. “I don’t know where she is. She vanished. She’s gone.”
“How is that possible?” Sapphire muttered.
“We have a problem,” Calista hollered from the other end of the tunnel. My head snapped toward her to find magic already blossoming from her fingers. I could see it clear as day, despite our distance.
Riddled in the darkness were four more Underfae, hunched toward the flames like a moth. In that moment, my heart turned to stone, and rage guided me to solace. I closed my eyes, counted to three, and pointed my hands at either side of the tunnel before unleashing a wintery storm.
Flame to ice. Monster to statue. Dirt to snow. Everything shifted, and before Calista could even think to use that magic of hers, I unleashed my rage against anything without a beating heart.
Sapphire screamed, Azalea went silent, and Calista fell to the ground in shock. But the fire was suffocated, the dripping water from rusted pipes frozen over, and the Underfae immobilized into icy pieces of artwork. I faced the darkest side of the tunnel—unexplored, unmarked—and walked through the icy hellhole in the hopes Aurelie had ventured somewhere further away after the heat of a silent argument.
Somewhere safe.
Gods, I hoped she was safe.