Chapter 24
“Will!”
He barely caught himself in time, scrambled upright, and stared into Elodie’s wide eyes.
He seized her arm and dragged her with him, down the nearest servants’ staircase. They had to get out of the house—he would rather face vampires than whatever this monster was.
“Stop!” Elodie tore herself free and planted her feet. “There is a mage in the house. I cannot allow him to drive me out.”
Will cursed and pushed the wild strands from his face. The spiral staircase was a terrible place to hide. His light barely reached far enough to illuminate the next curve, and Elodie’s candle had gone out when she fell.
“Lovely moonlight,” she said, nodding toward his magic. Though her curls spilled wildly over her shoulders and she wore nothing but a thin nightgown, she seemed entirely too calm. It was not fear so much as anger that darkened her eyes.
“What do we do?” he asked, leaning against the worn wall to catch his breath.
“If we kill the mage, we kill his shadow as well. But he could be anywhere.” Elodie sank back against the wall beside him, and now he could see through her thin mask of confidence. Her chest rose in short, shallow breaths, and a fine sheen of sweat covered her upper lip and temples.
He let his head fall back against the wall and stared at the ceiling, here so low that he could have touched it with his fingertips.
Somehow, he had managed to avoid Elodie these past few days, but now—of all times, with mortal terror still lodged in his bones—he remembered her spread legs. He silently cursed her for it.
“I am sorry about the other day. I should not have seen that,” he said anyway.
She studied him in confusion. “Which of the many ‘other days’?”
“Your examination…” Her damned naked cunt.
She gave a short, humorless laugh. “I practically forced you to witness it. Let us focus on the current problem.”
That pushed his thoughts toward something else that unsettled him far more: her calculating nature, the way she turned humiliation into strength.
“Could we lure him out? If we go searching for him, we play directly into his plan. He has almost certainly prepared a trap.”
Elodie studied him. “You do not have to be here, you know. Had you remained in your room, there is a fair chance you could have been spared. Either I would have defeated him, or you would have found me at the bottom of the stairwell the next morning. ‘Fell while sleepwalking.’”
Will rolled his eyes. “I am already here. And I have little desire to be strangled in my sleep by shadows if this mage decides he would rather wipe out the entire house. But we need a solution. Everything else is merely a distraction.”
“I know. I am thinking.” Elodie worried at her lower lip and looked along the spiral staircase.
Footsteps sounded one floor above them—slow and searching.
They held their breath and stared at the ceiling as though they might see the mage through the stone. But the footsteps faded again, failing to notice the inconspicuous door hidden within the wallpaper.
“This staircase is too narrow for the shadow. Your light fills too much of it for the creature to form, much less send its tentacles after us,” Elodie thought aloud. “The corridor beside the demolished rooms may be short enough…”
“What is your plan?”
“Keep that light strong. Drink blood if it begins to flicker. I will handle the rest.”
“If we are safe here, why not wait until morning?”
Elodie pushed away from the wall and looked down at him with her chin raised. “I will not allow an intruder to escape so easily—especially one who means to kill me.”
Will studied her small figure, so much softer and more vulnerable in her nightgown, her curls loose around her shoulders. Even so, he suspected that two monsters were hunting through these corridors tonight.
“Very well…” He sighed. Before she could turn away, he caught her arm. Words rose inside him that he had not allowed himself to speak for weeks. But if they meant to face death, they should not do so while still at odds.
Elodie spoke before he could. “Keep your forgiveness if you only mean to offer it because you are frightened. I want nothing I have not earned.”
Will paused and released her arm.
“Besides, you look sweet when you sulk.” With that, she hurried away, her thin nightdress fluttering behind her.
The journey through the silent house to the corridor she had mentioned seemed endless.
They avoided broad spaces, empty rooms, and the stairwell, always keeping close to a wall and within reach of one another.
The moonlight hovered above them, casting a silver dome around them that made Elodie’s hair shimmer.
At last, they reached the short corridor that now led into nothingness. In a few weeks, the door would open onto a small balcony, but for now there was only a five-meter drop onto the heap of rubble that remained of the ballroom.
Will was about to close the double doors and seal off another chamber filled with shadows when he noticed the moonlight falling in long bands across the dusty subfloor.
A small smile touched the corner of his mouth, and he turned away, leaving the empty room and its silver treasure at his back.
Instead, he took his place beside Elodie at the far end of the corridor and stared at the only door leading into the stairwell beyond.
The minutes stretched on, filled with tense silence.
The shadow came first. It stood motionless in the doorway, snakes lapping around its feet and filling every dark corner and hollow until the entire corridor seemed alive. But the shadow merely stared at them, and Will felt as though he were looking into death itself.
Then footsteps sounded on the stairs. Slow and confident.