CHAPTER TWELVE
“There is only one thing I require in return,” the councilman went on.
I went still at the mention of a condition. A cocked brow was the only response I could muster. He might have given me a place to stay those first days. He might have given me food, and space, and bought me a flat with money that probably wasn’t his. But I still had little interest in his requests.
That crushing band of pressure snaked back around my chest the moment we rode through the gate the next afternoon.
I combed the wall as I dismounted Glacier, triple-checking my guard count as I’d ridden in.
Six again. I pivoted to pass the reins to a stable hand but instead got an eyeful of bronze skin and black leather.
A flippant tip of his shoulder, and he jabbed a dart into my neck.
I slapped my hand over the sharp sting. “You rat bastard.” Ironweb’s unbreachable veil caged my fire.
Griffon turned to a female gargoyle waiting by the gate. “Search her. She has annuleaf.”
She strode up to me and waited. I shucked off my cloak and flung it at her.
“And search her room,” he tossed over his shoulder.
Another guard peeled himself off the wall and jogged up the front steps.
“You’re wasting your time,” I growled at them. “I used the last of it in case you’d come to jab me with that sadistic drug yesterday.”
Something that almost looked like sympathy tore across his expression before he buried it. “Unfortunate for you. The bargain I struck with the Archon was that, in exchange for seeing the flock, we’d try Lakuro again before your shift.”
My breath died in my throat. “When?”
“Two days. We will use a memory with the flock to practice Lakesh today and tomorrow.”
The woman searched me, her fingers quick and efficient as she ran them over every inch of my clothes. I’m leaving before then. I’m leaving. I’m leaving. I repeated it over and over again in my head, but I still couldn’t control my wild breathing or darting gaze.
Griffon’s eyes softened a fraction. “You have no idea how brutal the first shift is. The better prepared you are, the easier it will be on you.”
“I’ll help you through it, too,” Laney said softly, her delicate face pinched with distaste. “I promise.”
I ignored them both and forced my attention to the woman kneeling at my feet. “Satisfied?” I snapped, as she trailed her fingers along the bottom hem of my pants. I barely noticed Alexei leading his twin away.
She ignored me, too. “She doesn’t have any on her,” she declared as she turned back to Griffon.
The second guard darted out of the front doors and jogged back to us. “We didn’t find anything. But the Archon has instructed that she be moved to a different room, regardless.”
The weight of those words almost sent me to my knees. But I straightened my spine and kept my face neutral as I stared Griffon down. “You’re a fool if you think a couple birds could ever draw me out of those hellish visions. Especially when you were involved.”
His jaw feathered, those rich, mahogany eyes narrowing to slits. “Then I guess we’ve both got another miserable day ahead of us.”
He pinned me with a shrewd stare and gauged my reaction. He had to believe I was out of annuleaf. If they moved me too far from my original room, I was.
Real fear thrashed in my chest and I allowed every ounce of it to flood my expression. “You can’t do this to me,” I snarled. “You have no right!”
My four usual guards moved to close around me and I darted. One of them snagged the back of my armor. My momentum screeched to a halt and I smacked the ground, my ass screaming its protest at the impact.
“Are you finished?” Griffon’s voice was so bored it made me want to scream.
I scrambled to my feet. “No! You have no idea what I went through!”
His throat bobbed with a heavy swallow. He dropped his stare to a spot on the ground. “Yeah. I do.”
“Then don’t do this!” I screeched.
One of my guards snorted. “Scared of a little jab?” he taunted.
Both our gazes snapped to him. Mine wasn’t the only one that narrowed. “It is distilled fear, you fucking idiot,” I spat. “So yes, I’m afraid.”
Griffon’s gaze slid back to mine. “It’s not my decision.” He almost sounded like he cared. “Let’s go.” He reached for my arm, but I jerked away. He sighed. “Same choice I gave you before. You can walk or I’ll drag you.”
“Then drag me,” I snarled. “Because there is more dignity in that than willingly submitting to this—this dehumanizing bullshit!”
He only shrugged. Smoke snaked around my ankles and bound my wrists, then curled around my biceps in a surprisingly gentle embrace.
The bastard turned his back and stalked toward the castle.
The bands around my arms tugged me after him like a cart attached to a damned horse.
As we passed through the front doors, the toes of my boots began squeaking against the stone floor.
The mortifying screech echoed through the corridors the entire way back to the human rooms, my heart hammering as he turned into the long hall.
By the grace of whichever god took pity on my pathetic situation, Griffon stopped at the door beside my old one.
He set me on my feet and the smoke fled back to its master, every inch of it caressing my skin as it uncoiled. I threw open the door and stalked into the room.
“Get cleaned up and I’ll be back in an hour. I promise I will do everything I can to help y—”
“I don’t need your help to think about something I just saw. Leave me alone.” I slammed the door in his face.
I stormed off the balcony a couple hours later and snagged a tall, slender carving of a tree off the nightstand beside the bed.
I slammed it down on the mattress, pouring every ounce of the white-hot anger that seared my veins into the blow.
A very unsatisfying thud was my only reward.
I plowed it into the mattress until the urge to scream slowly ebbed away.
I tossed the tree onto the bed and shook out my burning arms. My mind was clear of the red haze that had blanketed every thought not two minutes ago.
“I suddenly understand children,” I muttered. I rubbed tired, burning eyes, and returned to the balcony.
Two tied-together sheets lay heaped on the ground, a leg off a table by the hearth tied to one end.
I sucked in a lungful of frigid air and shucked off the heavy cloak I’d worn to the phoenixes.
My knuckles turned white as I clasped the edge of the railing and stared down the balcony of my original room.
“You need to find where they keep the records. Tonight,” I coached myself.
“Because there won’t be time before you leave this hideous place tomorrow.
Which means you need to throw this stupid little stick between those stupid little bars.
” I drew another deep breath and fought the resurgence of two hours’ worth of rage at missing. Repeatedly.
I snatched the table leg off the ground and leaned over the railing. After a second’s calculation, I flung it into open space. It soared cleanly between two bars. “Finally,” I breathed, and jerked the sheet back. The leg wedged flush against the bars, and I tied off my end.
I stepped back and eyed my handiwork. My lips pursed. If my weight pulled out any of the three knots, I’d plummet ten stories to the bone-crushing ground below. But I’d be damned if I sat quietly and waited for them to torture me again, and the bedroom door wasn’t exactly an option.
No. I was finding their secrets and getting the hell out of here.
I draped a second set of knotted-together linens over my shoulders. They about smothered me as I fumbled my way over the railing and held on for dear life. I rammed my eyes shut, my head spinning. “It’s just a few feet to the ground. Just a feeeeew feet.”
A sheen of sweat coated my hands despite the freezing temperature. I rubbed them one at a time down my clothes, my rapid breaths making the dizziness even worse.
I peeled my eyes open and forced my swimming vision to focus on the balcony across from me.
My fingers cramped around the burnished iron as I tested my weight on the sheet.
The knots held. Before I could coward my way back into the room, I turned around and crouched down.
With one last breath, I forced my feet off the balcony’s edge and dangled by nothing but my death grip on the rails.
I transferred my hands to the sheet, twisted around, and started shimmying across.
“One hand over the other. That’s all it is. ”
My heart was floundering by the time my fingers closed around iron again. I hauled myself over the edge and flopped to the ground. Cold and adrenaline set my muscles trembling so fiercely the bastards in the hall had to feel it in their boots.
I hauled myself up and trailed my fingers along the crack where I’d stashed the annuleaf.
The balled-up sprig was barely visible in the moonlight, but it sucked at me like gravity.
My jaw feathered as I peeled my fingers off the crack and turned to the next railing. Tomorrow. I would take it tomorrow.
I unwound the line of tied-together clothes from my neck and threaded it through the bars. Once the second table leg was butted up against the bottom, I forced myself over the railing.
“Tick tock, you damned coward.” I closed my eyes and wriggled my way down. My feet hit iron and I clambered onto solid ground. A triumphant smile consumed my face—until I remembered I had to get back up. And do it all again tomorrow. The smile vanished. “Fuck.”
I jabbed the edge of my fist beside the thin trickle of used-to-be-door-handles that covered the seam of the balcony doors and was met with a tinny, metallic snap.
“Locked doors: zero. Lyd…a lot,” I muttered.