Chapter 43
FORTY-THREE
Scars are maps. Treat them as such.
ALISTAIR
I spit the veydra’s disgusting blood on the ground and drag my sleeve across my mouth. The taste is foul. Nothing like my blood circle. The rest of the veydran stare at me in shock, glancing between my fangs and my hands—which are very much not chained—before rushing into action.
Several of them switch to bigger bodies, bulking right in front of our eyes.
Hands land on my back. They’re wrenched away when Celine kicks my attacker in the gut. His ribs audibly crack as he flies fifteen feet before hitting the ground. He doesn’t get back up.
Half a dozen veydran run away. Luca petrifies the ones who don’t.
Shouts sound, echoing loudly across the flat, frozen ground. Bloody hell. If the monsters in the forest didn’t already spread the word of our sighting, everyone will know now.
Black dots appear in the distance. They get bigger by the second.
I rush to the smoldering fire, dragging Ciprian with me.
“It’s one of these rocks?” I wince at the heat rolling off the stones.
Riven drops to his knees. “Grab on to me,” he shouts.
Celine’s fingers curl around his forearm, but her face is creased with worry. “You’ll burn yourself.”
More shouts. Louder this time.
The group racing toward us is large, made up of veydran and monsters. The monsters outpace their two-legged counterparts, running on four and—godsdamn, me—six legs as they eat up the distance between us.
“I don’t have a choice,” Riven says grimly.
He grabs a stone, hisses, and tosses it down. I smell burning flesh and stop breathing through my nose. His fingers curl around another. Again, nothing happens. He drops it, leaving a pink stain on its surface. His fingers are shaking.
“There’s got to be another—”
“It’s fine,” Riven snaps. He grabs the third stone, and my shoulders sag with relief when I feel the telltale tug behind my navel.
The shouts fade as we’re snatched away from the clearing. A kaleidoscope of lights flashes across the inside of my eyelids, and my stomach returns forcibly to my body, flipping wildly as I return to myself and nearly face-plant.
Our final stop before the portal is indoors. I think the room is lit by a warm, buttery glow coming from the corners, but it’s hard to be sure while everything is spinning. I stumble, and my cheek smacks into something brittle and spicy.
“Watch out for the herbs,” Riven snaps.
When my vision clears, I realize the whole room is filled with hanging plants. Tied to lines of thread that are attached to the walls, the herbs make the whole room smell floral and grass-like.
“Wow,” Ciprian mutters. “All that’s missing is a cauldron.”
“Speak carefully, or you’ll be the next thing strung up in here,” Riven says.
Testy. I roll my eyes, then catch a whiff of his blood and focus on his hand. The skin is raw and angry. It’s got to be excruciating.
“Is there anything in here that can help with that?” Celine asks, glancing from the dangling plants to his burned hand.
He shakes his head. “It’s nothing.”
Celine frowns. “It’s fried, Riven. Only an idiot would call that nothing.”
“She’s not here,” he mutters, ignoring her entirely. “She should be here.”
“We can wait for her,” Celine says. “We won’t leave Hyacinth behind.”
I glance at my feet and bite my tongue. The young witch was instrumental in our plans, but I’m not prepared to be captured again because she couldn’t keep track of time. Unless . . . “Could she have been taken?” I ask.
From the tense silence I get in response, I’m guessing that’s exactly why Riven is angry. Footsteps thump outside the door, much too heavy for a teenage girl. Everyone stiffens.
“Stay still.” Ciprian grabs Luca’s wrist as he lunges for the door.
It swings open, and no one breathes.
A hulking figure looms in the doorway; his scarred face twisted in a ferocious scowl. Lines bracket his eyes and mouth, deep and harsh. They’re the kind of lines that tell me he makes this hideous expression a lot.
“I told you,” Hyacinth snaps. “There’s no one here but you and your ridiculous suspicions.”
The veydra snorts, peering into the room and wrinkling his nose at the plants. “You’re only safe here because of who protects you, little witch. You’d be smart to remember that.”
“Thanks for telling me,” Hyacinth says sarcastically. “I’ll make sure to write it in my diary so I won’t forget. Anything else?”
Frozen in place and hidden by Ciprian’s magic, I marvel at her boldness. To face off against a man twice her size . . . the witch has balls, I’ll give her that.
The hulking veydra laughs without humor, then sneers at her. “If he’s not here, that means he’s left you behind. Enjoy your last few hours of peace, little witch; they won’t last.”
A new strain of blood hits my nose. Ciprian’s. My hands curl. He’s overextending himself. There are limits to every supernatural’s power, and we’re hovering on the edge of his. He could do permanent damage if he doesn’t stop.
Celine tenses at my side. Then the guard leaves, dragging the witch after him.
Ciprian’s nightmare drops. Instead of disappearing without notice like it usually does, it rakes down my mind, bristles from a broom. I shudder.
“We’ve got to get her,” Celine says. “We’ve got to get her now before he takes her somewhere harder to break into.”
Riven heads for the door, followed by Malach.
I shove them both out of the way and yank it open.
I don’t have Ciprian’s magic, Luca’s death stare, Malach’s battle training, or Celine’s strength, but I’m faster than all of them, and I won’t lose a wink of sleep about killing this guy.
My legs move so quickly that I barely feel them. The world thickens, sounds morph into a single note, and colors smear like fingers through wet paint as I slice through the door and onto the wraparound balcony.
The cold air slaps my exposed cheeks, but I don’t stop.
Ahead, the witch is fighting the guard with everything she’s got, but his grip on her wrist is tight. When he pulls his fist back to hit her, white-hot rage rolls through me, and I move even faster, feet blurring on the icy wooden planks.
He stops.
Turns to look over his shoulder.
But he’s too slow.
I snap his fucking neck, turning his face where it belongs: away from the kid.
His entire body glitches and warps before shrinking into a small, wrinkled old man, his skin waxy and spotted with age. His true form. Gods, what a lie.
Shifters return to their main form when they die, losing connection to their shift.
But hiding behind a mountain of stolen muscle and using it to threaten a teenage girl . . . I have no pity for him. Scoffing, I kick him off the balcony, cloak and all. Even though he falls thirty feet and lands on frozen ground, he barely makes a sound when he hits.
The witch squeaks. I smile at her, then remember my face is covered in blood and wince. “I won’t hurt you, but we’ve got to move fast.”
I hoist her over my shoulder before she can scream and run back into the cabin filled with herbs. The charms and twigs in her hair rattle as I place her carefully on her feet.
“What the hell, Ali?” Celine hisses. “We talked about going off book. It was your rule, for fuck’s sake!”
I roll my eyes. “She’s here and unhurt, isn’t she?”
“Where’s Barthol?” Riven asks.
“Is that the bag of bones I just threw off the balcony?”
Hyacinth nods.
“I killed him.” I shrug. “Snapped his neck and tossed him off the porch. Ciprian, are you okay?” I lift his chin and narrow my eyes at him. He’s wiped away the blood from his nosebleed, but the pink stain above his lips confirms I wasn’t imagining things.
“I’m fine.” He bats my hand away, black eyes flashing with annoyance.
“No, that was too much,” Celine tells him. “No more nightmares unless it’s an emergency.”
Ciprian forces a smile and nods, and I roll my eyes. He was ready to bite my head off for checking on him, but he caves for Celine without complaint. Such a suck-up.
I stare at the rest of them expectantly. Malach is guarding the door, and Luca has his ear pressed to the seam. It’s the best we can do right now, but we can’t stay here.
Riven turns to the girl. “Are you okay?”
She waves his concern away, drops to her knees, and pries up a floorboard, humming under her breath as she works her fingers into the crack.
I shake my head. Apparently, hiding spots have a lot in common, no matter what realm or species creates them. I had a loose board when I was a kid too. Languishing in loneliness on Mum’s estate, I longed for someone to find my angry journals.
At least then I might have gotten some attention.
Hyacinth pulls a small bag from the hole and slings it over her shoulder. “I’m ready.”
“Do you have the final stone?” Celine asks.
The witch nods, then shoots a side glance at Malach. He’s abandoned the door in favor of staring out the only window. Glazed with ice on the outside and cloudy with age on the inside—he can’t see through the frosted pane of glass, but he doesn’t seem aware of that.
His stillness chills me, but I can’t quite put my finger on why.
I’ll have to watch him.
We can’t have more mistakes.
If he becomes a liability, I’ll be ready.