Chapter Twenty-Six Zephyra
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ZEPHYRA
I’m thinking suffocation,” Vesper says. “Choking on an apple core. I force it down your throat and hold your jaw shut.”
“I would like to pluck the hairs from your head—one by one. I’d start with your brows, your nose, your ears, and then I’d move on to your pretty scalp.”
“I do not have nose hairs,” Vesper hisses. “Now I’m thinking of slathering you in fish blood and hanging you over the Sol so krakens rip you from the lure.”
“Yes, well, I’d simply lock you inside a tavern. No fish blood required. You could just bore everyone to death, and then yourself.”
“I am not boring!”
“No, no. I’m sure they would adore hearing that one story about how you saw a gull pecking out the tendons of a severed thumb. Especially if you told it over and over and over again—”
“That story is interesting.”
“It’s disgusting, Vesper.” I throw a handful of wood splinters at Vesper through the bars of our separate enclosures.
After that ridiculous net snagged us, men in purple uniforms injected us with something that probably should’ve knocked us out—it did knock out Arion and Gavriall—but only gave Vesper and me wicked headaches, heavy limbs.
And then they separated us. They dragged Vesper and me to this damnable brig.
I sit with my legs crossed, my ass and the scraps of Arion’s shirt soaked with moisture from a thick, unnatural fog.
Every so often, the ship rocks on an uneasy breeze, and Vesper and I pitch backward.
Or forward. Or side to side. My stomach churns with nausea, my head light and dizzy from vertigo. I hate flying. I hate this place.
More than anything, I am sick of being sidetracked. And Arion is—
I swallow a frustrated shriek because I don’t know where Arion is. Our cord slithers into the strange fog, and I can’t feel anything through the bond. Not a thought or emotion or even a hint of the pain Arion always carries with him. It’s as if he’s just… gone.
I hurl a fish carcass at the bars of my cell, and the old bone crackles, sizzles, and then smokes immediately upon contact. The bars have an electric current running through them. We might die if we touch them for longer than a second.
We are fucking trapped.
My stomach churns. My head throbs.
Nothing has gone right since that grave robbery beneath Mortem’s Temple.
Exhaling heavily, I glance up at Vesper through the bars of our cells, and I force myself to look this time. To really see those shadows in her midnight-blue eyes. Those shadows look like Eos. They look like grief.
I never wanted it to be this way.
“Vesper.” I interrupt her rather colorful description of chopping me into little bits and feeding me to eels. She glances up from her dirtied nails, her gaze narrowed on my face. “About Eos…”
Her entire body convulses at the sound of her sister’s name, and she shakes her head fiercely. “No.”
My throat tightens, and I wipe sweaty palms on my dirty legs. Because we need to do this. We need to discuss this before it’s too late. “But—”
She climbs onto her knees. “I don’t want to hear you say her name.”
“We might die, Vesper. Everyone in the world is after me now—including the High Sorcerer. There’s a chance I…
” I swallow hard. Again and again. Until I realize I’m not swallowing at all.
I’m hyperventilating, and pressure burns behind my eyes.
There’s a chance I’ll die, I want to say.
There’s a chance I can’t outrun this, can’t survive this.
But those words won’t move up my throat.
They won’t slip off my tongue. As if speaking them will directly manifest them into reality.
I turn toward her, curling my legs into my chest. Wrapping my arms around them as if I might protect myself from her wrath.
“I’m a cat, Vesper. I’m on my tenth life, and this—this might be it.
It might be the only moment we actually share together.
I never meant for Eos to be hurt. I’m so… so sorry.”
“Oh?” Her gaze flashes, darkens with true rage.
From navy to murderous black. “Then why didn’t you steal the key, Zephyra?
Why did you make Eos climb through that vent when you know her shoulder is—was”—Vesper’s voice cracks—“injured. You knew there was a chance she wouldn’t fit, yet you expected her to go down there anyway.
And when the guards came, what did you do? ”
I don’t respond. How can I?
Vesper isn’t content with my silence though. She will not let me run from this. “What did you do?!”
My jaw clenches. I can hardly see through the sudden burn of tears. “I saved myself.”
She screamed for me, Zephyra. Her last words—screaming my name. All while I was in the fucking dark because you ran.
Vesper laughs at that—a dry, defeated sound. And with it, her shoulders slump. Her head shakes. Closing her eyes, she drags a hand across her heartsick face before it hardens again, and she levels me with another glare. “And what a fantastic job, Zephyra. You seem really safe now, don’t you?”
As if to prove her point, the ship tips like a teapot.
Too steep. Too fast. Vesper and I both cry out, fighting to steady ourselves against the near-violent turn.
But my legs are slick with squid blood and ink, and my hands are damp from the moisture in the air.
I can’t steady myself. The ship continues on its side, and I fall. Down. Down.
Right into the bars.
The electric current lights me up from the inside out.
Boils the blood in my veins as I struggle to crawl away.
As I struggle to do anything but spasm. Even as the ship rights itself, I can’t move.
My muscles seize. Another cry mangles my throat.
Vesper leaps to her feet, shooting closer, but she can’t touch the bars.
She can’t free herself and pull me away.
Instead, she screams, “Hey, assholes! If you want to kill us, there are easier ways!”
No one responds, and I can’t—I can’t—
“Zephyra, move,” she hisses.
For some reason, it’s enough. The command hardens my bones.
Zephyra, move. Zephyra, move. Zephyra, move.
I claw at the wooden floorboards. Slide away quickly, brutally, as splinters burrow into my skin.
Vomit stings my mouth as my heart thunders.
As my vision darkens and my head swims. I collapse in the middle of my cell and spew bile onto the floor.
Vesper hands clench into fists as she watches me. “Fucking Tempest.”
I dry heave. “You… think—”
“Oh, I know. Tempest humans are the only ones in the world—aside from warlocks—who could possibly control the weather. And these people… they didn’t have wings.”
I try to breathe, to ground myself, to feel the damp wood beneath my body. No. These people had syringes. Nets. Lightning. Spitting the foul taste from my mouth, I glance up at her. “Tell me you don’t want to die here.”
She glares at the clouds above us. Still thundering. Crackling. “Of course I don’t want to die here.”
“Good.” I force myself to nod, to think. I can’t bring Eos back on my own. I can’t promise Vesper the moon and stars like the sorcerer, and there is nothing I can say to heal her. I push upright, muscles still spasming, and hold her gaze. “We don’t need to be friends to get out of here, Vesper.”
Her attention snaps back to me. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we escape. And whatever happens afterward…” I shrug coolly, as if guilt isn’t gnawing away at me. As if regret isn’t pummeling me in the goddess-damned ribs. “We’ve run enough jobs together. No one is better than you in a fight, and no one thinks as fast as I do. If there is a door—”
“There’s a way out,” she finishes with a sigh. “I remember.”
“So?”
“So I’m debating whether I trust you.” Vesper runs her fingers through her hair, brushing the lustrous silver from her shoulders before shaking her head again.
Cursing. “Fine, but I’m still taking you to the sorcerer at the end of this, Zephyra.
I’m getting my sister back. If we break out of this brig, I’m not letting you run off into the sunset. You owe me, and I’m going to collect.”
The scars along my body burn at her words. Panic claws at my throat, but I force it back down. Force myself to breathe, to focus. Vesper has no idea who she’s dealing with, but I do. “He won’t bring her back, Vesper. I swear to you—”
“I’m done with your promises,” Vesper says.
“You’ve a tongue like a sea serpent.” She cracks her neck and rolls her shoulders then.
Her eyes gleam brighter with anticipation now, reflecting the lightning from above.
She bares her teeth in a hard smile. “But I’m not dying on this ship.
We escape together, and then your ass is mine. ”
Fuck, I think.
“Fine,” I agree.
And just as we did weeks ago, Vesper and I begin planning our next con.