She clutches my hands as I pick the manacles, her breath coming loudly in the dark.
The dark.
She hates that I know this, but she always sleeps with a faint light because she’s afraid of the dark.
“Did Malechus talk you into these shackles, or did he actually fool you? Because I’m going to be very disappointed if you fell prey to the crown prince of the Blood Court,” I tell her in a conversational tone.
“How did you find me?” she snaps. “What are you doing here? You were in the—”
“Abyss?” I finally get the second lock open. “Apparently Father was getting a little concerned that you weren’t checking in. He sent me in to finish what you started.”
“What I started?” I can’t see her in the dark, but I know her head just whipped toward me. The movement throws me forward until I have a knee in her thigh. “But you’re not….”
“Not what?”
“Goddess’s breath, are you done?” she grinds out. “There’s not enough air in here for two.”
I was hoping she’d spill her secret mission, but it appears she’s starting to think again.
“I’m done.” I slip the lockpick back into my belt and curl up against her side. “Just how much do you want to get out of here?”
“What do you mean?” And then she stills. “How did you intend to get me out?”
“That’s the problem. I can’t lift the lid—”
“Zemira.”
“Just hold still. Really still.” I let my body relax, melting into shadows. But this time, I hold myself right on the edge between corporeal and incorporeal.
Falion did it.
He took Mistmark into the Sift—an act I’d previously believed was impossible. And while Mistmark didn’t look too happy about it, I have to presume he was still in one piece when he arrived.
“Don’t you dare.” Soraya stiffens. “Zemira. Zemira! Have you ever done this before?”
“Sshh.”
The bond between us flickers to light. There. There she is. I feel her flesh, feel her breath in her lungs, her heart racing. I sense her eyes going wide, and then I plunge us both into the Between.
A single second that stretches to an eternity.
I don’t think I could do this if we weren’t bound by blood.
We burst onto the flagstones of the grotto floor, and Soraya scrambles out of my arms, whipping a knife into her hand and staring at me with wild eyes. It’s one of her little tricks: It doesn’t matter whether she’s been unarmed, she can always Summon a weapon when she needs to.
“What the fuck did you just do?”
Her words are a slap in the face. So much for the warm welcome, the gratitude. “I’m fairly certain I just rescued you.”
“Rescued me?”
Soraya’s stern façade lasts all of a half second, before she’s paling. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
And then the staggers for the nearest statue and vomits behind it.
“So Malechus got the jump on you, huh?” I rub her back after she spends fifteen minutes retching into an urn. I hauled her into the hallway and well away from the grotto before Malechus could deal with his fire. Now we’re sitting in some underground room somewhere, that might have once been a cellar. “You got sloppy.”
Soraya sits back on her heels, scrubbing at her mouth. “If I didn’t still feel like I’d been turned inside-out and then put back together again, I would punch you.”
“Please. You’d have to catch me first. And you can’t even do that when you’re at your best. Also, you’re welcome. I saved your ass. I’ll accept any favors and gratitude you can throw my way.”
Soraya shoots me a murderous look.
The last time we confronted each other, she was glamored to look like me as she tried to drive her knife into Keir’s chest and steal the amulet around his throat. We both thought it was the relic our father was looking for, and she double-crossed me at the last second.
It’s not the first time.
It won’t be the last.
And yet, despite everything, it’s good to see her again. She’s the one constant in my life, and even if we’re often at odds, if some outside force wants to harm one of us, he’ll have the other to deal with.
“You look better than I would have expected, considering you were in the Abyss for three months,” she says gruffly.
“You look like shit.”
Soraya shudders. “Some asshole just pulled me straight through a stone sarcophagus. All I can taste is bile and granite. What did you expect?”
“My abject apologies. The only person I know who might be able to lift the lid probably has you high on his kill-on-sight list. I went with the only option I thought might be able to work.”
At that, her gaze sharpens. “What are you doing here? Who are you with? What does Father want?”
“What he always wants. A means to break the curse. He wants the Horn of Shadows. And I’m here with Prince Keir—”
“Keir?” She actually pales a little.
I can’t resist a smile. “Nearly seven feet of furious, slightly-territorial fae prince? You might remember him from that time you tried to cut his heart out of his chest. He certainly remembers it.”
“And you’re working with him?”
“He wants the horn too. It seemed an easy way to get into the Court of Blood.”
“Yes, because that’s exactly what I’d call him—easy. Cauldron’s piss,” she growls, “were you even thinking? What were you going to do? Use him to get in, bat your lashes at him a few times and then double cross him the second you caught a glimpse of the horn? Because I’m fairly certain that’s how you played it last time, and as far as I recall, it left you hanging in chains in the Abyss. He’s not going to fall for the same ruse. I don’t even think he fell for it the first time.”
My conscience chooses that moment to replay the look Keir gave me the second he realized I wasn’t there to become his bride—but to betray him.
I’ve taken a knife to
