I wasn’t sure he was right about that at all. Then again, I’d been able to feel each of the guys in ways they couldn’t seem to sense each other.
I turned to look at the three of them. “She’s coming for us. I’m sure of it. But I don’t . . . I don’t have any sort of basis to judge our odds or hers. I don’t know what she’s up against in the prison here, what kind of traps she could face. I don’t know how many people Frost has helping her. I don’t know anything. That makes it hard to calculate odds.”
A gong sounded through the prison and the depth of the sound shook me all the way to my bones, rattling inside my chest.
I closed my eyes, and my magic rose around me in an instant to protect me, only to be doused as if I’d been dunked into an ice bath. I gasped, my eyes flying open. I dared to reach for my magic again, and the result was the same. Nothing.
Shivering, I wrapped one arm around my body. “I’m blocked. I can’t even feel the dead in here.”
Gregory lifted a hand and then stumbled backward, his skin paling. “Me either. Damn, that’s cold.”
I let go of Pete to rub my arms. I turned my back to them to stare at the wall again. Not because it was so amazing, but because I couldn’t figure out how it had been made. Something had been woven through the natural material to create the wall, but who in the five houses had this kind of connection with earth and stone? “Gregory,” I said, “what was it you and Professor Ash were doing back in the House of Wonder? Didn’t you both use a connection to the earth . . .” I trailed off as I turned.
The boys were gone.
And I was all alone in a box of smooth walls without even a door to bang on. I backed up and leaned against the wall, sliding down until my butt was on the floor.
A wash of fatigue rolled upward from the soles of my feet to the top of my head, where the magic that had wrapped around me tingled.
My strength was being pulled from me, just like Frost had done to the other kids during the Culling Trials.
Which meant we were on a countdown until death came for each of us.
I slumped to the side until I was lying on the floor, not attempting to fight it, conserving my energy, even as I reached for Wild through the connection.
“Come on, Wild. The chances are stupid, the odds are broken. We need your brand of wild magic more than ever before.”
My last thought as my strength was sucked away from me was simple and held every hope in my heart.
We needed her to save us.
13
Wild
I stared at the Shadowkiller, my uncle Nicholas, though I had a hard time thinking of the tall asshole as family. Behind us was the rubble of the House of Shade. Or, if Ash was right, the House of Shadows at one point. I wasn’t going to waste any time lamenting the fact that it had been destroyed, or that people had died there, or even that I was in seriously deep shit.
“How do I know you’re going to hold to your end of the deal?” I said as my feet touched the ground.
His smile was immediate. “Well, that’s very easy. You don’t. I mean, I wouldn’t trust another Chameleon, certainly not one like me. But you don’t have much of a choice, now, do you? And so, we go on, and that is how this will be.”
What the hell was I supposed to say to that little confession? It lined up with what Gordy had said—that all Chameleons were banana-pants crazy. But why? Was it the power? The kind of magic?
“What drove you crazy?” I asked the question before I thought better of it.
Nicholas shrugged and then smiled again, which he promptly followed up with a wink. “That’s easy, I know exactly what, but the story is long, and I do believe that your friends are in great danger. Correct? Frost is feeding off them. Drinking deeply as her vampire taught her to do when stealing someone else’s life. They have hours, at best, probably less.”
“Frost has put them in the prison.” I bit the words out. “Ruby helped her, so did Helix.”
The father, and maybe the son.
Ash stretched his wings. “The Helix family has deeper ties to all of this than any of us realized. Before this is over, all secrets will be outed, all confessions made. All judgments passed.”
Nicholas nodded and turned to take in the debris that had been an academy at one point. “The houses are intrinsically twined together, but those at the top wish to be separate, and that creates a dissonance felt throughout our world.”
I arched a brow at Ash, who gave the slightest of shrugs.
“You mean there’s a disturbance in the force?” I offered.
Nicholas laughed softly and brushed a hand across his jaw. “Something like that. An imbalance. A bending of magic that was never meant to be. It has created . . . problems. The servants. The power structure. The houses no longer working together. The sickness affecting our world.”
“You mean problems like crazy-ass Chameleons?” I shook my head. “Look, none of this matters right now. What matters is my friends are stuck in that damn prison with Frost. The deal is you will help me get them out, so how about we get on that, okay?”
Nicholas did turn and look at me then. “What makes you think she ever made it to the prison? Because someone said she was taken there?”
My heart sank, even though I knew truth when I heard it. “Seriously? They couldn’t even get her into a damn prison cell? She was all tied up by the Sandman himself!”
“She has been—for some time—working with the House of Wonder.”
Nicholas went on. “They are tied to her through Helix and Daniella. Both of whom are incidentally two of the pets she draws off. I believe Helix was to offer up his son as the next in line.” Nicholas held up his hand and little bursts of blue light danced over his fingertips as he flicked them out one at a time. “One, to one, to one. They are all connected. But I cannot see all the threads that bind them, and it’s frustrating. Perhaps I should just wipe the rest of that house out.”
Holy shit. Holy damn horse shit. My brain was on fire with the implications. Of Ethan being on our crew. Of him being attacked and dying at the end of the Culling Trials. Had that been a test of me and my crew, or had it been something deeper? Had it been punishment for Mr. Helix for not doing something he should have, like handing his son over? A shudder worked its way through me. In the Culling Trials, there hadn’t been time for politics, only basic survival. Now . . .
“I see on your face you understand at least some of the implications,” Ash said. “It is why, despite his methods, I stay with Nicholas. He may be the most dangerous Chameleon our world has seen, but in his own way, he is trying to better this place. As I can see you are too.”
“He killed a whole bunch of people. For no reason. Not self-defense. Not a battle or a war. Just because he could.” I pointed at my uncle. Damn, I still didn’t like the idea that we were related. Even though it was fairly obvious based on his appearance. I was doing my best not to think about the whole Chameleon connection. I did not need to add ‘going crazy’ to my growing list of problems.
“Of course, I had reason.” Nicholas drew himself up. “They were working for Frost and they were doing things they should not have. The Ice Queen, I sometimes call her if I want to irritate her, was working hard even when I was in the academy to start her rise to the top.” And damn it if his eyes didn’t sparkle like Tommy’s used to whenever he was about to do something he shouldn’t.