A footstep sounded behind me. Ethan’s energy touched me first and then his hand on my arm. “You okay? Did she hit you with her blades?”
“Not this time,” I said, unable to take my eyes from the place she’d been just a moment before. I made myself walk forward and look over the edge. The black of the rocks and the water far below didn’t show me anything. She was gone, but I’d have bet my last knife she wasn’t dead.
17
You know that moment in the horror movie where you know that it’s a total and complete setup? That moment you’re yelling at the screen for the characters to run away? Yeah, get ready for it.
I stepped forward, eyes on the door while I motioned for the others to follow me. I put a hand on the door that led into the massive, stark prison, and it opened with barely a push. It wasn’t locked. It wasn’t even shut. Nor was there a spell on it, or a monster waiting for me. This place was basically an open invitation to said horror show ahead of us.
Just peachy.
“You know, if our friends weren’t in here, this would be a terrible idea,” I said.
Ethan handed me my backpack, and I pulled my trusty-ish flashlight out before I slid the bag back on.
“It’s a terrible idea no matter who is in there,” he said.
Holding the light up, I flicked it through the first room, the dim beam landing on solid black walls without a single visible doorway. “No lights? Not very original,” I muttered, my voice echoing down the long dark hallway. And then it echoed back to me, distorting into a weird hiccupping laugh that was not my own.
Ethan pressed a little closer to me, and I didn’t care that I did the same with him.
If I were to guess, I’d say vampire. I flicked the light upward, unable to see the ceiling or, what would have been worse, a vampire hanging from the ceiling. I did not need a repeat of my old friend Barnaby creepy crawling toward me. The walls seemingly shot straight up the entire four stories without a single thing to break up the monotony of the black stone.
Ethan held up his wand, the tip glowing and giving off a faint light. “You want to hear better news?”
“Shit, why not?” I said.
“Ash and the Shadowkiller slipped away while you were fighting Ruby.”
I turned and flicked the light toward the doors behind us. “And here I’d thought they were just being slow.”
There was no part of me that wasn’t on guard now.
“I really meant it was better,” Ethan said as he stepped in time with me, making our way down the hall. “You aren’t dumb enough to think he’s on our side. Tell me your brains didn’t leak out since the Culling Trials.”
I didn’t so much as look at him, just kept my eyes on the space in front of us. “There you are. I thought I’d lost the real you to your emotions. Glad to see I was wrong.”
“What?”
“Ash said they’d slip away at some point to distract the guards. Until I see evidence otherwise, I’m going to assume that’s what they’re doing.” I kept my voice low, and even then, it still echoed a little.
I kept scanning the place we were in, looking for the inevitable traps. It wasn’t until I looked down at the tiles below our feet that I saw them. I grabbed Ethan, stopping him in his tracks. “Don’t move.”
He froze and I bent to brush a hand over the slightly raised tile just ahead of him. I’d noticed the way the edge of it reflected as my light swept over it. “Get behind me. I’ll lead, you follow. Last thing we need is you setting off a booby trap.”
“I do like the view,” he said under his breath as I stepped out around the tile and in front of him. “Nice . . . jeans.”
“Not the time, Ethan.” I moved forward and let myself fully open up to the connection between me and my friends. Gregory was the closest—unsurprising given the way I’d been able to borrow his abilities—so I followed the pull toward him.
That sensation of Gregory in my head took me past several more raised tiles in the floor. I swept the flashlight repeatedly across the checked floor, avoiding stepping on any of them.
Go me.
I stopped against the far right side of the wall and leaned my head up against it. No, that wasn’t quite right. I crouched and put my hand on the floor. “They put Gregory in the floor?”
Ethan stood behind me, his back to the wall. “Any idea on how to get him out?”
I snorted. “Any idea why we haven’t run into more problems?”
All the questions and no answers.
His swallow was audible. “A trap.”
Yeah, that was exactly what I was thinking. “Better that we move quickly, then.” I stepped back and pointed at the tile below us. “Can you blast it?”
He blinked. “Seriously?”
“It’s not like they don’t know we’re here, and we’re just wasting time by going slow at this point,” I said.
Ethan stepped back, and I grabbed hold of him as his heel brushed against one of the many raised tiles. “No better ideas?”
“None that are quick,” I said and put my fingers to my ears as he raised his wand.
“Lavium braken!” He snapped the words, and I committed them to memory along with the counter-clockwise swirl he did with his wand. The tip of his wand glowed a deeper red, and instead of blasting out as I’d thought it would, the wand dripped magic off in a ruby red fiery droplet. The droplet fell and landed on the tile with a plop.
Hissing and snapping, the magic ate through the tile, spreading outward like a virus eating away at the building itself.
A booming alarm ripped through the air, breaking the silence. I peered down into the hole.
Chains hung from the underside of the floor to at least fifty feet below. Smack in the middle of them, bound hand and foot, was Gregory, his blond head barely visible under all the chains.
Ethan grabbed my arm as I stepped closer to the opening. “Don’t touch the edges of the magic. It’ll spread on anything it touches until the power recedes. Remember that.”
I shrugged out of my backpack. “Wait here. I’ll climb down and get him.” I handed Ethan my pack. “Kill anything that comes this way, unless it’s Ash and Nicholas.”
“Who the hell is Nicholas? Is that the Shadowkiller?”
Right, he only knew him as the Shadowkiller. I threw him a grin, knowing this would throw him off. “My uncle.” I hopped out into the open space and fell for a beat before I reached out and grabbed one of the chains.
“What the hell?” he shouted after me.
For just a moment I was freefalling, I felt . . . light. Beyond all logic, I felt convinced we were going to get our friends out of there. That we’d get the hell away from the prison and, better yet, away from Frost.
Mind you, there was that little promise I’d made to the Shadowkiller. Uncle Nicholas.
I gritted my teeth as I worked across the chains, swinging to get closer to Gregory.
The buzzing of bees worked its way into my ears, and I slowed, my hands and legs wrapped around one long chain. “What the hell is that?” I said more to myself than to Gregory. But he heard me.
His head jerked up, and I saw his mouth was stuffed with a gag. But a thought came through loud and clear from him, frantic. Intense.