Hardest thing I ever had to do was see the three of them square off and not try to fix this between them. Ethan took a deep breath. “You’re right, Gregory. And I was raised to see all the houses as less than the House of Wonder. I don’t know how I can convince you that a lot of how I acted was pushed on me. To keep myself safe.”
Pete drew in a deep breath. “He doesn’t smell like he’s lying.”
Gregory put his hands on his hips, like a miniature Peter Pan. “What about your father?”
“I cut ties with him.” His hand drifted to his shoulder, where he’d taken away the spell that had controlled him. “Wild is right. I didn’t want to hurt Colt. My father . . . the best way to describe it is like being a puppet. I had no say in what happened.”
Pete and Gregory were quiet for a good twenty seconds.
“I’m satisfied. You smell okay.” Pete held out his hand. “Welcome back.”
Gregory, though, was not so easily swayed. “I’ll take it, for now. But don’t think I won’t be watching you.”
Ethan nodded at him. “Fair enough.”
Seriously, where had this Ethan been? If this had been the Ethan I’d first met, maybe things would be different . . . nope. Seriously no, I was not going there.
“Let’s move,” I said. “Orin and Wally are waiting.”
19
Finding Orin wasn’t quite as easy as I’d hoped, though he was closer to us than Wally.
At the end of the Hall of Shifters, there was a single doorway leading out. Pete was on my left, and he put his hand to the door and leaned in. “Yeah, this smells like the way out. Or at least, it’s where I can retrace my scent, so they brought me in this way for sure.”
“Good deal.” I nodded for him to take the lead. “You first, me, then Gregory. Ethan, you bring up the rear.”
They all moved to take their positions. “You normally take the rear guard,” Gregory said. “Why the change?”
“Because I trust him, and I’m hurt,” I said. “We have to be smart. It’s not smart for me to be in a guard position when I’m not one hundred percent.”
That brought them all to a standstill, the three of them turning to look at me. I held up my hand, the two fingers swollen and purpling already. “I’m down one hand.” My dominant hand at that, which really blew chunks.
Ethan grabbed my shoulder. “Damn it, Wild. I could have helped with that. I’m no Mara, but I could have lessened the injury. Now . . . I can’t do anything. You’d need a more experienced healer to re-break the bones and heal them properly.”
Damn indeed. “Next time,” I said. Because yeah, there would be a next time, and we all knew it.
“Go on,” I said. “We have to hurry.”
“The door is locked,” Pete said.
“I got it. Less magic is better, I think.” Gregory moved up beside him and fiddled with the handle of the door, using only his fingers, until there was a pop of a lock opening.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
Gregory shrugged. “Something opened up in me when the Shadowkiller took you. The House of Unmentionables used to have a great connection to metals and the earth. I can feel the metal now, and manipulate it to some degree. I’m sure that’s why they wrapped me in the chains back there. To see what I could do.”
“You didn’t do anything,” Ethan pointed out.
Gregory shot him a look. “And they left me alone. I’m not an idiot, Ethan. The more you show them, the more they want from you.”
Like a test, to see if his magic would open up like Wally’s had.
I thought about Ash, about how the earth had heaved and shifted at his command. Ash was connected to a Chameleon too. Was that the key? Was it my connection to my crew that was opening us all to different abilities?
Pete stepped it up, opening the door and breaking into a jog. Pete, running without complaint. I knew why, though I didn’t say. His worry for Wally was at the forefront of his emotions.
He followed his nose, pausing here and there, but mostly keeping up the pace, and we followed him. This section of the prison had rougher walls, made of solid dark gray concrete, and while there were doors, they didn’t draw Pete.
Our footsteps echoed back to us, but there was no other sound.
No, that wasn’t true. A steady thump of something was at the edge of my hearing. I couldn’t tell if it was machinery or what, but it came from deep within the prison. “You picking up on that, Pete?” I asked.
“Yes,” he whispered back. “Any ideas?”
“No, so just keep moving.”
While he didn’t pick up speed, he didn’t slow either, which was good.
The feeling of Orin got closer, almost as if he were right there, standing beside me, and my feet slowed of their own volition.
“Orin is close,” I said.
Pete held up his hand, and we came to a stop. “Another doorway. I can’t smell him, but it’s where they brought me through.”
I blinked and looked upward. If I could see through the concrete, I was sure I’d be looking right at our vampire friend. “Let’s hope it’s stairs.”
Once more Gregory moved the metal parts inside the lock and slid the door open. No alarms went off. “This is a really weird prison,” I said. “No guards that I’ve seen. Traps, yes. Danger, yes. But that’s not a prison . . . that’s . . .”
Ethan held out the map, showing us where we stood. “Is it a prison? Yes and no. If everyone was just in cages next to each other, they’d talk, maybe even form alliances. Maybe even break out together. Keeping the different houses apart is how they keep them weak.”
“They?”
Ethan shot me a look. “The leaders of our world. The heads of state if you want to call them that.”
What he said seemed to echo between us. “That’s always been the goal, hasn’t it?” I said.
“Of Frost and the House of Wonder, of the Culling Trials even. To keep everyone else weak.”
Gregory gave a slow nod. “Which is why they encourage rivalry between houses from the earliest age on. Much as Ethan has repeatedly proved my point that the House of Wonder produces the most egotistical bastards . . . I was taught to hate mages from an early age.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but there was a measure of shame in him as he spoke. Small, but it was there.
“And the belief that one is better than the others,” Ethan added, shaking his head. “That was all I learned. That the other houses were all lesser. That they needed to be ruled.”
A low laugh rumbled from behind us, and we whipped around, facing the dark concrete hall. The door was still open, and I peered through it into murky darkness.
The laugh faded and a voice followed us. “You think you’re so smart.”
I blinked. “I know that voice. Barnaby?” Oh, shit. “Go, go, he’s a mostly starved vampire. With a dead ram!”
The clatter of said ram’s hooves on the cement had me scrambling to get through the door with the guys. We slammed it shut just as the creepy ram skeleton crashed into the base of it, pushing all three of us back a few steps.