More lamps snuff out. I shove against the tide of wings, shrieks, and claws.
Ailesse has almost severed the rope, but she can’t finish. I’m within reach. She swipes out with the knife, but the bats throw off her aim. I scramble to grip her forearm before she can attack again. I bash her hand on the slab—once, twice, and she loses the knife. I give it a hard kick, and it skids across the ground into the chaos.
She thrashes and pounds me with her fists. I crawl on top of her and wrestle to pin her down. I can’t find another length of rope to tie her wrists back together again.
“Bastien!” I crane my neck at Jules’s muffled shout. Through the choking black, I see dim flashes of her. She has an arm around her brother. They’re pressing toward the door. “Hurry!” she calls. “We have to get out of here!”
“You can’t escape this.” Ailesse’s soft but savage laughter heats my ear. Her words are only loud enough for me. “My mother has found you.”
I break into a cold sweat. I’m not ready for the queen. I haven’t made a plan.
Only one lamp burns now, the one nearest to us. In the last snatches of light, Ailesse’s pupils are large and fathomless pits. Hell is inside them, the dark Underworld she worships, the endless night where Tyrus reigns.
No. My breath catches. We’re not in Hell yet. This night isn’t endless.
“Don’t go!” I shout to Jules and Marcel. “The bats will follow you. This is the queen’s magic. It will fade when dawn comes. We just have to ride it out.”
It’s only a hunch, but it’s the best hope we have. Jules is right—the queen won’t come here tonight. And if her strength is truly weaker in the catacombs, then her magic will be weaker, too. By morning, the bats will leave. At the very least, they’ll be defeatable.
Jules and Marcel do as I say. I catch a glimpse of them crouching against the far wall by the door. Jules bends over Marcel, shielding him from the worst of the onslaught. “Don’t let Ailesse escape, Bastien!” she cries.
I’d die first.
The bats scratch my back and screech in my ears. The last lamp extinguishes. Ailesse’s body flinches beneath me as we’re thrown into complete darkness. I have a strong grip on her arms now, and her hips are wedged between my knees. I can’t hold her in this awkward position until dawn. Painstakingly, I wrestle her onto her stomach. She’s strong, but thankfully not as strong as she was on the bridge.
I sprawl on top of her to anchor her to the slab. Her ankles are still bound together, so I press most of my weight onto her upper body. I fold my arms around her waist to lock her arms at her sides. She wriggles and elbows and bucks beneath me. I press my head into the crook of her neck and struggle to keep her down. I hate being this close to her, my bare chest against her back, and the wet fabric of her dress the only barrier between us. “If you were wise, you’d stop fighting and save what little strength you have left,” I say, using all my willpower not to strangle her in the dark. “You know you can’t outmatch me.”
She pants for air. “You’re wrong. We are perfectly matched. That’s why the gods paired us together. So if you were wise, you’d stop resisting me and accept your fate.” Her nose brushes my cheek as she turns her head toward mine. “You will die. You answered the call of my siren song. The ritual has been set in motion, and now it can’t be broken. If I fail to kill you, the gods will complete the task.”
My chest tightens. I wet my dry lips. “You’re a liar and a child of murderers—a murderess yourself.”
“I speak the truth, Bastien.”
Unearthly screeches pierce the air. Bat wings rail against me. I barely notice. Ailesse’s words echo through my head. Her poison warmth heats my body.
“Your death is mine,” she tells me. “The gods will make sure of it.”
13
Ailesse
I’M SLEEPING IN MY MOTHER’S bedchamber in Château Creux, wrapped in the fur from the albino bear she hunted to claim his graces. I’m warm. I’m comforted. I believe she might love me.
I open my eyes to the purest black. I’m not swathed in bear fur, but pressed beneath the weight of my amouré. My greatest enemy.
The bats must be gone. I don’t hear their shrieks or flutters, only Bastien’s deep and even breathing. His body has shifted in the night. He’s sleeping at my side, no longer lying on top of me. One of his legs and an arm are draped over my back.
This is my chance to escape. My chance to kill him first.
I test the strength of the ropes around my ankles. They loosened during our struggle, unraveling in the spot where I tried to cut them.
With the careful quietness I’ve learned from hunting, I ease out from under Bastien and slip off the stone slab. I can’t move far—the rope around my feet is still lodged beneath the large stone—so I sit and start prying the rest of the rope apart. The last fibers are tough. I need something sharp. I feel along the ground and find a limestone shard. As I saw at my bonds, I form the rest of my plan. I’ll creep over to where Jules and Marcel should be sleeping. I’ll follow the sound of his light snoring. Then I’ll sneak into his pack. My grace bones must be inside, based on how adamantly he was guarding it.
Two rope fibers break. Only one strand remains. I saw with more urgency.
A scrape sounds, followed by a burst of orange light. My chest deflates.
“A valiant attempt to escape,” Bastien commends me. He’s no longer lying on the slab; he’s standing over me, and he’s managed to light an oil lamp. The flickering glow catches on every sculpted muscle of his chest. More proof he’s stronger than me without the graces I’ve worked so hard to obtain. I bless the bats for every scratch they gave him.
“I wasn’t trying to escape.” I return his smirk with a spiteful glare. “I was trying to kill you.”
He snorts and sets his lamp on a stool-sized stone. Enduring the bats has strengthened his confidence. He crouches and opens his hand, nodding at my shard of limestone.
My fist closes around it. It’s a pitiful weapon, but it’s the only one I have.
“Jules,” Bastien calls. My gaze darts to her. She’s huddled against the far wall beside Marcel, both of them freshly awakened.
She rises to her feet. Her light golden hair is a mess of tangles, and claw marks cover her skin, but the steady glimmer in her eyes says she hasn’t been defeated. She limps to the knife I lost last night—resting near the open door—and kicks it to Bastien. He snatches it up and points the blade at my shard, a silent command to relinquish it.
I hate him.
I throw the shard at his face. He dodges it with ease.
Tyrus and Elara, why did you give me this boy?
Marcel pulls something from his pack, and Bastien groans. “It would have been useful to know you had more rope in there all this time.”
“Spare rope wasn’t foremost on my mind.” Marcel tosses it to Bastien. He tends to his bleeding lip while Bastien and Jules drag me onto the stone slab to bind me up again. I don’t resist them; Elara’s Light is already dwindling inside me. Curse Bastien for being right about me needing to reserve my strength.
“Aren’t you going to join me?” I ask with a smile I hope is sultrier than Jules’s. If I can’t fight my amouré, I’ll goad him. “There’s room for two on here.” I pat the slab. “You certainly took advantage of that last night.”