“This isn’t right,” he shouts.
The room fills with the flutter of papers, the thud of books, the echo of small metal items clattering down on stone, and the high-pitched ring of glass breaking.
“Who’s been in here?” Logan calls, his tone both angry and seeking.
“Shit,” the word escapes under Seth’s breath.
Someone’s walking this way, their steps heavy and growing closer, causing the panic rise up through my throat.
Seth uncurls himself from behind me.
“Stay,” he whispers.
Those seriously mischievous eyes of his have turned to solid blue stone. Hardened. As with all of his other features. He straightens to his full height, and I risk leaning forward just a little.
The man is just as scary looking as his brothers when he wants to be.
He doesn’t glance down at me before stepping into the blue misty-crap that everyone else is too scared to touch. I want to tell him he’s stupid, and not just for getting me into this, but my lips press tightly together.
Because for all the stupid things going on, stepping out to go one against three in some crazy magical blue-mist is just insane.
“Seth,” Logan growls.
There’s a few quick, soft, steps followed by the sound of someone big climbing up onto a table. Then laughing. I can picture it. Seth just pranced out there and has perched himself on a table in the middle of the mess.
“I’ll cut something off you,” Logan says.
“No, you won’t, Logan,” Seth counters, not addressing either of the other two in the room.
“But my uncle will.”
“Nope, he won’t either. We have a deal, and I’m keeping my end of it,” Seth counters.
“But that soot isn’t,” Logan growls.
“She’s in the stocks, last I heard. Lithael doesn’t care about a soot in the stocks,” Seth says, his voice full of confidence, but each word threads a little bit of fear through me.
Lithael might not, but Logan sure still seems interested in me. I’m a walking sponge for all the wrong kind of attention.
“Don’t touch the stuff, don’t walk into it,” Asanta orders.
“It didn’t hurt him,” Logan says, his temper straining his voice.
“But it was made for him,” she says, each word slow and deliberate.
Several feet take a step, presumably not into the blue mist. Presumably, because I’m pretty damn frozen in place and can’t actually see anything. Seth created this mess, Seth can deal with it.
A wooden shaking sound fills the room for a second before I realize it’s someone at the door. A sharp wood-splintering and door-bursting-open sound follows and I might have just yelped in surprise. Although no one would have heard over the crashing of timber.
“Logan,” Pax says, in his commanding tone.
I shouldn’t relax because he’s here, but I do – just a little. The scuffle is over quickly. If anyone threw a punch or got hit by one, I can’t tell.
I turn, little by little, to peek out the tiny hole in the back of the desk. Seth is still perched on the edge of a broken table, looking pleased with himself. The room is in ruin. Not a single table still standing.
Pax kicks at the mist, and Three, Roarke, scoops down to try and pick up a handful.
“What is this stuff?” he asks.
“They made it.” Seth shrugs.
Pax levels his gaze on the man as he steps purposefully through the mist.
“Then why are you here?” Pax asks, his tone struggling not to crack with anger.
“I was here, but they made the mess,” Seth repeats.
He’s still smiling, which means he knows something about Pax that I don’t. I’d be bracing myself for a solid punch to the face if I were Seth.
Instead, Seth stands and nimbly hops down from the table. The thing cracks and falls to the ground, as if it was only holding itself together for Seth’s comfort.
Four huffs, his hand resting on the hilt of his curved sword. He’s the only one wearing a weapon and even though the danger’s gone his hand remains ready to draw the thing. His stance is firm, both boots in the blue stuff.
“I hope it was worth it,” Roarke says.
Seth actually stops, turning to survey the scene. There’s a minor chance his gaze flicks up to the desk, and me, but it’s more likely that something on the desk above my head caught his eye.
“No,” he says. “It wasn’t.”
He moves toward the door, the mist swirling around his legs like it doesn’t want to be touched but wants to stay near.
“What was it?” Roarke asks, kicking his foot through the mist as he follows his brother.
“I told you, I didn’t make this,” Seth says.
They leave together, their conversations turning to some ‘tournament’ and something about a ‘blow’. I don’t wait until they’re out of earshot before kicking into action.
Kneeling in blue-mist, I extricate myself from under the desk and cross toward getting-the-hell-out-of-here. The stuff follows me. When I’m about where this whole mess started – at someone’s worktable in the middle of the room – it sucks itself through the floor. Leaving the room clean of magic, but looking like someone let loose a Brahman bull in here.
The cork’s still in my hand; I roll it through my fingers without any thought, but the vial was crushed in the fight and sits in shards on the floor. I drop the cork into my pocket. My one and only pocket, because servants don’t have much need to carry things around with them that aren’t for cleaning.
I bet this pocket’s meant for a rag. Something which a servant can pluck out, polish a smear on the window, and then keep walking to their dishwashing duties.
Dishwashing, I groan inwardly.
Seth has vanished, my current castle-escape strategy on hold until I can corner him. Do Silvari keep to their word? Do Sabers even care?
Whatever the truth, I need to keep myself from being locked between two slats of timber, which means, now that lunch is over, I need to get my ass to the kitchens.
I’m out the door and into the hallway in a heartbeat, then have to slow down as Seth’s back vanishes around the next corner. Obviously, they’re not in as much of a hurry as I am.
There are people in the next classroom. I can hear the conversations wafting out into the hall, but I don’t slow enough to get curious. The only person in the hall is a woman. Not an Elite Saber-waiting-to-go-on-a-mission, that’s clear at first glance. This woman is what Sabers look like when they actually ‘grow up’, and I have no idea how long that takes.
She’s tall and lithe, built like a stick insect. Her hair’s dead straight, long and all white, and her forehead is decorated in delicate chains and gemstones. Her eyes are different too, almost glassy. I try to keep from staring, to look at the ground beneath my feet and keep walking, but it’s really, really hard.
The woman reaches the doorway to the Potions Lab and stops sharply at the sight.
“Logan,” she growls, turning around and storming past me.
Straight past me, like I don’t even exist. On down the hall, vanishing around the corner and out of sight.
I reach the top of the stairs, one foot poised mid-air, ready to step down when a solid wall hits my back and shoves me forward. My arms go wide and I just barely grab ahold of the banister. Somehow, I achieve a mixture of sliding and stumbling all the way to the landing, where I refuse to let go of the banister as I dart my gaze around and pant wildly. There’s no one here, but the pressure on my back was real. I really did just get pushed down the stairs.
Something firm, but invisible, presses against my hand, and I yank it in close to me. Then it presses to my shoulder – and I start running.
Down the next flight of stairs. I struggle to keep a step ahead of it – whatever it is – because I can’t see anything.
Which probably means I’ve lost my mind. One day inside the Enchanted Forest and I’m being chased down a flight of stairs by so
mething that doesn’t exist.
At the next landing, I suck in air so sharply that it scratches at my throat and run clean into another invisible chuckin’ wall.
Two walls.
They’re boxing me in. My hands shoot out in front of me, feeling the air like an idiot as I stumble to the bottom of the stairs. No invisible wall in front of me, but one pushes in on my left, making the decision for me. I turn right and race the thing to the next corner.
If this thing beats me there, or introduces wall number three before I get there, I’m going to be crushed. I have no idea how I know that, but solid walls, no matter how invisible, closing in around a person can only end in one thing – a person being crushed.
At the other end of the hall, four familiar profiles walk into a familiar room. The dining hall. The wall presses against my back again, and I get back to running – but I don’t want to burst in with the fear written all over my face. Those four would turn and laugh at me. Actually, only Seth would laugh, maybe Roarke. Four would sneer, and One would probably get up and punch me in the face.
Servants’ entrance, I think. I need the servants’ entrance.
The rough mental map that I’ve begun to build up of this place says the entrance is straight down this hallway, then left, but it’s a risk. There’s every chance an invisible wall is already sliding in my direction, and I’m clearly in a Saber hallway with no clue what the links between servants and Saber halls look like. Doors? Gaps? In the Manor, they were nestled behind drapes, but there are no drapes here.
My palms press against something with just enough warning to prevent me from breaking my nose on it.
I freeze. My whole body is pulsing with the adrenaline, wanting me to turn around and try running the other way. But there’s an invisible wall down the other end of the hall too – that’s just plain logic.
For now, everything is still. The wall is smooth like glass beneath my hands and when I run my fingers over it, a faint crackling noise fills the air along with a rush of static shooting up under my fingernails.
A servant turns the corner and gives me a tight look as she steps right through the wall, not even flinching.
“Can you feel something here?” I ask.
“No, but I can smell something,” she comments, running a hand over her hair and cupping her bun to check everything is neatly in its place.
She walks off down the hall, her shoulders tensed indignantly.
I sniff myself, and I don’t smell. I’m pretty sure whatever these people put in the shower water takes care of that.
Back to my current problem, though. The wall seems to have left me enough room to get down the hall, if I press myself hard against the real stone wall and shuffle along in the gap like a complete idiot.
Which I do. Looking ridiculous with my boobs all flattened and my breath forming mist before me – but who cares what I look like when this thing could shift at any moment and squish me flat.
I take another step sideways and suddenly I’m falling backward. Landing on the floor with a hard thud.
I groan and pull myself onto my feet. Of course, a servant’s entrance would be incredibly small and seamlessly blend into the wall to the point where I hadn’t even spotted it, and I’ve been down this hallway before – with a box of leftover tacos in my hand.
A box which is still underneath Roarke’s bed. I hope it reeks in a week. Serves him right.
Two steps back and I’m through the little passage and in the servants’ hall, complete with its floor to ceiling frosted window.
Kitchen, I remind myself.
When I step into the room, pushing the door open with the kind of floppy movement that comes after running for my life from something I couldn’t even see, I’m met by two furious sets of eyes.
Clara’s and some other guy. He has a ledger too, and they’re arguing right up until the moment they spot me.
“You,” Clara says.
I hold my hand up, as if getting permission to speak, then give up on the gesture.
“Shade,” I say, my voice raspy. “What’s with the moving walls?”
I grab a nearby glass from the dirty dish pile and fill it with water, drinking greedily.
“You’ve caused such a mess today, and I won’t take feigned delirium as an excuse,” Clara goes on.
“I’m not delirious, the walls really are moving,” I say between mouthfuls.
The guy knocks on the wall right beside him. “It’s solid, made from stone.”
“Shade,” Clara says, dragging each syllable out. “Servants don’t cheat, we don’t lie, and we don’t run off on our duties.”
“Not my fault,” I say.
The guy steps toward me, and I know he’s supposed to be imposing – in my old life he probably would be – but after dealing with One twice today, this short man with his head shaved is really no comparison.
“It’ll probably happen again,” I say, knowing that that wall could start moving at any moment. “You probably should take me off your roster altogether.”
His whole face goes red, beetroot red, including the top of his head.
“Everyone works, it’s a privilege,” Clara says, her tone pointed, but her anger is much more in check than the guy’s.
“You know who brought me here, right?” I ask, finally able to breathe normally and stand up without the support of the bench.
“The Elorsin brothers,” the guy says.
“They’re all assholes in their own lovely ways, and one of the lovely ways they’re going to continue to be assholes is by messing with my life on an almost hourly basis,” the words tumble out of my mouth, and I don’t bother checking them for facts. So far, Seth has only messed with me once – the other time I was kind of the one doing the messing, and that doesn’t actually equal hourly interruptions. But I continue anyway, “And I can’t tell them ‘no’, so when Seth decides I should play a stupid practical joke on his behalf because Commander Pax has specifically ordered him not to, then I have to do it. Right?”
The guy growls, shoving at me with his ledger hard enough to make me yelp before marching for the exit.
“No excuses,” he says over his shoulder.
Clara stays where she is, taking a few measured breaths.
“Right. I can rearrange the roster, but you have to be right here in this kitchen doing your work every other minute.”
I nod sharply.
“Which means you can finish these right now,” she says, waving an arm in the direction of the messy sink. “And those,” she adds, pointing toward the dining room. “I’ll tell Moira she can go back to washing windows.”
“I was here when the lunch dishes were being cleared, and they got lunch-sweets too. What are these dishes from?” I ask.
“Tea,” she says. “Sabers have schedules that can sometimes keep them from lunch, but mostly they eat breakfast, afters, lunch, lunch-sweets, tea, tea-afters, dinner, supper, and lates at about midnight. Their bodies function on a completely different clock than ours and when they’re at the Castle, they like to eat constantly.”
My jaw drops.
“Why do they need so much chuckin’ food?”
“Not all of it is cooked here. Breakfast is usually delivered to their rooms. Afters is served here and in three other smaller dining halls around the grounds…” she rattles off more details, because obviously she thought I was referring to the workload involved in cooking such a huge number of meals when I was thinking more about the luxury of eating so much food!
With a final wave of her hand in the air for no particular reason, she leaves the room.
I pick up a large, untouched, carrot from the plate closest to me, chomp down, and edge toward the doors into the dining room, careful not to walk into a wall. Pressing the toe of my boot to the base of the door, I open one of the doors just a touch and confirm that the brothers are still out there. Actually, they’re the only ones out there, sitting at one of the nearby tables. Seems to be their thing – eating wh
en the hall is empty. One other table has plates on it, but most of the room has been cleared and cleaned.
Seth is the only one eating earnestly. Four is pulling apart a sweet roll, Pax is leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed over his chest, and Roarke has his head bowed, and his long hair has fallen forward over most of his face. They’ve got some serious expressions on, those I can see, and they’re all aimed at Seth.
I let the door swing shut the inch that I’d opened it, grab a nearby knife, the only thing nearby, and wedge it into the gap where the top of the door narrows to meet the corner of the frame. Effectively jamming the thing open and angled into the kitchen so I can hear every word they’re saying.
In stealth mode, I start on the dishes. It’s a scattering, not a mountain, just a handful of plates, a few cups, and three serving platters.
“The guard told me –” Pax is saying, with a hint that he might be about to lose his cool.
“I never said I didn’t let her out of the stocks. Just that I didn’t cause the mess in the Potions Lab,” Seth cuts in.
“Bad idea,” Four grumbles.
“You aren’t allowed a girl in your rooms, and she was in there, Roarke,” Pax begins. “You weren’t allowed near Logan, and yet you were right there, Seth. Should have left this girl –”
Silence. I don’t know what happened, but I think the guy just cut himself off.
“Logan,” Four says.
“He was up to something.” Seth jumps at the new direction. “They weren’t in there working on a few bottles of Vision Potion for their test.”
“There’s going to be repercussions,” Roarke says. “Lithael is already here for our tournament. He gets here too quickly, like he knows when we’ll be arriving or his horse has the skills to Allure time.”
“Or he uses the Veil,” Seth says.
“Too dangerous,” Pax rumbles.
“Not when the grimm answer to him,” Seth counters.
“They answer to the Veil Queen. And she has nothing to do with the living, or Lithael,” Roarke says.
“Doesn’t mean he isn’t spending more time than he should on the other side,” Seth says. “DeathSeeds can come and go.”
Shadows and Shade Box Set Page 9