I stepped back, wanting to put some distance between us, but unable to turn my eyes away from those enlarged veins. They ruptured all at once, a stinking, coal-black pus spraying out through the ruined, hanging skin of his face. My stomach did a number of slow barrel rolls—vomit rose up in the back of my throat while I attempted to swallow it down. The guard’s eyes were wide and glassy, but they no longer appeared to be seeing me. The pupils were enormous, the whites stained with more of those black veins. I slid further away from him, bracing myself against the wall as he crumpled to the floor, slamming his head on the stone. The blood pooled around his skull, like a thick, black tar.
I turned completely away, leaned onto my knees, and vomited until I saw stars. The smell in here was grinding into my nose, much worse than fishy skin walker’s breath and mild armpit funk. My hand was on fire. I’d curled it around the broken glass without realizing, and it was cutting into my palm. Looking down at my hand, I gasped, finding that same blackness infecting the small wounds on my palm and fingers. I threw the glass onto the ground, sucking in more air at the sight of my cuts—they were black around the edges and throbbing. I closed my hand around the aching wounds, steeling myself against the pain. I didn’t have time to worry over that now. I needed to get the hell out of here.
CHAPTER 11
~
I HURRIED PAST THE GUARD’S twitching body, pausing to peek my head around the open door of the cell. Both sides of the corridor were clear. I snuck out into the hall, closing the door to the cell behind me. A person would have to be right in front of the door to see the mess inside, which would hopefully buy me a bit more time. I crept in the direction of the stairwell, moving from cell to cell, unable to keep from rising up on my tiptoes to glimpse inside. The one next to my cell was empty—that had belonged to the unlucky mage who was executed the day I got here. In the next cell over, a man sat in the middle of the floor with his back to the door, a mass of fluffy blond hair on top of his head. I called to him, but he didn’t turn. I didn’t have time to coax him to the door of his cell. I had to move on.
“Grayson!” I said in a loud whisper. “Are you down here?” I hadn’t seen him since waking up in this dungeon days ago. He could be dead for all I knew. I hoped that wasn’t the case, but if the Queen thought he’d been helping me, that couldn’t have meant good things for him.
There was a woman in the next cell. She was standing with her back to the opposite wall so I could see her face and the chains on her ankle. Her hair was pulled back, showing off her slightly pointed ears. Another faery. I wondered how many of the prisoners down here were supernaturals. The door to the woman’s cell was locked when I tried to open it. I should go back to my cell and search the guard for the keys to free everyone imprisoned in this miserable shithole.
Guards were coming—at least two of them—their feet pounding on the stone steps.
I searched the hall for a place to hide, my heart racing. I ran to kneel right next to the stairs in a pool of standing shadows in the corner. My footsteps sounded incredibly loud, hopefully theirs were louder. This wasn’t the most ideal hiding spot—they’d see me if they looked closely, but I doubted they would. The last few days spent immersed in skin walker culture had taught me some critical information about what type of creatures they were. Their capacity for paying attention to details was almost nonexistent. They did their assigned jobs and didn’t have the mindset to deviate from the instructions they’d been given. Lobbing an unexpected fast ball their way threw them completely off balance. The Queen must have favored them as guards solely for their brute strength, because they sure didn’t have much to brag about in the brains department.
Sinking to my knees in the shadows and pressing myself deep into the corner, I thanked my lucky stars for my dark hair. I turned the opal ring on my finger and closed my hand over gleaming stone just as the guards came down the stairs. They went to the cell of the faery woman I’d just been watching, not even talking amongst themselves as they walked. They opened the door to the cell and went inside, one right after the other. Now that a prisoner was in front of them, I could hear them taunting her the way they’d taunted me. A penchant for bullying those unable to protect themselves was another winning quality these assholes had. I wanted to help the woman, but even the two of us together couldn’t stand against the skin walkers without our magic. I had figure out how to get my powers back before I could help anyone, even myself.
I snuck from the shadows to the stairs, holding my breath and cast my eyes on the open door of the faery’s cell, waiting for any sign of the guards. Skin walkers were extremely strong and hardy, but I didn’t know how fast they were. I might be able to outrun them—their willowy limbs and thick torsos gave them the appearance of being rather slow—but I’d rather just sneak away without worrying about someone chasing me and alerting the rest of the castle.
Halfway up the stairs, I froze with my head cocked so I could listen more closely to the noises above me. I could barely hear a thing over the banging of my heart in my chest and the sound of blood swishing in my ears. I remembered from the one time I’d been dragged from my cell to the throne room, that a maze of dark hallways awaited me at the top, plenty of turns and shadows rising up from every direction. I had no idea how to get out of this castle and, once out, where to go from there. The portal was closed. I needed to either find a way to force the Queen to release her hold on all the magic in this realm, or permanently join Madden’s boozy tea party and give up on ever solving my parents’ disappearance or making it back to my home world.
Noises trickled to my ears from above—voices and shuffling footsteps—but they were far off. The guards behind me were louder than anything I was hearing from the ground floor. I’d just have to take a chance.
I crept the rest of the way up the stairs, pausing in the open doorway at the top. My heart skittered up into my throat. I swallowed it back down again and peeked around the corner. The hall was clear in both directions…for now. I heard footsteps echoing closer from down the corridor to my left, so I went right, moving as quickly as I could on the balls of my feet, my exaggerated movements not making a sound. Unlike the throne room, the rest of the castle was bathed in persistent shadows. All the doors I snuck by were closed tightly and the walls were covered in a slick, wet paper that seemed to drip as I passed it. The floors were black. Everything was in stark contrast to the well-lit throne room that was drenched in sunshine and color.
I flattened myself against the wall to look around the next corner. This was the oddest building I’d ever been in. The halls were narrow and turned so often, it was hard to keep track of where I was going. I needed a compass just to have a chance of getting the hell out of here. If I hadn’t been knocked completely out when I was dragged into this place, I might have a better idea of where I was, but the floorplan was too much like a maze—with short hallways and sharp turns that didn’t seem to lead anywhere.
Giant potted plants lined the walls on both sides of the next small corridor, which ended in a T-junction. The dripping walls went up to a pitch-black ceiling more than twenty feet above my head. I’d never seen a color quite that dark before. The ceiling was a large black hole.
I tiptoed by the plants, touching their fat, velvety-soft leaves as I passed. The cuts on my fingers and palm pulsed in time with my rapid heartbeat. My entire hand was red and a little enflamed from the guard’s hot, infected blood. I’d been right not to use that mirror, no matter what the power inside of it promised me.
Someone was coming around the corner up ahead. I didn’t have time to run back to the last corridor. I darted behind the wall of plants, their giant leaves creating the perfect cover. How did these things survived without sunlight? Maybe they relied on some other kind of sustenance—like evil. The Queen seemed to have an abundant supply of that lying around this labyrinth of a castle.
I knelt down, hiding my body behind an enormous pot and sticking my head into the velvety green leaves, where I could se
e but not be seen. I held my breath, not even trusting myself to breathe. The guard coming down the corridor was massive. He wore a uniform of gleaming copper armor. His feet ended in two hooves that clomped on the bare floors, sending a tremor through the plants on either side of him. The leaves rustled against my face and ears. His armor ended just above his monstrously broad chest, leaving his thick neck and hideous face bare.
He stopped in the middle of the hall, lifting his long snout to sniff at the air. His nose twitched and his mouth dropped open to reveal a line of jagged fangs that caught the dim light dangerously. I crouched lower into the plants, certain it was just a matter of time before the stench of my fear drew him right to me.
The guard snapped his fangs shut, and I had to cover my mouth to keep from screaming. He stepped closer to my side of the hallway, still sniffing hard at the air, his giant hands closing into fists.
Another guard came jogging around the corner, this one short and covered in shaggy, matted brown fur from top to bottom. Its eyes flashed a deep amber in the low light.
“Hurry,” the shaggy guard said in a low growl as he bared his own fangs. “The witch has escaped the dungeon. We need to check the grounds.”
Both guards ran off around the corner, their heavy footsteps shaking the floor and rattling the giant potted plants in their wake. I stayed crouched low to the ground, hidden behind the plants while I caught my breath. They knew I’d gotten away, but thought I was outside already. That could be a good thing.
I snuck off in the opposite direction as the running guards. I heard plenty of turmoil coming from the right—sprinting footsteps and loud voices—and so I chose to go left at the T-junction. This hallway was even darker than all the others I’d seen. The shadows hung unnaturally to either side, like someone had draped them that way. My feet silent were on the black floors as I walked quickly to the other end.
Rushing footsteps sounded around the next corner. Shit. I turned around, hurrying back the way I’d come, only to hear several pairs of footsteps that way too. Darting to one of the closed doors, I tried the knob. It was locked. Across the corridor I attempted to open another. This one opened with a piercing creak that sent a shiver down my spine. I slid through to the other room and closed the door as quickly and carefully as I could. Keeping my hand on the knob, I pressed my ear to the door, just waiting for the guards to kick it in. Surely, they’d heard the creak when I opened it. But they just ran right by, some footsteps going one way while the rest when in the opposite direction.
I collapsed against the door in relief, forcing my lungs to relax enough to breathe normally again as I glanced around the room. It looked like a ballroom, but it was completely empty, save for the golden chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room. The floors in here were a deep cherry wood and the walls were painted to look like the manicured valley at the foot of the mountain, just outside of the forest, where the strange animals frolicked in between the topiaries. Along the opposite wall was a line of tall windows, starting at waist level. Behind me, I heard running footsteps and urgent, gruff voices. I couldn’t go back out there now. These windows were my only way out.
I went to them, staring out into the brilliant daylight. I had to shield my eyes because it was so bright. I wasn’t very high up. If I could get one of the windows open, I’d be able to jump to the grass outside and find my way back to the woods.
I found a latch on only one of the windows, but all of them sprang open when I turned it loose. A gentle breeze blew into the room, licking the sweat from my face. I leaned out through the open window with my good hand flat on the sill, and looked out onto the grounds. The grass was a flawless green carpet rolling to a high, solid wall of shrubs that curved all the way around the castle on both sides, penning it in. I couldn’t see past the wall from where I stood—it was too high—but there was an entrance through the shrubs a few feet away from this wall of windows. That appeared to be the only exit and, right now, I had a straight, unobstructed shot.
I didn’t think. I just leapt from the window, grunting at the hard landing. The jolt caused my ankles to give out from under me and sent me sprawling onto my hands. I winced at the pain shooting through the palm and fingers of my right hand, the one that had wielded the shard of mirror glass. I didn’t look down at it, afraid of what I might see. Until I could do something about it, why trouble myself with it?
There were plenty of loud voices and commotion out here too—and some serious growling, I realized with a shiver—but with the soft grass muffling the guards’ footsteps, it was impossible to know how close they were. The whole castle was probably swarming all over the grounds searching for me. I had to get out of the open.
I regained my feet and ran as fast as I could through the only opening in the shrubs. It led to a narrow corridor with walled shrubs on either side rising up to the crystal blue, cloudless sky. At the end of it, I could either go left or right. Another maze.
I had no choice but to keep running. At least my footsteps were silent in the plush grass. I went right and sprinted down another leafy corridor—the solid wall of flowerless shrubs rising several feet above my head. I wasn’t claustrophobic, but the feeling of being corralled and mixed-up was dizzying.
“She’s out here somewhere!” a rough voice shouted through the shrubs just to my right, the echo following me as I ran harder.
My muscles were ready to give out already—I hadn’t eaten or rested much in days—but I kept going, forcing the breath in and out of my lungs to keep my legs and arms pumping. When I reached the end of a corridor, I trusted my gut to turn me in the right direction, even if I couldn’t read the flat, uncooperative energy in the air. I just needed to keep moving forward, away from the castle.
But the walls were so high in here. When I turned, I couldn’t see anything but leaves soaring up to the perfect cerulean sky, completely blocking my view of the enormous castle. I didn’t know where the hell I was or where I was going, but I couldn’t stop. That adrenaline heating up the blood in my veins was the only thing keeping me sprinting forward. I had to keep going. Stopping meant being caught and dying. It meant never going home again. It meant never finding my parents.
I ran left at the end of yet another corridor and slammed full force into the broad chest of a guard. We bounced off each other, and I went flying into the wall of shrubs, the sticky soft leaves cleaving to my skin so I couldn’t get out again. I screamed behind clenched teeth, struggling to tear myself free of the leaves and branches. The more I fought, the more the shrubs held fast to me.
The guard had only stumbled back a few steps and was able to regain his balance quickly. It was one of those hulking, muscular, dog faced guards I’d seen earlier inside the castle, his dark eyes gleaming as he approached.
“I have her!” he called, his gruff voice splitting the still air around us. He was in no hurry to pluck me from the branches that wrapped around my limbs and torso. The leaves stuck fast to my skin. From the way his wide mouth curved upwards at the ends, he knew I wasn’t going anywhere.
Another guard ran up behind him, this one a skin walker.
“Tell the Queen the witch’s attempt to escape has come to an end,” dog-face said. “The execution will carry on.”
The skin walker sneered at me, chuckling low in his throat, and then turned to lumber off deeper into the maze.
The dog faced guard looked at me again, watching as I fought a losing battle with the stubborn wall of plants, an amused expression on his face. He almost looked like a giant version of the Shetland sheepdog my grandparents had given me as a Christmas gift when I was ten years old. That charming likeness came to an abrupt end when the guard pulled his lips back into a gruesome rictus of a smile. I didn’t recall Barkley’s teeth being quite that long and sharp. He reached for me with hands that looked almost human, except for the shiny, razor sharp claws at the end of his fingers. He took me by the arm and tore me loose from the bushes in one violent motion that whipped my head back
on my neck. The leaves tried their damnedest to hold me, tearing out swaths of arm hair and skin as I was pulled free. I bit down hard on my bottom lip to keep from shrieking with the pain.
“Right this way, witch,” dog-face said, still grinning as dark amusement animated his large, black eyes. “I’d hate for you to be late to your own execution.”
I dug my feet into the ground, trying to twist out of his grasp by jerking back with all my weight. He just picked me up, dropped me over his shoulder, and carried me deeper into the maze.
CHAPTER 12
~
WITH THE GUARD’S SHOULDER JAMMED right into my stomach, I could hardly breathe, let alone fight. I hung there uselessly, the blood rushing to my face and tingling hard, making my bulging eyes water. We walked through the maze quickly, as the guard seemed to know exactly where he was going. As soon as we reached a wide, open area, he heaved me unceremoniously onto the grass. I landed on my back, the air shooting out of my lungs. Before I could manage to breathe in again, guards grabbed me by both arms and started dragging me through the grass, not even lifting me to my feet first. The sun blazed overhead, directly in my face, not hot, but so bright that I couldn’t see. I blinked rapidly to clear my burning, teary eyes while I fought my captors with my entire body, bucking and kicking my legs.
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