by Kaylin Lee
By the time I’d managed to find a safe spot to lurk, Felix had reached Lucien and was pulling him toward the center of the ballroom, shouting something I was too far away to hear.
The view was illuminating. Even from this distance, with dancers bobbing in and out of my line of sight, I could sense Lucien’s misery. He was good at hiding his emotions, concealing them from the Wolves behind a mask of brutality and coldness, but now I realized the truth—the further his emotions retreated, the more they signaled his distress. The blank, carved-in-stone expression on his face right now may as well have been a five-bell alarm.
He stood in the center of a ballroom filled with his father’s murderers, men who’d pushed aurae into their own city for gain before they had mercilessly turned on a man who’d given in to its pull.
Yet now, after a year of fighting to break the Wolves’ hold on him, Lucien had given up.
How could I return to Asylia and leave him in this nightmare?
He hadn’t wanted me to use tonight to investigate Demetrius. Well, too bad. Lucien needed to complete his mission to bring the clan down and be free of its claws, for his own sake, not just his father’s honor. And I was not leaving the compound until I’d done something about it.
Felix pulled Lucien further through the crowd, and a moment later, I lost sight of them.
I looked around, pleased to see a side door not far from the alcove I’d found. Before I could overthink it, I made my way through the crowd to the door and tried the knob.
Unlocked.
I glanced over my shoulder. Lucien was nowhere in sight, and the dancing couples paid me no attention. I opened the door and left the ballroom alone.
Chapter 33
The door at the rear of the ballroom opened into a service hallway. I could hear raised voices on the other side of the wall. Servants preparing to serve the dinner, perhaps. But the hallway was empty.
I moved quickly, stealing down the hallway and following my instincts to the side of the villa where Leila had led me to Demetrius’s office, weeks earlier.
Outside, the air was crisp, and snow was falling again, the delicate flakes spiraling down from the heavy clouds and dampening my bare head almost immediately. This side of the compound was shadowy compared to the well-lit front entrance of the main villa, where I could hear more guests entering the ball.
I entered the smaller villa and hurried down the dimly-lit hallway where I remembered Demetrius’s office, hoping my instincts were accurate.
They were.
When I reached Demetrius’s office, I glanced over my shoulder. The hallway was clear now, but for how long?
The door was cracked open, but the office empty and lit only by the party lights reflected through the windows by the snow. I rushed inside and made a beeline to his desk, feeling flustered but buoyed with determination every time I thought of Lucien’s bleak future.
I rifled through the neat stack of papers on the desk. There had to be something about aurae and questus, about their purpose, something that would explain the person Demetrius had called Master.
The papers held lists of names, the suspected aurists in the Wolf clan. A chill ran down my back. My hands shaking, I pulled each drawer under the desk, but they were all locked.
I nearly groaned aloud, but then I heard the soft padding of footsteps just outside the door.
Heart in my throat, I whirled around. There was nowhere to hide. I dashed to the floor-to-ceiling drapes at the window behind Demetrius’s desk and ducked behind them.
The footsteps got louder. Someone entered the room and shut the door with a quiet click. The luminous flicked on. I heard the steps get closer and held my breath until there was a creaking noise, like someone settling into the desk chair.
It had to be Demetrius.
Would he be able to tell that someone had gone through his papers? I’d been trying to hurry, but I hadn’t planned on getting stuck inside the room with him.
“Demetrius,” a voice hissed. My breath caught. It was the voice I’d heard. Was there someone else in the room with us? Had she seen me?
I needed to see her face. Maybe if I finally learned who his Master was, I’d understand what was going on. I tucked the edge of the curtain to the side and peered into the room. Demetrius sat at his desk with his back to me. The room was otherwise empty.
“Yes, Master?” He sounded tired.
“You dare to betray us,” she screeched. “You dare!”
His shoulders tensed. “I’m not sure what you—”
“You know full well what you’ve done. You sought to spare your own clan, your own power.”
Demetrius shifted in his chair. “I would never defy you.”
“Liar.” The piercing accusation echoed in the room.
Who was he talking to? I leaned out from behind the curtain and froze. A tiny, silver mirror was propped up on his desk. It hadn’t been there when I’d been going through his papers.
The mirror shimmered with a silvery, prickly light that made it impossible to see what it reflected. I leaned closer, shoving the curtain out of my way. What was that thing? I’d never seen anything like it.
“I did what I had to.” Demetrius’s voice grew hard, his tired subservience suddenly dissipating. “You understand, Master. We all want the same thing, don’t we?” He drew a gilded knife from the top drawer under his desk and began to spin it in his hands. His chair creaked as he leaned back. “We all want to survive. We all want to take care of our own.”
“Oh, we agree.” The high, slithery voice sent shivers up my arms. “You did what you had to do. It just won’t be enough.”
“We’ll see about that.” Demetrius tossed the knife in the air with one hand and caught it with the other.
The voice laughed, a hissing, chilling noise. “You have a lot of confidence for a man leading a city of slaves. They’ll all be under the curse soon, idiot. You think a few Wolves will make a difference against us?”
Up. Down. He spun the knife in the air again. “Wolves or not, some will always resist.”
“No one resists the curse,” the voice hissed. “Everyone wants to escape. They choose, and the curse takes hold. Whatever you thought to do to protect your clan, you’re far too late.”
The mirror went black. The rushing sound disappeared.
Then, Demetrius spun in his chair and flung the knife at my head.
Chapter 34
The knife lodged in the window frame, pinning the curtain just beside my head.
Demetrius rose from his chair and advanced toward me, a strangely satisfied look in his eyes. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
Run, Ruby. I could almost hear Lucien’s pleading in my mind. Run. But my feet had taken root. “I-I’m sorry, Praetor, I don’t—”
“It was you,” he growled, his hands curled into fists. “You’re Ruby Contos. You wrote the article. You got us kicked out of Asylia. You.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
He grabbed my arm and yanked the knife out of the wall. I tried to pull away, but his grip was like a vice.
“You cost me my chance to do the one thing that mattered.” His nostrils flared, and he squeezed my arm harder. “This whole city is doomed, but I could have taken that monster down with us. I was so close, and she slipped out of my grasp because of you.”
“Who? Who slipped out of your grasp?” The trembling question slipped out of my mouth. Even terrified, I couldn’t stop asking questions
He laughed humorlessly and dragged me into the hallway. “Guards!” He yelled. Two large men rushed forward. “Bind her. Throw her in a cell.”
“Yes, sir.”
I tried not to whimper as a guard wrenched my arms behind my back.
Demetrius leaned close, whispering too softly for the guards to hear, his expression utterly emotionless. “Tell anyone what you heard in my office, and that fool professor won’t live to see morning.”
~
The guards took me to a dank basemen
t room with bars on one side. A tiny window with tight grating let in the frigid, winter air.
I shivered against the wall as a day passed, then a night. I was weak with thirst and hunger, and so cold, I was afraid to fall asleep.
What would Demetrius do to me now that I knew aurae was a curse? And what did that even mean?
“Kata.” The whisper was so quiet, I barely heard it. “Kata!”
I looked around frantically, disoriented from the chill in my limbs and the sleepless night.
“Up here.”
The window. Astrid crouched outside the high window grate, her wide eyes owlish behind her oversized glasses.
Terror rushed through me. I shot to my feet, weakness forgotten. “What are you doing here?” I hissed. “Get out of here, Astrid! They’ll kill you!”
She shook her head stubbornly. “I can sneak. I heard a red-haired girl got dragged screaming across the Wolf compound last night. There’s only one girl with red hair I know. Had to be you.”
I bit my lip. She shouldn’t be here. But now that she was … “I need to send a message to Asylia. As soon as possible. Can you help me?”
Astrid pushed her glasses up her nose. “Sorry. I don’t know how to get you out of here. There are a lot of guards here. A lot.”
“I can’t escape. But I need the message to go out, or … or a lot of people are going to suffer. Can you find me something to write with?”
Astrid darted a glance over her shoulder. “I can try. But it won’t come cheap.”
Astrid! Now is not the time! I managed to keep from screeching with frustration—just barely. “Um … You’ll be a hero. That’s payment enough, isn’t it?”
“Heroine,” she corrected. She cocked her head and rocked in her crouch for a moment. “You can just pay me later,” she finally said, nodding to herself. “Yep. We’ll do credit. I know you’re good for it.”
With that, she disappeared.
I waited several minutes, peeking anxiously through the grate but unable to see her. She must have left the compound to find something to use—if she hadn’t been caught, or worse.
Finally, I sank to the ground, resting my back against the wall. I shut my eyes, exhausted by fear and anxiety.
“I found something you can write with.”
I jolted out of a light doze and stood, my bones stiff from cold. Astrid crouched by the window, her small body a ball of tension.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Can you—”
Astrid pressed a finger to her lips, then shoved a scrap of newspaper through the slats.
I reached for the paper.
“You! Get over here!”
Guards. My hand jerked. I dropped the tiny piece of newspaper. A shard of charcoal fell out of it when it hit the cell floor. There would be no room to form more than a few words.
Astrid looked over her shoulder, then turned back to me, her eyes wide and terrified.
I opened my mouth, about to send her away, but the words wouldn’t come. I needed her too much. After weeks—months—no, years of working against aurae, interviewing dealers, sending notes to Prince Estevan, chasing an endless cycle of investigation, publication, and heartbreak, it had all come down to this—risking an innocent girl’s life to get the truth out.
I hated myself.
Astrid met my gaze, her jaw jutting out stubbornly. She jerked her head over her shoulder. No guards came. She widened her eyes, as though chastising me for wasting time.
I crouched down and picked up the newspaper and charcoal with shaking hands. It’s a curse, I managed to scrawl. Then I folded it up and shoved it through the grate, into Astrid’s small hand. “Send it to the Asylian Herald, attention Mistress Contos,” I whispered. “Ask Opal to help you write the address.”
Astrid’s eyebrows shot up, but she nodded once and disappeared.
I stood below the window like a worthless, unarmed sentry, straining to hear if she’d been discovered, knowing there was nothing I could do to protect her if she was. I can sneak. Why had I listened to her? Why had I risked her?
And what would I do if she failed?
Minutes passed, then an hour. There was no sound of commotion outside. She must have made it.
My legs collapsed. I slid to the floor and finally exhaled, but a moment later, I pressed my hands to my eyes as tears began to stream down my cheeks.
What had I written? It’s a curse.
I hadn’t even used the word aurae, or questus.
I’d risked Astrid’s life to send a cryptic message to Grandmother, and I wouldn’t get another chance before Demetrius no doubt executed me for betraying him.
You’re a failure, Ruby. Weak. Soft.
No matter how hard you work, nothing you do will ever be enough.
You’ll never, ever be enough.
Chapter 35
Another day passed. Hours after night had fallen, I jolted awake, my senses saturated with the warm, savory smell of food. My stomach, already on the verge of devouring itself, seemed to gape open like a cavern.
I struggled to my feet as the lock clicked in my door. They were feeding me. Did that mean I wasn’t going to die, after all?
My cell door opened. Lucien stepped in, a small tray of food in one hand, his mouth pressed into a thin line. “Ruby.” He lifted the tray. “Thought you might be hungry.”
I nodded and took a slice of bread from the tray, shoving it in my mouth like Astrid had the day I’d met her. I didn’t even blush. How Draicia had changed me. I swayed as the thick slice of bread settled into my roiling stomach. I felt slightly less dizzy but just as overwhelmed.
Lucien placed a gentle hand on my lower back. “How are you, Ruby? Cold?” His voice was soft and understanding, at odds with the hardness in his eyes. He removed his overcoat and wrapped it around my shoulders.
My eyes drifted shut as warmth enveloped me. I leaned closer to him as I had while we were dancing, soaking up the heat of his body. “I know about the curse,” I rasped. “And Demetrius’s Master.”
When I opened my eyes, a flash of confusion darted across Lucien’s face. “What curse?” Then he shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. You’ve done enough.” He slid his hands down my back and rested them at my waist. Even through the thick fabric of his winter coat, I could feel their strength. “Ruby, I wish …” Lucien’s voice was rough.
I leaned closer. “What do you wish?”
“I wish things were different.” He ran one thumb across my lower lip, and I couldn’t hold back a sigh.
“What things?” I said when he dropped his hand back to my waist.
“I need to get you out of here.” His voice was a low rumble. “I just don’t have the pull among the Wolves to do it. Most of my guards are still loyal to Demetrius. I-I need outside help.” He paused, pulling me closer. “Do you think your Grandmother would be able to get help? To rescue you?”
I shook my head to clear the fog left by hunger, thirst, and sleeplessness. “Yes, I think she could. Prince Estevan calls her a friend. He might be able to provide men.”
“Good.” Lucien frowned. “Then I just need to find her.”
“Go to the Herald. She’ll be there. She’s always working.”
He shook his head, his expression grim. “I need to get her alone. If anyone sees me at the Herald, Demetrius will know I contacted her. Is there any other way to reach her? Can I find her at home?”
“Her apartment is a secret.” I pushed my hair away from my face. “No one knows where it is.”
“But you do.” Lucien rubbed my waist, pulling me closer. “You know where she is, don’t you?”
I nodded slowly.
“I want to help you, Ruby,” Lucien whispered, his gaze intent. “Please, let me help you. Tell me how to find her apartment, and together, your Grandmother and I will save you.”
I rubbed my eyes. “I don’t know.” Exhaustion made my vision watery. The hope of rescue was unbearably tantalizing.
“You can trust me.” Lucien�
��s expression was so earnest, so sober, I had to force myself not to cling to him the way I desperately wanted to. “I swear it, Ruby. You can trust me. I just want to protect you.”
Wasn’t that the one thing he’d been trying to do this whole time? “I do trust you.” I released a breath, then told him the address I’d kept locked away in my mind since I was a child.
Lucien shut his eyes for a long moment. When he opened his eyes, his expression was oddly distant. He released me and turned away. “Thank you, Ruby. It’s better this way.”
“What? What’s better?”
“Demetrius gave me his word that you won’t be executed if you cooperate. You’ll be safe here when everything happens, safer than anywhere else, at least. And I’ve given the guards orders to feed you regularly until I return.”
My mind was reeling. “Return from where?” I pulled at his arm, but he yanked it away, refusing to meet my eyes. “Safe when what happens?”
Lucien went to the door, paused, and looked back. “I’m sorry, Ruby,” he said gruffly. “Believe me, I am sorry.” He stepped through the door, shut it, and locked it.
Sorry. Why was he sorry?
I pressed a hand to my mouth. I’d just given him Grandmother’s address. No one in Asylia knew it, and now the Wolves did. What had I done?
And what had he done?
I surged forward, feeling removed from my body as I flung myself at the door, beating it with my fists, splinters digging into my hands. “When what happens?” I shrieked, my hands slamming uselessly into the locked door. “Lucien! When what happens?”
I spent the rest of the night scrabbling against the locked door, screaming questions, pleas, and threats. No one answered.
Chapter 36
The next day, a Wolf I didn’t recognize brought me a small bowl of soup and a piece of bread.
“Hungry?” He held the tray out and laughed, the sound ugly and excited. “Come and get it.”
I grabbed for the tray, but he pulled it back. The soup spilled, enraging my stomach.