My voice is a faint, broken thing. “Ravager… what are you doing?”
“It’s better this way,” he says.
Desperate rage flames through my chest. “Cut me loose, you motherfucker!”
“I can’t have you following me, Devilry. You’re safe here. Just wait, and don’t yell or you might attract the razorwings.”
“You vile bastard. You fucking asswipe, you ragingcunt.” Wriggling and twisting, I manage to shift my body around so I can view the crawlspace. I’m just in time to see his legs sliding out through the hole.
Much as I want to scream at him, he’s right about my voice potentially attracting monsters, so I stay quiet.
What did he mean bywait? Is he double-crossing me? Or is he going to get the Doras Àlainn by himself, out of some misguided desire to keep me safe? Doesn’t he realize that we have a better chance of fetching it if we stick together?
We should have gone with my first plan and headed for the upper floors. We might have encountered the beast with the voices, but maybe we’d have been able to find a different route to Drosselmeyer’s storage area, one that avoided the razorwings. We could have turned off the shield protecting the door. And we could have made a detour to collect the Doras Àlainn. We could have brought it down here with us.
But I didn’t trust Ravager enough for that. I didn’t want to be carrying the Doras Àlainn in his presence. I didn’t want him to know where it was, in case he decided to betray me. And now I’m paying the price for confiding its location to him at exactly the wrong moment.
Yet another mistake to add to my ever-growing list.
13
She’s going to hate me for this, but I’m not making her face the razorwings again. The encounter with her former crew has hurt her deeply, and pain can make a person reckless. Given her visceral reaction to those creatures, I’m afraid she might have some kind of mental break if she has to walk through that passage twice more—once on the way up, and once heading back down.
So I’ll do it for her. I’m half-dead anyway. Might as well give it a shot.
If I die, she’ll be forced to get the Doras Àlainn by herself. I’m certain that, given enough time, she can get out of the ropes.By then, her anger with me might give her the strength to get her through the razorwings. She’ll survive. She’ll make it home.
My back still hurts from when I was thrown by the explosion, and my lost fingers are on fire with phantom pain. I hold the injured hand close to my chest and move cautiously down the hall, rounding the corner as silently as I can.
The floor is littered with burnt razorwings. The others have withdrawn some distance down the hall, away from their dead—which gives me an idea.
Bending painfully, I pick up the little dead monsters, one after another, taking care not to cut myself on the wings. I tuck the charred corpses into straps and pockets all over my body, until I’m studded with them.
With my uninjured right hand, I pick up the massive weapon Devilry dropped when she dragged me away from the monsters to safety. When I picture her struggling with my body, determined not to leave me behind, tears spring to my eyes. And when I imagine her using my brush and my explosive gel to blast a hole in that wall—I get so fucking hard I barely notice the pain in my left hand.
A woman like her, a partner like her, could give me the strength to face anything. Buoyed by a heady mix of gratitude and desire, I walk past Grisly and stride into the tunnel of rustling wings. The creatures shrink from me, as I suspected they would. It’s almost comical how they create a space around me, like a protective bubble in which I pass by, unharmed. Once I’m past them, I pluck the carcasses off myself and discard them.
My bandaged right shoulder hurts from holding the giant weapon, but I refuse to put it down. If I encounter the beast of many voices, I’m going to need it. With my wounds and the weapon, there’s no way I can climb back up through the hole in the ceiling through which we dropped down.
Teeth gritted against the pain, I hunt for an alternate way upstairs. There’s got to be a stairway somewhere. Fae or not, the Stewards would want access to the subterranean level.
At the end of a hallway I find steps leading upward, so I follow them. There’s a door at the top—not locked, thankfully. In my current state, I wouldn’t be able to pick it. If I can’t get healing in time, I suppose I’ll have to learn to pick locks with eight fingers. Could be interesting. I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.
The door at the top of the stairs leads into an empty wardrobe, which opens into one of the back rooms on the first floor. While crossing the room, I nearly step in a spring-trap laid by my darling Devilry, but I manage to avoid it.
I take the spiral staircase at the rear of the fortress, mounting the steps to the third floor. Devilry didn’t tell me which room contains the Doras Àlainn, but once I find the observation spheres, I’ll know I’m in the right place.
Tucking the big weapon under my left arm, I open a door with my right hand—and instantly recoil as green ooze surges out of the room. But I’m not fast enough—it’s already sucking at my boots. I can’t step backward. I’m stuck.
“Shit!” I plant the barrel end of the cannon against a clear space on the floor and lean on it heavily while I drag my feet out of my boots. It’s difficult, since I can’t undo the laces. It hurts to force my feet through the narrowest part. But I have no choice. The ooze is climbing up the boots toward my legs.
With a final jerk, I get my second foot out. My socks are still in the boots, so I’m barefoot now, which is unfortunate. But I’m alive, not trapped in sentient ooze, so I count it as a win.
I rush into the nearest room for refuge.
Instantly, pain stabs through my feet, and I look down to see broken fragments covering the floor. Some are glass, some are thin metal, some are scraps I don’t recognize. It looks as ifDevilry smashed everything she could lay her hands on and scattered the remnants all over this room.
Heart pounding, I wait for tendrils of light to rise from the shards and wrap me up—but nothing happens. These are just normal shards, then, not magical ones like the bodach beads.
