His irritated sigh brushed against her mouth. “I’m breaking into the prison.”
All her air abandoned her at once. “Don’t.”
“Don’t? How kind you are to be concerned for my well-being.” A rough laugh left him as he released her.
“The Shield will never let you escape.”
Shaw stepped around her. “You managed it.”
A shadow knife pushed through her breast. The memory made her flinch. “I had help.” He looked back. “Riselda. And the mayor was furious about my capture. It helps when you have something he wants.”
His dark eyes studied her closely before fingers raked through his hair. “I’m sure. Regardless, I have no other choice. But I do appreciate the warning.” He seemed as if he wished to say more, but he turned instead, passing the darkened basement entrance of the alchemist’s lair and continuing down the alley.
He pulled a cap further over his eyes and didn’t glance back again until she neared his side.
“Then I’m going with you.”
Peering around the backgarden’s tallest, densest hedge, Lux crouched beside Shaw. The walk to the mansion had been long and uncomfortable, what with the endless silence stretching onward to infinity once Shaw finally agreed to her coming along. She had opened her mouth more than once to break the silence with her attempt at an apology, but the words still wouldn’t come. Besides, she figured they would only end up in another argument anyway, and she didn’t want to enter a place like the prison with her emotions in turmoil.
The garden was emptied of most of its occupants. If Lux squinted over Shaw’s shoulder, as he insisted on going first, she could make out two guards in casual poses speaking in low voices. If there were more, she couldn’t tell; rose bushes taller than any person blocked most of her view.
Her muscles began to burn, and she rested onto her knees in the damp grass.
“Stop shifting so much; we’re going to be seen.”
She rolled her eyes at his hissed reprimand. He had been the one that almost got them caught scaling the vine-wrought wall, groaning loud with effort as he hauled himself up and over. If she wanted to remain unseen, she would be. “Your poor excuse of a whisper is more likely to bring them down upon us than I am.”
He shook his head without turning toward her, mumbling incoherently beneath his breath, and she fought back a smile.
I’ve missed you.
Her smile died as quick as it surfaced, a very real fear creeping through her chest unhindered.No. She shouldn’t carethismuch. She couldn’t. There was a colossal difference between opening the door to the idea and the enormity of actually letting himin.
Terror filled her as she traced his shadowed profile. It was familiar to her now.Hewas familiar to her. She knew how his arms felt around her waist. She knew what he tasted like. She knew his darkest secret; he knew hers.
She knew him.
And she felt absolutely sick.
“I’m going to create a diversion. We’ll slip through easily enough. If we follow that gravel path, there’s a passage leading down.”
“It isn’t barred?”
“It wasn’t then. But even so,” he said, jostling the bag on his arm, “I can pick the lock.”
He’d been here before. She recalled his talk of his father and the discovery of his death. “Of course you can.”
Shaw huffed, glancing down his shoulder. “Stay here.”
Before she could inquire further or protest his abandonment, he left her to steal around the remaining outer hedges. Luxwatched him go until the dark swallowed his form, then shifted the weight on her knees with a scowl.
“Tell me what to do one more time and see—”
She jumped, a hand clapped to her mouth, as the first explosion slammed into her ears. An array of crackling sparks and flares of light followed, a second explosion close behind. Shaw was at her side before she’d even realized the Shield had run to investigate.
“Go!”
The word hissed into her ear with searing heat. Lux leapt to her feet. The pair of them sprinted through the rose garden, her pace matching his. Moments later, they were through the archway, and Lux’s legs would have continued to propel her forward in search of another door, any door, if Shaw’s hand hadn’t grasped her upper arm, hauling her toward him and into a shadowed alcove.
