Dom reaches up and grasps the sconce above us, an unlit candle tucked inside. The stones behind it creak as a small slit opens, just big enough for us to slip into.
“Good call,” I tell her once we’re on the other side of the wall.
“The Scotan Castle has a couple of hidden passageways. They’re important for royals, so we can escape if there’s an ambush. Of course, Cal and I mostly used them to sneak into each other’s rooms, usually with the aim of scaring the hell out of the other.” The smile is audible in her voice, even if I can’t see it on her face.
There is somehow even less light here, and I’m wishing we had thought to grab the candle from the sconce. I reach back for Dom’s hand, and she grasps mine tightly. We make our way along the curved stone wall, keeping it at our backs so we have some semblance of direction.
I don’t know how long we walk; time seems to lose all meaning in the black hole of the passage, my eyes never fully adjusting.
Eventually we come to a shard of light peeking from below the seam of a wooden door.
Dom presses her ear to the wood, but it’s too dark for me to make out any of her signals. Without warning, she rams her shoulder into the door and it springs open, flooding the hallway with light.
I rush into the room, my eyes immediately landing on the crumpled form of my sister. “Andra!” I cry out, fear gripping my heart when she doesn’t stir. I fall to my knees at her side, searching for a pulse, a breath in her chest.
“She’s alive.”
I whirl around to catch the owner of the pained and breathless words. Bianca sits chained to the wall, her face bruised, her dress in tatters. Her thick red curls hang around her face, tangled and matted.
Dom checks Bianca over for injuries. “She seems to be okay, other than the obvious bruises.”
I cradle Andra’s head in my lap. “What happened to my sister?”
Bianca meets my eyes, but whatever she sees there pulls her gaze away. “Lady M…well, it was as you said, Cate.”
“Yes, I know that part already. Tell me what happened, Bianca!”
She sighs, blinking away tears, but I’m too focused on my sister to hold much pity for her in the moment. “Lady M is a Gifted.”
Dom sucks in a sharp breath and she shoots me a weary look. “Did you know about this? What can she do?”
Bianca shakes her head. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Nothing I’ve ever even heard of. She can amplify our Gifts.” She hesitates. “Or she can block them.”
“She was amplifying Andra’s Sight?” Dom forms the questions better than I can. I can barely think straight through all the rageclouding my vision. This woman turned my sister into a shell of her former self. And I let her.
Bianca nods. “She burned her out, I think. Andra collapsed yesterday and she hasn’t regained consciousness since.”
“What happened to you?” Dom asks with more care than I manage to stir up in the present moment.
“I tried to tell the other girls, the La Puissance girls, what was going on.”
This grabs my attention. I look over Bianca’s wounds. “Our friends did this to you?”
She shakes her head, wincing at the movement. “No. Lady M’s other girls. They came to my room late last night.”
Dom and I exchange a weary look. There are other girls, Gifted presumably. This is worse than we anticipated.
“Where is Lady M right now?” Dom takes Bianca’s cuffs in her hands, looking for a way to unlock them.
“I don’t know,” Bianca mutters. “We should have listened to you from the beginning, Cate. I’m sorry it took me so long to believe you.”
“There’s no time for that now.” I set Andra’s head gently back on the ground, pulling a pin from my hair and handing it to Dom. “Here.”
Dom takes it and immediately begins working on the locks. “We need to get to Cal. He could be facing Lady M right now.”
“She won’t be alone,” Bianca warns.
“How many are with her?” Dom asks as the cuffs around Bianca’s wrists clatter to the hard stone floor.
