Kiegan hesitated, knowing that was an optimistic lie—so unlike me—and I said, “Please.”
There was a wealth of feeling in that word. I hated being so much smaller and weaker, but I especially hated proving Ensmeth right by dragging down my friends.
“All right,” Kiegan said unhappily. “I’ll see you at the end. When you figure out another way there.”
He was telling optimistic lies of his own, but still.
Then he was gone, and I was left alone, with the wind trying to rip me from the platform and my arms aching.
Thirty-Nine
The beams groaned as if they might collapse too. The tower wasswaying.
Sick horror rolled through me. I would’ve climbed with Kiegan and Sera if I had known the tower itself might fall.
The floor above me fell. Some of the boards slammed into the frame, and I bit back a scream, pressing myself frantically close to the post. I clung to it desperately, feeling the impacts of the boards raining down around me as they shook my flimsy tower.
Then the storm was over. For the moment.
I opened my gaze, looking out toward the stands where Bismyth waited. I couldn’t see any of them from here.Curse my vision. But I could imagine Fieran’s exasperation at my fear of heights and Asrael’s cool lack of surprise that I could not, in fact, keep my pulse steady.
The thought amused me enough for me to start to calm down. I had to find my way off this platform. It wasn’t going to last. Once the last of the tower levels tumbled into the sea, surely the tower itself would fall too. We were being driven to take down the monsters.
The rope that Kiegan had anchored to one post when he hauled us up shook. I didn’t understand what was happening until Ensmeth’shead appeared as he wrapped one arm around the narrow frame. He heaved himself up on one knee, breathing hard.
I stared at him, stricken to have company.
He looked up at me, his eyes narrowing. “You’re still alive.”
“I’m surprised too.”
He climbed to his feet, balancing on the narrow beam. He was bigger than me but still looked far more comfortable.
Gold glinted over his bicep; he’d tucked a crown over his arm. His pockets seemed weighed down, his damp trousers sagging.
But his hair was still perfectly in place. It had to be an enchantment.
He might be a greedy fool, but he was the only other person on this tower in the middle of the water. “Maybe we can work together.”
He gave me a skeptical look. “What’s your plan?”
“I’m still working through it.”
“Well, keep me apprised.” He gripped the post with one hand, leaning back slightly to look around in a way that made my stomach pitch and roll again.
I closed my eyes to keep the world from tilting around me.
“Tell me something,” he mused. “Are the rumors about you true?”
“I wouldn’t know. I’m not a gossipy little girl.” I didn’t want to disparage little girls—little girls like Lidi were bright wonders—but I thought the words would hit him as an insult.
“I’ll tell you,” he said, undeterred. Unfortunately. “Some people are saying you enchanted Fieran with a magical?—”
“Maybe Fieran enchantedme.” I cut him off before he could name what parts of mine might be magical.
He smirked, clearly happy to have annoyed me. “But that’s not the interesting rumor. Some shifters have always amused themselves with mortals.”
The memories of the mortals in cages in the night market rose up in my mind. They were always too close to my mind. Somehow, I’d figure out how to help them, with Fieran’s help or without.
