“In here.”
Ducot dashed ahead of her in his mole form, leaving Eira to scramble down after him. Luckily, there was a workbench underneath the window. Otherwise she would’ve ended up falling very ungracefully to the hard floor below.
“Nice work,” he praised, a man once more.
“Told you I wouldn’t be a liability,” she whispered back, easing the window closed.
“I’m going to go ahead. I need you to stay here and keep a lookout and our escape route secure.”
“What? I didn’t come all this way to—”
“Their meeting is starting soon,” he hissed. “I can safely go as a mole. You stay here.” Ducot didn’t give her another chance to object, shifting into his animal form and dashing up the stairway.
Eira grumbled under her breath, hoping he heard.
Time turned into molasses. The minutes were as slow as hours and the boredom was mind-numbing. Eira jumped at every creak of the floorboards overhead, every squeak in the shadowed corners of the room, and every sigh of the building settling. The only light she had to see by was the moonlight streaming over her shoulders from the small window.
She sat in its small square, holding herself as the night began to come alive. Hands of pure shadow reached out for her. The dark floor swirled with currents that threatened to pull her under. Eira squeezed her eyes closed, but Marcus was waiting behind her lids.
What if Ferro was here, right now?
The thought had her staring, suddenly wide-eyed, at the door Ducot had left from. What if Ferro was overhead, sitting smugly at a meeting of the Pillars? She had come for him and he might now be in her grasp. The invisible hands were around her ankles, trying to yank her underwater at the thought of Ferro.
Stay here, Eira commanded herself, closing her eyes and trying to shut out the dangerous thoughts. She’d already lied to come this far. She was out of her depth.Stay here.
If you stay here, you’re letting your brother’s killer walk free…
Eira dug her nails into her arms and hung her head, drawing slow, ragged breaths. Nightmares lived in the darkness, thrived in it. She couldn’t be afraid. She couldn’t hesitate. She couldn’t let them win.
He might not even be there tonight. Who knew where Ferro was. But she’d hesitated once, and it had led to Ferro walking free. Killing him would be relief. Killing him would put an end to the torture every night brought—to the guilt.
You let him walk free.
Avenge me, Eira, the disembodied voice of her brother commanded menacingly from the recesses of her mind.
Her eyes snapped open.
Eira crept up the stairs, easing the door slowly open. A sliver of golden light hit her face and she flinched, only to relax when the glow turned into nothing more than candlelight. Slipping through the door and weaving an illusion around her at the same time, Eira crept through the hall that connected to an empty dining room.
There were voices overhead, muffled and indiscernible. She had to get higher. Eira sneaked up a staircase, hovering at the top landing and straining her ears. A thin line of firelight flickered underneath a stately door at the end of the hall.
Where was Ducot? Had something happened to him? It had to have been at least three hours since he left, right? She had to make sure he was safe. Yes, that was why she was on the move—merely worry for Ducot.
Eira crept forward, sliding the ball of her foot along the floorboard and then easing down her heel—just like she would on the second floor of her house when she’d sneak out in the wintertime to have moonlight snowball fights on the beach with Marcus.
Crouching on the other side of the iron-banded door, Eira pressed her ear to it.
The conversation within had something to do with a grand plan for the rebirth of Risen. They kept talking about the great ascension to come following something the Pillars kept referring to as the “severing” of old ways. She heard the terms “packed flash beads” and “our contacts” more than once, peppered between the ravings of zealots upset about problems with “transport.”
It shifted to focus on a discussion of the “four relics.” She’d heard Ferro and the strange man mention something about a dagger. One of the relics “was missing,” it seemed.
Eira tried to commit everything she heard to memory, but there was so much of it. She needed to bring along a notebook if she was going to be working as a shadow. Then again, if she were here on official Court of Shadow business, she likely would’ve been given a heads up as to what supplies she should consider.
The speaking came to a sudden hush following the slam of a door.
“This place has been infiltrated by shadows,” Ferro snarled, his voice unmistakable. Her blood ran cold. “Find them.”
12
