“What sort of witch do you take me for?” she scoffed. Simply being able to talk to her made my chest squeeze tight. God. I’d only left this morning, and I already missed the entire crew at the Spires so damn much.
And Cillian. I wanted to see him most of all. Being apart from him had caused a deep, unabating ache in my chest, one that only grew by the second.
Theo knelt next to me and sliced through the zip ties around my ankles with his claws, then tackled the ones around my wrists. The second I was freed, I moved my wrists and ankles around. The freedom rushed me, and for a moment I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to move with the dizzying wave that went straight to my head.
“What happened to the guards?” I asked, not sure I wanted the answer.
“Currently trapped in a nightmare, so I’m a bit zapped for juice. We’ve got a limited window to escape.” Amelia tilted her head toward the door. “You coming?”
Damn, curse witches were scary. I bobbed my head and tried to surge forward. My legs wobbled, nearly buckling beneath me. Fuck. I was weak as a kitten from having barely any sustenance, an adrenaline drop, and puking my guts up. “Not going to be winning any fights like this.”
“Luckily you’ve got muscle now,” Theo said, crouching. “Climb onto my back.”
I didn’t argue, as I didn’t want to cause us any trouble in getting out of here, I just climbed onto Theo’s broad back and slumped there. My eyes stung from the relief that ached through my marrow. I’d expected to have to fight for my life later, to resist in any way at getting dragged to Thorin’s. Yet the friends I’d made in the Spires were the sort of loyal I’d shown but apparently hadn’t received in return.
“We’ve got to get to Cillian, before it’s too late,” Amelia said, taking the first steps out.
“What happened?”
The words “too late” played on repeat in my mind, but all I could focus on was getting out of this place.
“I’ll explain in the car,” she said as she led us through the warehouse, footsteps echoing to the tall ceilings. Theo followed quickly on her heels, and I clung to him. My whole body sagged against his weight, and my vision blurred slightly.
The three guards sat slumped forward along the side wall, close to the exit point. All of them seemed to be deep in slumber. My shoulders tensed. Were they truly sleeping, or…
“They’re hard out, but we don’t want to wait around for when they wake up,” Theo reassured me, as if he’d sensed my concern.
Theo and Amelia’s footsteps echoed through the warehouse, and a second later, we burst out into the fading sunlight.
“Car’s over here,” Theo said as we quick-walked over to a black SUV. I clutched onto him, exhaustion pummeling me after everything that had occurred today. I could still barely believe any of it had happened. Part of me still expected to wake up back in the warehouse office—or even worse, back in my father’s apartment.
Amelia hopped into the driver’s seat, and Theo helped me off his shoulders and into the back seat. I slumped against the interior of the car, face pressed against the window. He slid in beside me and brought the door shut. Unlike the last time I’d been loaded into a van, though, the people with me now were safe.
They were protecting me.
“Why did you come for me?” I asked, my voice hoarse. My chest twisted tight at the reality that the people who’d shown up for me were the ones I’d walked away from.
“I made you a promise,” Amelia said. “I keep my promises.”
She might be one of the few who did.
She started the car and took off with a screech of tires.
Those words sank deep into my bones. These were the sorts of people worth my loyalty. Not the person I’d given all of it to before. My stomach roiled again.
“And Cillian?” I asked, needing to know he was okay.
Amelia’s pause made my stomach drop. “There’s a secret we’ve been keeping from you—because honestly, we weren’t sure it would work if there was interference.”
“What?” I asked. Tension roiled in the car, the sensation that whatever she was about to tell me now could change everything. There had always been a secret lurking in the Spires—I’d sensed it the entire time I’d been there—but every time I’d tried to find the answer, it had only seemed farther away.
Amelia let out a heavy, loaded sigh. “Cillian’s under a powerful curse, cast by his ex, Olivia, and a technomancer, Henrik. Sponsored of course by Glacier fucking Industries.”
A million melancholic glances slammed into me at once. The cryptic way everyone talked about him, how he stared off into the distance as if he’d become petals waiting to get swept away by the breeze.
Oh no.
“What kind of curse?” I asked, my whole body locking up. Because deep down, the answer settled in place.
