“Then let us hope enough palace guards rush to douse it before anyone is harmed.”
Venick still didn’t understand. He wanted to press the elf.WhyandSince when?andI thought you wanted us both dead. But Raffan didn’t give him the chance. With a final haunted look, the elf swept away.
Venick watched the door Raffan had disappeared through. He was gripping his sword as if he planned to squeeze the pommel to dust. For several moments he did nothing, half expecting a swarm of guards to come bursting back through that door.
He went for the key.
“At the end,” the servant said, her voice shaky and small. She had pressed herself against a wall during their fight and looked as if she had no intention of peeling herself away. “The stone door.”
Venick set the key into the lock. Turned, and felt the smooth click of a bolt come undone.
And she was there. Curled up on the stone floor, seemingly asleep. Her back was to him, her hair a tangled mess. She was so thin that for a moment Venick couldn’t believe it was truly her. Yet he recognized the curve of her spine and the slope of her neck and the rise of her hip, and he knew that it was.
“Ellina.”
He was on his knees at her side. He kept saying her name. He brought a hand to her shoulder, the words spilling out of him now, hardly even aware of what he was saying. “Ellina? Ellina, please, wake up.”
She did. Her eyes came open. She blinked, and saw him.
She jerked away. Venick let his hand fall. He’d frightened her—or he believed that he must have. Her eyes were wide, scanning his face like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Like she didn’t trust that he was real. The sight made him swallow hard.
“Ellina.” His voice was nothing but a hoarse whisper. “It’s me. I’m here. I’m getting you out.”
She said nothing. She was still searching his face as if she didn’t know him, her chest rising and falling heavily.
“Ellina? Are you—?” He couldn’t stand the way she was looking at him. His voice turned desperate. “Please. Say something.”
“She cannot speak.”
Venick spun. He’d almost forgotten the servant. “What do you mean, she can’t speak?”
“The conjurors,” the young elf replied. And there it was, finally, the truth they’d all been avoiding. “They stole her voice.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Venick blinked at the servant. He looked at Ellina, the grim set to her jaw, her eyes suddenly anywhere but him. “Theywhat?”
“It is the power of the conjuror,” the servant explained in that quiet, quivering voice. “They can turn another blind, or deaf, or mute.”
It was as if all the air had been sucked from the room. Venick’s head spun.No.
He pulled back.
No.
Not possible.
That’s not possible.
His thoughts continued to spiral. He couldn’t believe it. He was cracking under the weight of his own disbelief. “Ellina.” Her name on his lips, the way she still wouldn’t look at him. His anguish, not slow, but sudden and sharp, a knife to part his skin. “Ellina. Is this true?”
She glanced up at him, and Venick wished back the question. He couldn’t bear to see the answer in her hollowed eyes. He couldn’t bear to see the way her expression revealed all the missing pieces of her, as if she’d been flayed open by the same knife that flayedhim. Venick’s heart twisted. He took a shallow breath. Still not enough air. “We don’t have much time.” He turned to the servant. “Get us out of here.”
They retraced their steps, keeping to the castle’s deepest, darkest passages. The servant led the way, Ellina next, Venick close at her shoulder. He kept glancing over at her. He couldn’t stop doing it. She was so pale. Like a ghost. Like she was no longer fully part of this world. Venick was seized with a sudden urge to grab hold of her, as if she might float away.Stay with me, he wanted to say, even though she was right beside him.Please Ellina, just stay with me.
When they emerged back into the light of the kitchens, the servants were all gathered, somber and silent. No one was working.
“Here,” said the young elf. She exchanged her lantern for a lightly wrapped bundle, which she passed to Venick. “Take this.”
