Igrowled and crumpled the parchment in my grip. Squeezing Tempest with my knees, Kieran and I took off from the nearest village down to Scarven’s property.
What did Devora mean, she’d found the Hollow? That hadn’t even been a goal for tonight. She was still gaining Scarven’s trust. There was no way he’d given her this information so freely.
Which meant she’d gone where she wasn’t supposed to. Probably risked getting herself killed. And now she was heading there unprotected, like the stubborn woman she was.
“Unbelievable,” I muttered under my breath as we raced closer to the mansion.
“You know what I find rather amusing about it all?” Kieran asked at my side, voice stilted from the horse’s movement.
“What?” I snapped.
“That you would do the same thing in her position.” A smirk appeared on his chiseled features.
I scowled and gripped the reins tighter as we sliced through the trees at the perimeter of Scarven’s mansion. The stables were on the far west side, at the outskirt of the main property. Theywere massive, large enough to house not only Scarven’s herd of horses but several of his carriages too. We didn’t often venture that far in our raids. All the entrances to the underground cells we knew about were to the east and south of the mansion.
What if this was a whole new section of laboratories? Of dungeons and cells full of people who needed our help?
What if mysisterwas down there?
I urged Tempest faster until we reached the edge of the tree line, when I tugged on the reins to halt her. The enormous stables just beyond the forest were lit by moonlight and a couple of guards with torches standing outside them. Two carriages were stationed at the back in a line, waiting their turn to enter the stables. When I homed in on them, I heard dozens of hearts beating, but they were slow and sluggish, barely conscious. Accompanying them were the sounds of labored breaths and the scent of blood and sweat.
More prisoners.
I nudged Kieran’s arm and pointed, then froze.
A flash of red hair peeked out from behind the last carriage.
“You havegotto be kidding me,” I grumbled. “Stay here, Kieran. I’ll whistle if I need you.”
Dismounting, I pulled Scarven’s enchanted ring from my pocket. I didn’t want to use it in case he could detect it, but without an Illusionist, I was running out of options. I slipped it over my finger and felt the pressure form on my chest as the spell snapped into place, and my body faded into my surroundings.
With as little noise as possible, I crept across the open grounds and to the stables, my vexation growing by the second. She was going to get herself killed. What was shethinking, coming out here on her own?
I approached her silently from the back, wrapping one hand around her mouth and pulling her into the shadows of the carriage. My hand muffled her gasp of surprise. She jerked against my hold, but I used my other hand to rip off my ring and reveal myself.
“Do you have a death wish, darling?” I hissed into her ear.
She shook her head free, and I lowered my hand. “I didn’t want to lose their trail,” she said.
“You could have waited for us.”
She shrugged. “You took too long.”
This woman. “What happened?”
“I was with Scarven, and one of his guards came to tell him he was needed at the Hollow. So Everett and I left the party. I used my shadows to find this place,” she finished with a whisper, brandishing an arm toward the stables.
“And where isdearEverett?” I asked. I was going to kill him for letting her do this.
“He’s pretending to be me.” She twisted her head to look at me and raised an eyebrow. “You know Scarven is having me followed. We needed everything to appear normal. Don’t give me that look.”
“I’ll give you whatever look I want when you go running off in the middle of the night to chase the most dangerous man in the empire,” I growled.
“And here I thought that was you,” she shot back.
My dragon thrummed with pride, begging to prove she was right. But as I was about to respond, the carriage we were hiding behind lurched forward.
“Oh, alright—this is happening now,” Devora mumbled, nearly losing her balance as we stumbled to move along with the wheels.
