“Up here?” Lira asked, her voice light and conversational as she made for the arched doorway.
Vaskel hurried after her, holding his breath in anticipation of the guards stopping them. But they didn’t, and soon he and Lira were through the doorway and hurrying up winding stone steps.
“You don’t think Sass is really going to sneak into Marina’s room, do you?” he whispered, the words bouncing off the stone and echoing back to him.
“You mean do I think she’s headstrong enough?” Lira asked.
Vaskel grunted. He didn’t need an answer to that question. Part of him was impressed that Sass had come up with the idea to infiltrate where the hellkin was staying and look for a hair there. It was certainly less risky than snatching a hair from Martina’s head. He gulped. Unless she was caught.
They crested the staircase, emerging into a stone hallway draped with dusty tapestries and flickering wall sconces. Heavy wooden doors lined both sides of the hall, with no indication which one could be the hellkin’s quarters. If this was even the right corridor.
Lira moved to one, examining the door handle and grinning. “No locks.”
Small favors, though Vaskel, as he imagined startling the occupants of the rooms and hoping very much that none of them were armed—or were Marina.
“You take one side, and I’ll take the other,” Lira said, reminding him so much of the days when they’d run together that his chest squeezed.
Vaskel nodded without speaking, but as his hand closed around the first iron door handle, a door farther down the hall creaked open. He and Lira both went rigid, and Vaskel glanced at the open stairwell, gauging how fast they could dash to it.
Before he could dive for cover, Sass stepped into the hallway and her gaze snagged on her friends. “What are you doing here?”
“Looking for you,” Lira hissed.
Sass held up her small hand where several jet black hairs dangled from her fingers. “I got them.”
Lira waved her toward them. “Good. Let’s go before we’re spotted.”
Sass rushed down the corridor, her feet tapping on the stone floor, then the three of them went down the coiling steps single file until they reached the archway leading to the courtyard.
“You didn’t happen to see Thrain, did you?” Vaskel asked before they stepped into the courtyard.
“He’s not here,” Sass said, her voice clipped. There was something she wasn’t saying.
Lira stopped and turned, causing them all to bump into each other. “How are you so sure?”
“Because I saw Marina.” Sass’s expression hardened. “She’s with someone new.”
Vaskel’s stomach dropped. He knew without even hearing a name that he wasn’t going to like it. “Who?”
Thirty-Three
The markson Vaskel’s arm prickled with unwanted heat as Marina stepped into the courtyard from another castle archway. It was as if they’d sensed her presence, the heat scorching beneath his flesh.
Lira sucked in a quick breath in front of them, but Marina was laughing too loudly for her to hear, the husky sound reverberating in the courtyard. It was only when the person Marina was laughing with came into view that Lira went rigid.
“Cali?” Vaskel husked, low enough that only Lira and Sass heard him.
“I’d be happy to teach you to shoot,” Cali said as she strode into the open space next to Marina. She wore her usual snug pants and vest, leaving her gray-striped arms exposed.
“You’re too generous.” Marina leaned into the pantheri, resting a hand on her arm.
Even from where they were hiding in the shadows of the stairwell, Vaskel could see Cali’s whiskers twitch with pleasure. He knew the archer well enough to know when she wastruly pleased, although he hated seeing her smile bestowed on Marina.
Sass lurched forward, but Vaskel snagged her by the arm. “Don’t. Don’t let Marina see your outrage. She feeds on it.”
Sass bared her teeth, but she didn’t struggle against him. The three watched Marina and Cali walk across the courtyard and exit to the castle grounds, presumably so Cali could teach the hellkin to shoot arrows.
Of course, Vaskel knew Marina didn’t need archery lessons. True, she wasn’t the expert that Cali was, but she was close.
