“Thank you.” I waved at the roof access—a small enclosure nearby—but then preceded him there. The door was locked. So, I knelt and pulled out my lock-picking tools.
“You know how to pick a lock?” King Tor'rien asked.
“To fight crime, sometimes you need to behave like a criminal.” The lock clicked, and I put away my tools before standing up. Then I held a finger to my lips.
The King nodded crisply, and I opened the door.
Darkness greeted us. Thick with silence. I stepped inside, waited for the King to come in, and then closed the door. We would have to wait for our eyes to adjust. It wouldn't take long, both of us had great eyesight. But until then, we pressed up against each other in the blinding black.
The King wouldn’t be able to resist taking advantage of the situation. I knew it. But even prepared, I still shivered and clenched my teeth to hold back a moan when his hands massaged my chest. Hearing proof of my weakness, he pressed his advantage. Literally pressing me against the wall as he bent his head to nuzzle my cheek.
“If you wanted to get me alone in the dark, you only had to ask,” he whispered into my ear.
I pushed him back and blinked as my eyesight focused. We were on a landing at the top of a stairwell. “You know I was waiting to see.” I moved around him.
“See what? How long it took before I kissed you?”
I was on the first step. I gripped the railing and glared at him over my shoulder. “The child, remember? His life depends upon our success. So, please stop using this to flirt with me!”
Even the darkness couldn't hide the King flinching under my harsh reminder. And it was harsh. He had just reminded me of the same thing mere moments earlier. But I blamed him for that as well. And if I didn't get to that boy in time, I would never forgive the King of Rushao. He and I would be equally responsible for a child's death. How was that for a first date?
With that thought urging me on, I hurried down the stone steps, my feet light so I wouldn't make a sound. The King was not as light-footed, but he tried, and I didn't have time to rebuke him yet again. Instead, I focused on going down and down and down, past door after door that led to each floor of the building. Sure, Hallaxgral could have been keeping the boy on any floor, but I doubted it. The easiest place to hide the child would be the basement. So, down we went until we couldn't go any further.
The final door was marked “B.” I carefully opened it, not even glancing at the King. Something in my chest shivered, urging me to go faster even though the boy shouldn't have been in imminent danger. Did imminent matter when a child was involved? No, it did not. Any amount of danger was unacceptable.
We entered a dark corridor, but with our eyes adjusted to the complete black of the stairwell, the corridor seemed bright. I scanned the ground, walls, and ceiling as I crept along it. Hallaxgral might have left traps for us. I would have.
But nothing impeded our progress. We slowed only to open each door off the corridor to inspect the rooms beyond. None of them held the child. None of them. We cleared every storeroom off that corridor and then were left facing a blank wall.
No one was there. The basement was empty.
“What the fuck?” I whispered, my stare darting side to side.
“We must have missed something.” The King gestured at the closest room, the door still open from our inspection. “We need to look again. Or maybe they're upstairs.”
I nodded and took a step toward the last room we had inspected. Then I heard it. A ticking. I stopped.
Tek, tek, tek,it went, calling me.
I spun back to the blank wall and pressed my ear against it. The sound was coming from the wall. Stepping back, I scanned the expanse. Seamless. No, wait. There were indentations. Three. I set my thumb, middle finger, and pinky into the divots and pushed. Something clicked. The wall slid back until there was enough space for us to slip around it.
The grinding sound it made while in motion would have alerted anyone on the other side. So I gave up on being silent and put more effort into speed. Quickly but carefully, I moved through the passage. I continued to be aware of everything I encountered even as I dashed into the room beyond.
Bare walls. Soft light. A single chair. A glass box. Above it, a mechanism—pulleys and weights. A control panel at the bottom with a clock inset. Ticking away. With every tick sand flowed out of a funnel above the glass box. I rushed forward to inspect the panel and the contraption it controlled.
Because I wouldn't be able to save the boy if I looked at him. One glance had been enough to see the fear in his tear-soaked eyes. The way he clutched his blanket. How he trembled against the back of the box while a stream of sand fell before him, slowly filling the glass container. A glass coffin. That'swhat it would become if I didn't stop that sand.The hourglass has been turned.Sand is running out.Damn him! It was Hallaxgral's way of telling me that the boy was already in danger.
“You're going to be all right.” The King pressed a hand against the glass.
I didn't hear a response. Which meant that the boy couldn't hear us. He didn't know if we were friends or foes. It didn't matter. All that mattered was stopping the sand.
The clock wasn't keeping time, it was counting down. I knew at a glance that if I had waited to look for the boy, I wouldn't have had enough time to save him. It was a precise device and would have smothered the child at eight the following evening.
“What are you doing with that thing? I'll just break the glass.” The King pulled back a fist.
“No!” I held out a hand.
He lowered it. “Why?”
