Iris’s mind snagged on that thought.
Seraphina let him take the lead most of the time. She felt like she had to live up to his expectations. Blake almost always got his way, even when it meant getting rid of Sunbeam ... but when she did fight him on something, she fought him onme.
Blake had said as much. The whole reason he’d had to “do something about her” was that Seraphina wasn’t reining her in the way Blake thought she needed to.
She had loyally stood by Blake for years, and she’d never had so much as a hair out of place that whole time. But there was no way she’d ever go along with this horrific plan. Blake had to have known that, and he had to have known that he couldn’t hide the truth from her forever. Seraphina was smart. She would start calculating the odds ontwocatastrophic “accidents” befalling her sister, and she would put the pieces together.
Blake wouldn’t have been willing to risk leaving Seraphina alive, either.
He had planned to walk away from all this was a tragic figure: the homeless widower who’d been attacked by the same awful person who’d killed Lady Marianne.
Seraphina’s still in the house.
Iris forgot all about the passcode to the security system. It didn’t matter that Seraphina knew it. What mattered was that her sister was trapped in a burning house, and Iris had no idea where she was.
Seraphina would have warned them if she could have, so that meant that she was either unconscious—and paralyzed—the same way they had been or Blake had her bound and gagged somewhere. If she was just bound and gagged, she could give them the passcode, but either way, Iris needed to find her.Now.
She started poking her head into the bedrooms. Keith made an inquisitive nickering sound:What are you looking for?
There was no easy way to translate “I think my sister’s still in here” into horsey pantomime. Iris wracked her brain for a second and then had a flash of inspiration. On the landing—opposite the splintered banister—were somber oil paintings of all the Abbotts. She didn’t want to look at Blakeorhis smug ancestors, but Seraphina was an Abbott by marriage, and her portrait was here too. She nosed at it now, pointedly, and then turned her head back and forth in an exaggerated “where is she?” way.
Understanding dawned in Keith’s eyes, and he nodded. They split up, their search getting more and more frantic as visible wisps of smoke started to reach them.
At last, Iris found her lying unconscious on the floor of her walk-in closet.
What had Blake been thinking to leave herhere, of all places? When he’d drugged her, he would have still been planning to survive all this, not just take the rest of them with him. Did he think anyone would believe that with an inferno around her, Seraphina had been trying to save her favorite evening gowns?
He’d really never understood her at all.
Panic was making her thoughts fly in a thousand different directions. They couldn’t get the security codes from Seraphina if she were unconscious ... and on top of that, unicorn Iris had no way of helping a slack, out-of-it human onto her back. She neededhands, dammit. Maybe she could bite down on Seraphina’s dress and drag her ....
No. Keith! Keith hadn’t been as affected by Blake’s drug. He might be able to shift back and lay Seraphina across Iris’s back.
Iris neighed, shrill and loud.
Keith! I need you!
*
The second he heardIris cry out, Keith went galloping down the hall, racing towards the sound of her urgent distress.
Had she gone looking for Seraphina and instead found Seraphina’s lifeless body? Had the fire spread to this floor already, making the room she was in burn and crumple around her?
He found her in the master bedroom, with her head poking into the walk-in closet. She quickly moved so that he could see the problem: unconscious Seraphina and no easy way to move her.
And no way to get her, or them, out of here—but he couldn’t think about that right now. The important thing was to make sure the three of them stuck together. At least Seraphina was still alive, and at least Iris wasn’t hurt, just scared and worried.
Keith knew what Iris was hoping he could do, because he couldn’t think of another option either. What else could he do? Pull Seraphina all over the house, including down the stairs, bumping her head on every hard marble step? Him shifting back long enough to drape her over Iris’s back was the only possible option.
He just had to hope he could do it. Even half a dose of Blake’s poison had left his human body in pretty bad shape.
Stay strong. Shift, lift Seraphina up, and then shift back. And then somehow get out of this death-trap mansion.
He concentrated, easing back into his human body—and instantly collapsed. His legs felt like overcooked spaghetti, and they didn’t seem to want to move. Worse, he felt like he was teetering on the edge of passing out, like there was a dark, peaceful, inviting void for him to fall into. He had to bite his tonguehardto keep himself conscious.
Iris stepped closer to him, letting Keith use her as a kind of ladder to climb back up on his feet. She was sturdy and warm, and he could really believe that some of her strength was flowing into him. His legs were still rubbery, and he couldn’t feel his feet, but at least he was standing.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. I can do this.”
