Not exactly the world’s most effective pep talk, but the faith in Iris’s eyes was worth a lot more than his words anyway.
He bent down, ignoring the way darkness washed over his field of vision, and gathered Seraphina into his stiff, numb arms.
Under normal circumstances, Keith could have lifted her without a second thought. Doped up on a paralytic sedative and breathing in a bunch of smoke, it was a lot less easy. He gritted his teeth until his jaw hurt, trying to manage both the strength and the coordination to haul Seraphina up over Iris’s back.
He made it, but only just. He had to lean against Iris for a second afterwards to rest, even as his head screamed at him that their ticking clock hadn’t stopped ticking.
Iris, with superhuman calm, stayed still, holding him up as he collected himself. She would have been a great first responder.
“There’s no way to secure her,” Keith said to Iris. “I think she’s balanced well for right now, but you won’t be able to go any faster than a walk.”
Iris nickered softly in agreement.
She was so brave. She knew how dangerous the situation was, and she knew it would only get worse as they went downstairs and got even closer to the spreading, crackling fire.
And there was no way around the grim truth that even once they got down to the ground floor, they might not be able to get one of the doors open. Their only hope now was to batter one down with their hooves, and Keith had no idea whether or not that would work. He didn’t think Iris knew either.
But there was no hint of fear in her eyes. Now that she’d rescued her sister, it was like Iris’s worries had vanished. She seemed to have absolute confidence that the two of them could take on anything.
He chose to believe her. Iris was smart and brave and clearheaded, and she’d spent years refusing to be locked into the narrow role the Blake Abbotts of the world wanted to keep her in. She wasn’t going to die locked in Blake Abbott’s house.
Keith draped his arm over Iris’s back, holding Seraphina steady.
“I’ll stay like this until we’re back downstairs,” he said. “I need to hold her in place.”
This got him a concerned whinny that he translated as,You can barely stand up.
“I know, but there’s no way around it. She’ll fall if I don’t. I’ll hold onto you.”
There was no way to argue the truth: they just didn’t have any options. He knew Iris didn’t like it, but neither of them had a choice.
She had the harder job when it came to this part anyway. Keith had to fight to keep himself awake and moving, but at least his human body was used to going down stairs. Iris’s unicorn wasn’t. Most horses could handle wide steps just fine, especially if they were crafted from some sort of textured material, but narrow, human-sized stairs made out of polished marble? That was an entirely different ballgame, and going down was even scarier than going up. Iris had to feel like she was constantly at risk of falling.
He needed to support her just as much as she needed to support him. They were a team.
Somehow, they all made it safely to the bottom of the stairs.
It was like standing in an oven. The fire had spread to this floor now, with the flames growing higher and higher as they fed on priceless Turkish rugs and long velvet curtains. Smoke was everywhere, and the air was crackling with heat. It was so dizzying that it took Keith a few seconds—and a coughing fit—to realize that he could finally shift back now.
Phone.
He forced himself to stagger over to Blake’s body and find the phone Blake had taken from him. The screen was cracked, but it seemed to still be working.
He had dozens of missed messages from his team, all of them sounding increasingly frantic:
Keith, we can’t get in after all. Could you come open the barrier?
Of course they couldn’t. It was obvious now that Blake had meant to “accidentally” leave them stuck outside.
Are you okay?
Do you need backup?
We’re trying to find ways of contacting someone else inside the village to let us in so we can get to you ASAP.
He couldn’t respond to all of it, not when the words were getting swimmier by the second. He forced his thumbs to (mostly) obey him and texted Cooper:
Blake killer. Trapped in his burning house.He added the Council House phone number, which should at least get themsomeonewho would be willing to open the barrier for them.Drugged, have to shift back. Please help.
