He gives a jerky nod. “What are you going to do?”
I glance around, looking for inspiration. Maybe I’ll throw a desk at her head. That might buy us a couple of seconds.
Nowhere near long enough.
But then my eyes lock onto her lap and what she’s cradling there. She’s surrounded by bottles filled with a black liquid that she’s using to coat her hands. Nestled on top of her lap is a familiar wooden box that’s lying open.
The one containing my skin.
A shudder of revulsion runs through me. She hasn’t actually touched it yet, but it looks like that is her intention. And there is no fucking way I’m letting her have her grubby hands on Noush.
I remember I’ve got the Captain’s whittling knife in my pocket, just in case, and I grip its handle. Beside me, Aster creeps to the left toward Kit while I advance on the sorceress. Even weakened after missing my skin for so long, I’m still stronger and faster than a human, even one who has stolen magic. If I can get behind her or keep out of her eyeline, I’ll have a better chance of taking her by surprise.
My current plan doesn’t really extend beyond tackling her and stabbing the knife into her neck. But simple plans are often the best, and we don’t have a lot of options right now.
I’m just creeping alongside her when Kit’s chains jangle. Then there’s a deafening boom from somewhere above us. The entire room shakes, and I stumble slightly. Aster’s concentration must break as the next thing I know, her head is jerking up to look at me.
I tackle her.
“Reva!” Kit yells.
But I don’t listen, throwing my whole body at her and kicking away the box with Noush inside. The bottles around her go skittering across the floor, and a couple shatter as I bare my teeth in a feral grin, the knife at her throat.
“You took two very important things from me. You locked people up, starved them, drained them, and for what?”
Her eyes widen, and she fights back, attempting to knee me in the stomach. I’m straddling her, my hand gripping her wrist while I dig the knife blade in. Pure rage surges through me, clouding my head.
—and then I’m flying through the air, slamming onto the wall hard enough to knock all the air from my lungs.
I hang suspended by invisible cords of magic, entirely immobile.
Ah, damn. Somehow I’d forgotten that she’s a collector of stolen magic.
“Why do people keep interrupting me?” She gets to her feet, dabbing at the shallow cut I left on her neck before I had the chance to do any actual damage. She then casts a frustrated look around at the scattered bottles and spilled liquid.
“I saw you, you know?” she continues casually, as if we’re having a cosy chat. “Saw you traipsing about like you were on a day trip, but I thought the cursed rooms would see to you before you got this far.” She smears yet more of the black stuff on her hands, dipping low and swiping her hands through the mess on the floor without seeming to notice the glittering shards of glass.
“Who was it that sent you? Silus? Those damn Laithes? No, it’ll have been Morton. He never had my vision, but he always was a jealous little toad.”
She doesn’t seem to notice or care that I can’t reply, since my jaw is frozen shut. But at least she has her attention split between me and the goop on the floor and not on Aster, who is still muttering away to himself, tugging at Kit’s chains.
The wall behind my back shudders again, this time even more violently than before, and there’s a dull thump that sounds barely feet from my head.
Kit’s chains clink, and that’s all it takes for the sorceress to lose interest in me.
No. No. No.
The magic holding me releases, along with her attention. The next thing I know, I’m dropping like a stone. I twist my body at the last minute so my legs and spine don’t bear the full brunt of the impact.
Splat.
All the air gets knocked out of me, and I can’t seem to fill my lungs again. It feels like something heavy is sitting on me as I fight to take a breath.
“Now, now, now, that’s not nice, is it?” the sorceress’s voice floats across the room.
“Oh, just stop,” Kit replies hoarsely.
The funny thing is, she does shut up, and I relax my body enough to take a full breath and struggle to push myself into a seated position.
