“Touch her and I’ll feed your fingers to my dog. Then I’ll kill you.”
I cringed but was grateful when Borris jostled his enormous self over toward the nearest door, unhooking a key ring from his belt. The lock clicked, and Borris stepped back with a grunt.
He handed my brother another key and said, “Didn’t know we’d be letting him go.”
“Never you mind, rodent.” Bennett handed Borris one of the coins Vanya had given him. “Run along now and tell Tucker that you were overpowered by the duke’s thugs.”
Borris squinted like he wasn’t sure whether to be offended or not. But he ambled off down the hall, leaving us alone. Bennett turned to us. “Just this one time, Ar. I hope you know what you’re doing. I might lose my head for this.”
He swung the door open.
The room was pitch black. No windows. Bennett stood against the door, holding it open for me, and the light from his torch fell into the room.
I gasped and clapped a hand to my mouth.
Chained to the opposite wall was Rush, his arms over his head, white as sheets and bloody at the wrists where the iron rubbed. His head snapped up, his eyes focusing on me. “Ari.” His eyes frantically searched my face. His legs were splayed on thefloor, and his shirt was missing. The nasty bruise on his stomach was now one of many dark places, all confined to his stomach and chest. Not a single blow had gone to his face.
I rushed forward and fell to my knees before him. His hair was draped across his forehead.
“Are you okay?” He jerked forward against the chains. “Did they hurt you? Did they touch you?”
“I’m fine,” I breathed, looking at his bruises.
“Why are you here?” His eyes traveled to my brother holding the torch. His jaw flexed.
“We’re getting you out.”
Bennett stepped forward and unlocked the shackles. Rush’s arms fell into his lap and lay there, limp, for several seconds. He slumped forward and I caught him, letting his forehead rest against my shoulder.
When the blood returned to his hands, he lifted one and cupped my waist gently. Then, without warning, his fingers fisted in the fabric of my shirt and he looked up at me, eyes bright and fierce.
“You shouldn’t have come, Ari,” he said, holding my gaze with such ferocity I couldn’t stop blinking. “These are not nice people. And even if one of them is your brother, I hate to think what I’ll have to do to them if they ever hurt you.”
He stood, the muscles in his body creating shadowed grooves. I forced my gaze away and stood beside him. To my surprise, his cold fingers threaded through mine, squeezing hard.
“Let’s go.” He surged forward, barely limping, and as he tugged me along, my eyes snagged on a tattoo in the middle of his back. A simple black line with the upward point of an arrow drawn through the middle rather than the end of the line. I’d seen the symbol painted on walls and etched into glass windows.
In the doorway, he paused and glanced back at me. “Something wrong?”
“What is that?” I asked, eyes on the tattoo.
His jaw flexed briefly, then, “It’s the symbol for the Archivists.” Without any further explanation, he slipped from the room. Bennett’s warning played in my head as I stared at the black symbol on Rush’s back.
Vanya slid more money into my brother’s waiting hand. He nodded at her, then led us out a different door than the one we’d entered. This one deposited us in a mostly empty side street, where a couple walked a little ways down the road.
Bennett shrugged out of his jacket. “Here,” he said, handing it to Rush. “So you don’t stand out like a horse in a dragon race.”
Rush stuffed his arms in the jacket, which was too wide and too short in the arms. His raw wrists were visible. The two men stared at each other with anger in their eyes for several seconds. Finally, Rush said, “Next time we meet, Snake, we aren’t friends.”
My brother nodded, “We aren’t now.”
“Enough of that,” Vanya said, shoving the last of the money into my brother’s hands.
Rush tugged me closer to his side. “Come on.”
As we stepped out into the yellow-tinted fog, my brother hissed, “Remember what I said.”
As we walked,Rush’s limp grew worse. He leaned heavily on me, but I said nothing.
