“Help me escape.Go get the key, and?—”
“Why?”
“Why!What do you meanwhy?Because I have been kidnapped, and it is clear Stone has no plans to release me!He might kill me!”
Chester rubbed his ear with a wince.“Bit loud, aren’t we.You don’t want to sound shrewish.”
She grabbed his waistcoat again and yanked.
“Ack!”His face smooshed between the bars.
“You will help me escape or?—”
He wrenched himself out of her hold.“Or what?You have no leverage down here.Especially since you may never leave.”
She paced away from him, futility buzzing through her limbs.She felt heavy, tired, hopeless.“We are family.In a way.Your cousin and my brother?—”
“Don’t have to find out that I know of your whereabouts.”He leaned against the opposing wall now, out of her reach, all long-legged ease.If he didn’t wear the casual clothes of an alchemist apprentice, he would fit perfectly into a transcendent ballroom or garden party.
“Do you care about nothing?No one?”
“Myself.”He grinned.
“You are selfish, self-absorbed, and?—”
“Devious.”
“Infantile.”
“Ooh.I like that one.What about… apathetic.”
She wrapped her hands around the bars and sneered.“I prefer pathetic.”
“Damn.The princess has teeth.”
She bared hers.
He laughed.“Who knew you’d be a delight.Not me.Oh well.It’s a real shame what’s happened to you.”
“Temple will murder you.”
“With his bare hands, yes, I’m aware.And there was once a time I would have welcomed such retribution, but I’ve a bit of life back in me now.Prospects, even.So I think I’ll keep information about your current predicament out of his ears.”He sketched another bow and pulled a fairy orb from his pocket.It threw light across the grim corridor.
Grim, too, her future.
She shook the bars.“Do not leave!You can’t leave me here!”
“Look, Miss Grant, I do wish you weren’t rotting beneath the British Museum, but I can’t see any way to save you from it and keep my own prospects unscathed.”Scratching the back of his neck, he wouldn’t meet her gaze.“G-good evening, Miss Grant.S-sleep well.”Those halting syllables—an interesting break in his confidence.She reached for him, reached for that opening in his defenses.But he swung down the hallway, his long strides taking him farther and farther out of her reach.Soon the clangs of the floating chamber filled the air.
Then she was alone.
Hot as the air was, each breath heavy and choking, Sybil shivered.
Only the bars supported her as the last bit of her strength dissolved like her freedom.
Damn Apollo Chester.Straight to hell.
Damn Baxter Stone, too.More so, actually.
