“Since when do you care about that man?”
“You’re right. I don’t. But had he been dead, then we’d all have been fucked, because we would’ve been stuck down here.” I stare at the dusty swirl of glass bottles coating the wall. “Unless there’s a door I’m not aware of?”
Cato’s silence tows my gaze off the rows of corks.
“Is there?”
He glances sideways and says, “No.”
I can taste the lie on his breath.
“I’m going to airlift you into the cage now, Fallon. Please don’t fight me. It’s the safest place for you at the moment.”
“I’m perfectly safe down here.”
“Not if the sprites come. They can slip through the bars of the cellar door, but they cannot slip through your cage bars. Justus has spelled them to keep anyone that isn’t you out.”
Just as he says this, footfalls and wingbeats echo through the tunnel.
“Please, Fallon. Please. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I’m not going back inside that cage.”
“Sergeant Brambilla.” Two sprites flit through the door, speaking in unison. They even pant in unison. “The king is requesting an audience with you.”
Cato goes as white as the sun-bleached sheets Nonna would hang to dry outside in the summer months. “I—I—”
“Justus has the key to the cellar, so I’m afraid an audience will have to wait,” I say, since my friend cannot seem to form a sentence.
“Sergente, the key!” Lastra rattles the cellar door.
I repeat what I’ve just told the winged Faeries, then add, “Any chance you can remove your vines, Lastra?” They could potentially have been shaped by another Faerie—I was a tad distracted to check who bound me—but since his eyes are green, chances are it was him. “The door’s locked. It isn’t as though I can go anywhere.”
“They stay on.” Cato speaks between barely separated lips. “Unless you get into your cage.”
I stare long and hard at the white-haired male. “You don’t trust me?”
“Have you given me reason to?”
“I would never cause you harm, Cato.”
He slants me a stare that makes my heart hold still. The truth is written inside his gaze. He doesn’t believe me.
“Fine.” My jaw hardens like my rib cage. “Don’t take off my vines, but at least loosen them. They’re digging into my flesh.”
A nerve feathers Cato’s jaw. “Do as she says, Lastra.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind, Sergente? What if she—what if she stabsyouin the eye?”
“She won’t.” Cato cocks an eyebrow my way. “Right?”
I almost swear an oath but bite it off my tongue a second before it can leap off. “No harm will come to the sergeant.”
Lastra’s thick brown eyebrows crouch so low they all but hug his lash line. “Swear it.”
A tiny pearl of sweat beads down my nape as I chew on the inside of my cheek, considering how best to tell Lastra to fuck off. It’s the sight of Cato’s rounded jaw that inspires my reply. “I would, but I’d be breaking a vow I made to my beloved grandmother—and I do mean Justus’s former wife, not the spanking-new one.”
“Let her be, Lastra.”
