“Maezza, Meriam!” Cato gasps.
My gaze jerks to the vault just as the bloodied vines drop to the ground, their collapse as silent as my footfalls.
“What about Meriam, Brambilla?” Dante yells.
“She’s gone.”
My fingers close around the sword just as Dante says, “That’s impossible.”
But apparently, it is possible since her throne has vanished.
Dante tosses away my grandfather and pivots toward the vault. “Find the witch!”
Everyone is so wholly focused on playing peekaboo with Meriam that no one catches me snagging the fallen sword, the same way no one notices me slinking toward where Justus lies, his chest barely moving.
When his eyes find mine, he murmurs, “Go. Meriam—will distract—”
Keeping one fist clamped on his sword, I press a shaky finger against his mouth to silence him. His colorless lips turn scarlet where I touch him. Scarlet but motionless.
I yank up his shirt to reveal the wound. His cut runs from his navel to the edge of his rib cage and reveals so many organs that my own organs heave, threatening to eject the few segments of orange I ate. I clamp my lips shut, wedge my index and middle fingers together, then touch their tips to my bleeding wrist, and circle the long, gushing wound with my blood several times.
“Must I do—anything else?” I murmur around deep pants.
“You must . . . get out,” he croaks, just as his gaze climbs to a place over my head and his lips part around a strangled version of my name.
I whip both my gaze and my sword upward, slashing through the pantleg of a very startled Lastra.
The man’s green eyes narrow on the wrists his vines bloodied. Before he trusses me up in more, I swipe the sword again, driving it so hard against his leg that I hit bone. He squeals as he collapses, his sword falling from his fingers, hitting the puddle of gore spreading beneath Justus.
As heads spin in our direction, I jolt to my feet, snatch Justus by the collar, and drag him toward the wall.
“Leave—me—Fallon.” His voice is a mere whisper, yet I hear it.
“Where do you think you’re going, moya?” Dante steps toward me slowly, raising his palms when I brandish my sword.
My swallows come as hard and fast as the breaths clocking my sternum. “I wouldn’t turn my back on Meriam.” Perhaps she fled, but my threat makes every soldier freeze, giving me time to sketch out the lock symbol.
Dante spins back, his gaze tracking my fingers’ skid across the stone wall.
My heart hastens.
He springs forward, his strides longer than his soldiers.
Three.
I wait, my palm hovering over the symbol.
Two.
The Faerie monarch throws himself onto Justus.
One.
I slam my palm against the exit, praying, as our three bodies glide through matter, that another garrison of Dante’s isn’t waiting on the other side of this wall.
It would greatly defeat my briskly-hatched plan of fighting him without the threat of a dozen swords pointed my way.
Thirty
