I release the breath cramping my lungs as my heart slow-rolls back down my bobbing throat. “Did you find the sigil?”
“Yes. It’s done.” He must regard Antoni because he growls, “Are we breaking him out?”
“Well, we can’t leave him here.”
Justus expels another exasperated sigh. “Fine. Let’s go before your mate destroys the house.”
Just as he says this, the subterranean castle shakes so hard my teeth chatter.
I whip out my hands to keep myself steady. “Not yet.”
“You’re not chasing—”
“No.”
“Good, because I was beginning to worry about your mental state.” His sarcasm smacks my grooved forehead, warming the blood caking my brow.
“But I’m not leaving here until I’ve crumbled this place.”
“I knew it. I knew you’d do something reckless.” His hands fall away from my biceps. “The stone is thick and—”
“Not beside Dante’s chamber. I could hear the ocean, Nonno. I could feel the serpents.” And they could feel me. “Want to float Meriam over?”
I hear him swallow. “They took her.”
Of course they did. “Where?”
“Inside the tunnels.” He bites out each word.
I may not be able to see his face, but I’ve no doubt that if I pressed my fingertips against his jaw, it would be ticking. “Even more reason to flood this place.”
“The tunnels were built on an incline.”
“Dante and his little regiment are weighed down by a gold throne, so they mustn’t have gotten all that far.” I think of when Lore flooded the mountain trench, and it had flushed away the soldiers trailing after us. Fingers crossed it’ll work this time, too. “Maybe you and Antoni can already start watering the place.”
Antoni frowns—because he doesn’t understand my plan, or because he believes me mad?
I fold my arms. “Either you help us, Antoni, or I transform you into a crab.”
He eyes the spot I stand on, his pupils shrinking and spreading as though weighing the truth of my threat.
“A crab?” His mouth moves with a small smile. “Can she really do that, Justus?”
How neat would it be if I could? I wait with bated breath for Justus’s answer. Especially since we’re no longer in danger.
I feel the heat of a hand on my brow and blink. Since Antoni’s lids slam down and up as well, I imagine Justus has removed my sigil.
The door swings into the stone wall. “You have one minute to draw the shockwaves before I haul you upstairs. Better hurry, Nipota.”
With a sigh, I mumble a chastened, “I’ll be quick.” How is it that I’m twenty-two, and a powerful witch no less, yet feel knee-high to a sprite?
Once out of Antoni’s cell, we march toward the black wooden door looming ahead of us. The nearer we get to it, the more my blood pounds, surging and ebbing like its own tide. Is it nerves or is it the ocean I’m feeling?
I raise my hand to the ceiling that slants so low that my fingertips skim the cool stone. When a liquid thump tickles their tips, I startle then marvel. Serpents. I may not be able to see through stone, but I know that if I drew the key sigil, I’d find myself inside the ocean.
The bedchamber door groans open, and I all but jump out of my skin.
Thirty-Six
