I’m honestly so shocked he’s responded that I forget all about escaping this crumpling underworld.“Where?”
“Magick us out of this chamber, and I will tell you all.”
“You swear it?”
“I swear it, Fallon amZendaya, daughter of the Sky Kingdom.”
My bicep prickles anew. “Twobargains?”
“Use them well. Ready, Nipota?”
I imagine he’s asking whether I’m ready for a swim—since I’m guessing that’s how we’re getting out of here—or is he asking me whether I’m ready for what lays ahead?
Throat stinging with emotion, I draw the portal sigil, and it’s perfect this time. “I’m ready.”
Lore?
He still doesn’t answer. I pray it’s because I’m surrounded by too much obsidian.
Justus nods to the matte stone that glimmers with the faint tracks of my blood.
As the water rises to my chin, I shout, “Grab Antoni.” The second his fingers close around the captain’s leg, I slam my palm against the ceiling.
Though I didn’t murder Dante, I put a real dent in his Machiavellian design to turn me into his broodmare, or should I say,bloodmare?
Here’s to hoping Meriam doesn’t reveal the reason she and Justus insisted on the blood-bind for I’d enjoy nothing more than to deliver the news that he had Shabbin magic at his fingertips all along.
I’ll whisper it into his peaked ear just before I erase him from our world and make Lorcan Ríhbiadh, ruler of the sky, king of the land the Fae stole from him.
Thirty-Seven
The ocean is white with froth, dark with wingbeats, and luminous with scales.
My hand tightens around Antoni’s arm as the current, stirred by so much aquatic life, pins our bodies to the coral-covered rock housing Costa’s former bedchamber.
Fallon?
I hunt the foaming immensity for the source of that raucous, beautiful voice, my eyes connecting with those of the Crows pushing off the sandy bottom and drifting past me, their enormous bodies carving through the churning water before bobbing like corks on a surface needled by rain.
None have golden eyes.
The serpents settle next, rainbow scales shimmering in the weak dawn that bends through the eddies of sand and air bubbles. The ocean grows calm, as though even the mollusks are holding their breath.
You brought back a friend.I can tell from Lore’s timbre that he’s displeased to see Antoni.
He was chained to a wall. I couldn’t just abandon him. He would’ve died.
You left me to save him?
I sigh.I left you so I could destroy Costa’s old underground home.
You could’ve died.
Haven’t you heard? I’m immortal.I add a smile, hoping to clear his terrible mood.
If someone had knifed your neck and bled you—
Everyone was gone. They fled.
