Anticipation built inside her as they crept down the deserted, dusty corridor. “Lux,” Katerina whispered, and the familiar small flame rose in the air in front of them. Ana followed suit and, guided by the flickering lights, the three of them moved onward in silence.
The corridor forked: left, right, then left again. On the other side of the wall, the murmur of voices rose, and her heartbeat quickened—but the voices faded into silence as they took yet another fork, arriving at last at a small, arched wooden door.
“This is it,” Sofi signed, removing the keyring and trying one key, then another, until one finally turned in the lock. She spun the knob, pushing her shoulder against the wood, but the door didn’t budge.
“Let me,” Katerina signed, gripping the knob and shoving.
The door resisted, as if something on the other side was blocking it. Gods, what if it had been bricked over?
Panic seized Katerina, and she called on her witchwind, urging the wood to give. Sofi joined her, and bit by bit, the door eased open. Summoning her courage, Katerina stuck her head through, half-expecting to be decapitated.
But there was no one there. No one living, anyway.
Blocking the door was a body, as shriveled as the ones that the tendrils of Darkness had devoured in Kalach.
Nausea roiled inside Katerina again, and she swallowed bile. “Come on,” she said, willing her voice to steady as she stepped over the desiccated corpse.
Sofi and Ana followed her in silence. They stood in a corridor much like the one where she’d been imprisoned, except here, there were no burning herbs. The air smelled of rot and decay, and the only light came from the wall-mounted torches.
Fighting back her horror, Katerina made her way down the hallway, past locked cell after locked cell. Only one stood open, and outside it lay a guard with a blade buried deep in his belly. Another lay next to him, onyx chains wrapped around his bruised neck. Neither was breathing.
That sense of creeping foreboding grew as Katerina approached the open cell. Would she find Niko inside, trembling and gibbering in the corner? Gone mad with power? Stabbed through the heart?
She gathered every bit of her courage, skirted the pool of blood that seeped from the corpse, and peered inside the cell.
It was empty.
Katerina was still standing there, gaping in incomprehension, when Ana and Sofi caught up with her a few seconds later. “I don’t understand,” she said for the second time that night, numbness descending over her. “What happened here?”
“Your Shadow went on a killing spree.” Ana’s voice was dry as bone.
“Or someone tried to kill him, and he defended himself. Besides, two people hardly constitutes a spree.” She scanned the hallway, as if Niko might somehow materialize. “Where did he go? What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Sofi signed, “but this is bad. I’d hoped we could get him out of here without a commotion, unlocking his cell and going back through that door before anyone was the wiser. But now, guards are dead. Someone will come looking for them, and when they fail to show…”
“He could still be here somewhere,” Katerina protested.
Ana made a show of looking around. “Where, Katerina? Unless Niko has somehow found a way to make himself invisible, his options are rather limited.”
“They could have taken him somewhere, to interrogate him. We could wait?—”
“We can’t!” Ana hissed, her fingers biting into Katerina’s arm. “We’re sitting ducks here, after what we did to those other guards. We need to go. Now.”
“I won’t leave him.” Katerina set her feet, resisting Ana’s grip. “You might as well ask me to leave a piece of my soul behind.”
“Of all the stubborn…” Ana’s voice trailed off, and she rocked back on her heels, that familiar, impatient energy thrumming through her body. “First of all, he isn’t here. And second, is this what you think Niko would want for you? To die here because you refused to spare a single thought for your own self-preservation? To prioritize your own survival over his?”
It was a valid attempt, but doomed to failure. Katerina set her jaw, scanning every inch of the corridor. “His job is to protect me. When has that ever stopped me looking out for him?”
“And look where that’s gotten you,” Sofi signed, her wry tone somehow evident in the crisp movement of her fingers. “If we don’t get out of here, you’ll hang in the morning for sure—and Ana and I probably will too, for abetting you.”
That gave Katerina pause. She hated the idea of anyone else suffering on her account, especially Sofi, who’d already lost so much.
Seeing her soften, Ana pressed her advantage. “Worry about yourself for once, would you? Not a Shadow who swallowed every tendril of evil in Kalach rather than see our village fall, and then frightened Gadreel himself away. The Darkness does his bidding, for Saints’ sake. You don’t think such a man can take care of himself? He’s probably miles from here already.”
“Niko would never leave me!”
“He would if he knew we’d get you out,” Sofi signed. “Ana sent Alexei to free him. After that, we planned to meet at the bridge; Damien will be waiting there with the horses. Perhaps that’s where Niko’s gone. After all, Alexei isn’t here, either.”
