More glass cracked and a cabinet splintered.
Shaw bent until his nose just brushed her own and his lips were nearly against hers. “Does it matter?” he murmured.
Lux sucked in a breath full of smoke and him. “No.”
“We need to leave, Lux.”
“You said that already.”
“Except now the entire room is burning.”
“Learned it from you.”
He laughed against her mouth, but she sobered on hearing it. Because she remembered—after the fire came the consequences. Consequences which nearly lost him to her forever.
Lux pulled back and found Riselda busying herself with gathering as many things as she could. Flames sparked all around her. The smoke shifted, and Lux noticed a long crack in the black stone of the wall. A tapestry lay in a crumpled heap at its base, already afire.
Shaw shifted to face it. “It’s through there.” Then he handedThe Risento her.
“I’ll go first,” she replied. “To clear the webs.”
“Thoughtful.” He glanced to Riselda, where another cabinet—the one containing scores of lifeblood—bowed then collapsed to smoldering bits beside her. Silver seeped to fill every groove in the flagstones. “And her?”
Lux sniffed and said nothing. She shoved her shoulder into the door, hardly stumbling when it spun. She huffed in the dark at its opposite side. Like the door in the morning room, this one led to a spiral staircase, but one much narrower and far more coated in dust. She didn’t think it’d been used in a very, very long time.
She stepped down and into cobwebs. Grimacing, Lux swiped at them quick, not turning when a flare of light and warmth and smoke met her back. The door swung fully closed a second time, and Shaw held a flaming bit of wood aloft in the passageway.
The remaining webs burned away.
“What would a regular night with you be like, I wonder?” he said.
The passage muffled his voice strangely, and Lux looked up at him. “You making me tea. Sitting in comfortable chairs. You’ll be painting. I’ll be listening to the sea.”
Even saying it aloud had her aching.
But abruptly, she realized there might not be more nights of any kind.
Because they’d reached the base of the hidden staircase.
And there was no door.
Chapter forty-three
“Devil’stits!”Luxcradledher shoulder, slumping to the ground.
“If it didn’t work for me, I’m not sure why you thought it would for you.” But Shaw rubbed at her shoulder with one hand anyway. With his other, he flipped quickly throughBrilliant Brushstrokes.
Still.
He’d been at it for several minutes, crouched, his brow furrowed and chewing at his lips. But Lux couldn’t handle more waiting. Thus, she’d propelled herself into the stone wall.
“What are we going to do?” The makeshift torch weakened, any breathable air slowly siphoning away. She shoved painfully back to her feet. “Should we go back?” When Shaw didn’t answer, she nudged his elbow with her knee.
He pushed her away. “We can’t go back. It’ll be engulfed by now.”
“We can’t stay here until it finishes burning!” She heaved in a gulping breath.Devil below. I feel it. The…air…
Shaw cursed.
