Ren stared down at Epsy, like the creature was going to start talking in tongues. “How do you know?”
Bach cleared his throat. “This is the last gift our mother ever gave Avalon. It’s usually wrapped around the back of the rocking chair in her room. If the ferret has it, then it’s because she’s there.”
“Stolt,” I corrected absently. “We have to move.”
Bach didn’t try to talk me out of it this time. He did hover behind me as I stood, though, like he was convinced that I was about to drop dead right here in this hovel.
And I didn’t mean hovel because it was small. Ren, if this was his house, was fuckingfilthy.Bowls were stacked in the sink, his dirty underwear strewn around the room. I was a little worried that I might end up with some kind of infection just from lying on his bed, which obviously hadn’t had its sheets washed in a decade. Who knew what was living in his mattress?
I forced my screaming body to move faster. We were so close to being completely fucked that my heart was pounding in my chest. If my father got to Avalon and Lierick before I did, they were both as good as dead. He might let Hayle live, so he didn’t have to contend with Baron Taeme, but I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t imagine Hayle going down without a fight, and he’d never let Avalon be taken.
I grunted, feeling the gash in my stomach stretch and split. I shouldn’t be alive, not with a gut wound this deep. But I wasn’t second-guessing the Goddess-given gift that my heart was still beating.
I staggered out through the back door of Ren’s house, Alucius trailing along behind me and Epsy wrapped around my neck. Normally, I found the small creature annoying, but the comfort of his soft fur and solid weight across my shoulders was grounding me as my body wanted to lie down and let Lady Death finish me off.
Later. Once Avalon was safe.
I tried to not feel out of place in the northerners’ clothes. If anyone looked closely, they’d see the pants finished at my ankles. The shirt was dirty, and I tried not to think about what was rubbing against my wounds. Bach kept his head down too, and whenever someone said hello, he gave them a brilliant smile, and usually a joke, but he continued walking.
I looked down at Alucius. “You have to wait here. You’ll be too obvious.” She whined, and I knew she was anxious. “I’ll bring them out. You have to watch our exit.” Mildly appeased, sheslipped into the large lavender bushes that lined the edges of the building.
Leading us through the back of the Keep like nothing was amiss, Bach stole a whole loaf of bread from the kitchen with a cheeky grin.
“I swear, Master Bach, you’re lucky I don’t take to you with a spoon!” the cook called, raising said utensil threateningly.
“Then who would appreciate your food?” he joked right back, but kept the loaf of bread under his arm as he walked up the narrow stone stairs.
A maid appeared from nowhere. “She isn’t in the dungeons. She’s in the attic,” she hissed, and Bach quickly dragged her into the shadows.
“We know,” he said softly. The girl looked past Bach, and her eyes went wide as she saw me, her mouth falling open. Bach rolled his eyes. “Vox, this is Nexa. Nex, this is Vox Vylan, Heir to the First Line.”
The maid slapped his arm, hard. “I know who Vox Vylan is, you dolt.”
Did she just hit an Heir?
“We grew up together,” Bach muttered to me, by way of explanation. He looked back at Nexa. “Where’s my father?”
Nexa’s lip curled, and that one expression said everything about her opinion of the Baron. “In his office. He just opened his wedding scotch.” She paused. “He asked where you were. Bach, I didn’t like the look in his eyes.” There was real worry in her tone, and it was obvious she cared for Avalon’s brother.
“I can handle Father, Nexa. I need you to get out of sight for a while, though. I’m not sure what’s going to go down, but you need to be somewhere safe.”
The girl gave him an incredulous expression. She didn’t agree nor disagree, but disappeared into the servant corridorto the left. Both Bach and Ren watched her go with concerned expressions.
Bach turned to his friend. “You should go too. Make sure she doesn’t do anything insane.”
Ren hesitated, but then dipped into the servant corridor too.
“Girlfriend?” I asked, breathing heavily through my mouth. I couldn’t have been less interested in his answer, but I needed something to distract me from the fact my insides were desperately trying to become my outsides.
“No.” He said it like it was a complete answer, which it normally would have been, if I ignored the longing in his voice. “Ren is in love with her, has been since we were kids.”
Ah.The old best friend’s girl scenario. That sucked. “He seems like a level-headed kid, and she seems like a ball buster. If experience tells me anything”—I grunted as I twisted in the wrong direction, pulling at my stomach wound—“it’s that four hands are better than two, when it comes to women like that.”
Bach gave me the stink eye. “That’s really sage advice, if I don’t think about the fact those four hands are on my baby sister, asshole.”
Luckily, there was no more speaking as we climbed the stairs, each step feeling like it was going to be my last. Hopefully, Hayle could transform into that giant beast and carry me out of here. I’d even take a piggy-back, at this point.
Finally, after two flights of stairs, we stood in front of a warded door. I could feel the pulse of strong magic over the entrance, and I wondered how they’d walked into such an obvious trap.
