19
“Jac…Jac…” I can hardly open my eyes, and moving, forget it. My arms feel as if they weigh a hundred pounds each and my legs are too heavy to even wiggle. The room is dark again, but this time light spills in from a large window across from me. I’m on the floor, that much I can tell, and my wrists are bound together once more.
“I’m here, Ace.” Jacques’s voice comes from the dark, and it’s the best thing I could ever hear. “I’m not leaving you.” He moves, trying to get closer, and the sound of chains dragging across the floor echoes through the empty room.
“What…what happened?”
“You were drugged.” His fingertips brush over mine, and I don’t understand why he’s not coming closer. Why I’m not nestled in his arms, taking solace in his embrace. “So was I.”
“Are you…are you okay?”
“Yes,” he says definitively. “It didn’t seem to have the same effect on me as it did you. Probably because I’m not entirely human.”
I let my eyes fall shut again and take a few seconds to rest. Only, what I thought was a few seconds must have been much longer.
“Ace, are you with me?”
My eyes flutter open and I see Jac’s outline. He’s in front of the window, with his large wings blocking out the light. Right away I can tell I was knocked out for hours by the glow of the night sky.
“Yeah. I’m just…so tired.”
“Whatever they gave you…” Jacques trails off, shaking his head. “Are you able to move? You have chains on your ankles.”
“Oh.” That could be part of why my legs feel so heavy. “Motherfucking Trent. I’m going to kill him,” I mutter, and Jacques laughs.
“I’ll help.”
I try to sit up again and the world spins around me. “The others…”
“They’re fine.”
“How do you know?”
“I can sense them. I’ve always been able to, in a way. They went somewhere safe with Gemma and that police friend of yours.”
One of the million knots in my chest loosens. “But you…you’re here.”
“Yes. I came to save you.”
I try to crack a joke about how well that worked out but fall short. Because there’s nothing funny about this moment right now, and I’m close to falling back to sleep. “You shouldn’t have come. You’re what…what…” I get dizzy and lower myself back to the ground before I pass out and whack my head against the polished marble floor.
“I’m what Mr. Trent wants, I know,” Jacques says softly. “Gemma told me that Mr. Trent visited Lyra before and was asking about runes. He’s not after your house or your book, so the runes that call us to stone every night had to be the only thing. He collects magical items and likes powers. We’re magical and powerful.”
“He thinks he can control you if he does some sort of ritual with the runes.”
“He might be able to,” Jacques says. I was not expecting that at all. “It’s entirely possible.”
“You shouldn’t have come,” I say, anger fueling me. I sit up again, heart breaking when I see Jacques shackled to the ground. That’s why he couldn’t come to me. He can hardly move. “I would have been fine! He can’t have you! If he controls you and makes you do—”
“Ace,” Jacques interrupts. “It’s going to be okay. He’ll let you go in exchange for me.”
“Jacques, no!” I pull against the chains on my ankles. The links are large and heavy, looking like something that would be used to hold back an elephant, not a slim woman. I’m wearing handcuffs again, and the chain between them snaps. I gasp and extend my hand, trying to summon a fire hot enough to melt the metal.
But nothing happens.
Bringing my wrists closer to my face, I look for a seam or opening—anything I can pry apart. There isn’t one. They’re far too tight to slide down and over my hands. They were secured by magic, and only magic can take them off.
Son of a bitch.
