After crossing the elaborate fresco—the faces stamped by my dirty soles—I paused at the door. “Are there any spells in there for summoning a massive swell for surfing?”
“I’ll check.” Setting a pair of glasses on the bridge of her nose, she peered at me over the cat eye frames. “That your final request?”
“Are you open to more?”
Her eyes crinkled, her whole face softening. “Go.”
Biting back a smile, I crossed the threshold, the golden light from the archives pouring into the stone hall. As I briskly walked down the spiral staircase, with no one to talk to, my thoughts ran wild with questions, with theories, with hunger.
When was the last time I’d eaten?
Pushing that nagging ache aside, I let another force drive me before I ended up in the pantry: intuition. It guided me like the magnet of a compass, pointing towards the ground level—below it.
If I really wanted answers, I had to look for them. They wouldn’t be stuffed between the pages of an old book. They’d be kept out of sight, in a place deemed untouchable, dangerous, an area no one dared to go. I reached the landing. All remained quiet, still. The gut-rumbling chime of a clock rang out, signaling the start of the hour.
I had to do it now—when the events from this morning still turned conversations, still demanded the support of every quick-moving hand—but mostly because not knowing was even more dangerous than taking the risk to find out. And I was convinced the queen was holding that missing jelmadag.
Slipping through the unusually empty courtyard, I kept close to the shadows cast by the afternoon sun dipping below the castle’s skyline.
A tendril of heat crept up from a stairwell, the salt-infused air heady, beckoning. If I were smart, I’d follow it down to the healing pools, but I wasn’t craving calm, warmth.
I was craving cold, darkness, and most of all, answers. So, I left the geothermal sanctuary behind, cutting across the atrium until the slick concrete steps rose from the ground.
Shutting out the fear, the doubt, the silhouettes moving in my peripheral, I descended into the dungeon before the change of the guard was complete. At the foot of the stairs, I snatched the torch from its bracket and disappeared behind the veil of blackness.
Chapter 28
This time, I kept my feet quick. I didn’t spare curious glances—not even as a weak gasp rose from a familiar corner, as my name left familiar lips. That undeniable pull wrapped around my heart, attempting to drag me into the shadows. To him.
“River,” Ryder croaked. “You came.”
My feet tried, unwittingly, to stop in front of his bars. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of him, nothing but a pathetic heap on the iced-out cobblestone.
Something in me stirred.
I knew I was playing with fire, and it took everything to stay away from him.
A deep roar rumbled through the dungeon, and a draft, like hot, acidic breath, tossed my hair. It was terrifying, but at least it drew me away from the most dangerous part of this prison—Ryder’s cell.
“Wait,” he pleaded, his silhouette shuffling towards me. “Don’t go!”
My free hand squeezed into a fist.
Unlike when I’d trekked all the way down to the Dead Man’s Zone, this time I only had one more floor to go. Puffs of frosty vapor rose off the stone, enveloping the tunnel in a haze. A strange sense of knowing beat beside my raging heart, a rush of déjà vu prickling my skin as I entered the second level.
I held the torch farther out in front of me, the flames illuminating rows of wet cages.
The vapor was thicker down here, a dense fog. Weirdest of all, it was scorching. Maybe that’s why there was so much putrid water covering the floor, it wasn’t fog at all—it was steam. Traces of it wafted through the thin slits of the cell on my left.
I dared a step closer. I barely dared a shaking breath.
The whites of glassy eyes reflected in the torchlight. So many—too many. They all surveyed me, tilting at angles not humanly possible.
My heart sputtered in my chest.
The jelmadag.
It huffed hot air out of its wide, flat nostrils, jolting me back with the stench of rotting meat. Sweat trickled down my hairline, gathered at my temples.
