Antony freezes.
A sharphisssounds as he draws a breath, and then his chest stops moving. Failing to exhale.
At first, I think he’s frozenbecause of what I said, but his focus on my cheek is intense, and his murmur is strained. “All cut up.”
With a shaking hand, I reach up to dab at the spot where my face stings.
A single shard had sliced across my skin, but I’m certain it’s a shallow wound, even if the amount of blood smearing my fingertips tells me it looks bad.
“Antony—”
“I was a fucking fool,” he snarls, finally exhaling with a level of rage I wasn’t expecting.
“What do you?—?”
He wrenches me upward, angling me over his shoulder with an aggressive heave. “A fucking fool.”
I try to catch my breath as he storms toward the door protected by blood magic, barely breaking his stride to push through it and descend the staircase.
The magic’s cold chill rushes across my body, leaving me with the same dread that swirled in my stomach when he carried me through it earlier today.
The swirling dread spreads upward, and for a moment, a fluttering sensation fills my chest, as if I’m about to have an Oracle vision.
But the sensation sputters and fades, an odd sparking and dying, and I’m not sure what to make of it.
Antony continues to hurtle down the stairs at a pace that frightens me, then proceeds along the corridor with such fervor that his feet pound the ground.
I’m astonished that whatever has triggered his rage has surpassed his need to know all of what I read in the book.
My heart thumps that anything could be more powerful to him than his need to break the curse.
Instead of continuing along the corridor to its other side, he veers down a passageway to his right, pausing only briefly at thefirst door before he turns his other shoulder, giving me a good look along the remainder of the corridor and the ability to discern that this is the only door along this path.
He shoves the door open.
I startle when he carries me past stone walls inlaid with golden filigree, past plush chairs, and toward the most enormous, lavishly blanketed bed I’ve ever seen, at the side of which he finally slides me to the floor.
This room is far more opulently decorated than his quarters up on the main levels of the Constellation. But the glinting metal on the wall directly to my left defies the comfortable façade.
A pair of shackles is attached to that wall, resting at my shoulder height, each on a short chain.
My focus flies around the room, landing on the large key resting on a little table on the far side of the bed.
Antony told me that these catacombs were intended as a safe place for the king, where nobody could get to him, so I’m not sure why there are shackles on the wall.
“Antony, what is this room?”
“Stay here,” he commands me. “Until I come back for you.”
He’s already swinging away from me, moving quickly.
“Wait—No!” I catch hold of his arm, trying to stop him. As if I could.
The last time he left me alone, an assassin came for me. That’s impossible here, given he’s the only one who can enter and leave without dying, but my concern isn’t being alone. It’s his reason for leaving me here.
“Talk to me!”
He whirls on me, both hands landing on my shoulders, pushing me back andbacktoward the wall, where I stop, pressed hard against the cold, glittering surface, the shackles on either side of me.
