But his secrecy had stolen this opportunity from us.
“Will you join them?” I asked as we reached the third floor.
I remembered this hallway.
The soles of my feet still ached from traipsing around it barefoot and frozen. Afterhehad brought me here.
“Gods, no. My duty is here.” Something in her tone stopped my rush. Something dark. “I’ve seen what the rest of the world is like. I don’t need a reminder.”
“You’re safe now,” I said.
Though I wanted to smash his head right now, I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, thathewould move mountains, lakes, and seas to protect her and Geryll.
But he hadn’t been able to open that damn mouth of his for me.
“I know.” Nadya’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “That’s why I’m staying.”
I had no ready reply for that.
No true composure to think about it now.
But she was worried and I’d been raised to abate concerns, even at my own expense.
It was strange, to bear the responsibility of experience.
Nadya was eighteen or nineteen to my twenty-one and fierce in her own way, but the entire air of her carried a strange, innocent energy that pricked my protective instincts.
She could hold her own in battle and that mouth of hers ran fast and unbending, but she was still raw in so many ways.
Both her and Geryll tugged on the heartstrings, but in different ways.
They both needed a good hug, but while Geryll might have sunk into the embrace, Nadya gave off the feeling that if you squeezed too tightly or too long, she’d push you away without remorse.
She had a cutting way about her that made me pause and measure words I normally wouldn’t. Wondering which thread I needed to pull to get my point across without her bristling.
“Sometimes, we cage ourselves out of fear,” I said evenly.
Gods knew I’d done it more than once.
Still doing it.
“I was raised for this cage,” Nadya said, sounding suddenly wise beyond her years. “I’m good.”
I opened my mouth, but whatever wisdom I would have scrounged up after a night of unrest were stolen from my lips by quick steps and Dax’s hiss.
“Where have you been?” he whispered, half his body hidden by the column he’d stopped behind.
“Getting your things,” I said, just as annoyed. “It’s not eight yet and I’m busy.”
Busy trying to stop my heart from cracking, my mind from whirling between grim thoughts, and getting ready to spill all of that poison on the one who’d infected me.
“No, you are not.” He shrugged his elbow enough for me to see the corner of Evie’s palaver. My heart dropped. “We have a problem.”
Chapter 21
Allie
“Kidnapped?” Dax and I asked at the same time, huddled in front of Evie’s hazy image rising from the palaver.
