Page 161 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

Somewhere in the distance, rock cracks again.

The mountain trembles, shuddering through the chair caging me here. A hum fills the darkness as if the very foundations of Castle Mount are falling.

Like the battle that raged after the Test of Strength is back.

And if it is, I want it to bury me. I want the earth to swallow me whole. The despair is impossible to hold against my shattered heart. There’s no way to live with this.

Then I hear—

Boots.

Boots running on stone, and clanging metal.

Two sounds I know as well as my sister’s last breath, and wish I’d never had to learn.

Rough voices grow closer, but the darkness won’t yield. It suffocates me. Each rasping draw of my stubborn lungs scrapes against the shadows, and the iron hinges creak.

Bodies, there’s no way of knowing how many, shuffle into the space.

My mind imagines the scent of leather—and spice.

“Lady,” a hard voice shouts. It’s muffled, someone speaking through their hands, or a mask. “The High Queen needs you.” The words are low in an almost familiar growl. “The mages are back.”

A spindly finger caresses the split along my cheekbone. I close my eyes and let the answering flare of pain splinter through me.

I deserve to hurt.

“That’s not possible.” Her perfume chokes the air to the right of me. Metal clicks, like she’s laid whatever device she holds down onto the table again. “Whatpreciselydid she tell—?”

Bone splinters, a gut-churning crack.

The sharp draw of her hissing breath, and one syllable. “Door—?”

A slashing gurgle chokes off the rest. A wet spatter falls. “I swore once I’d be the last thingyouever see.” Dead weight smacks stone. There’s a sound like steel hissing into a sheath, and a furious, familiar voice. “And I keep my promises.”

My heart jolts. A sob swells in my throat. This is my brain playing tricks, now that Finn is… I can’t even say the word. This is my shattered mind clinging to the last faint shred of hope it can salvage for me in this darkness.

But I crack.

I break apart.

Tears burn down the open wounds and bruises covering my face, and the only air coming into my lungs is heaving gasps. Because the smell of him… Old Ones, that can’t be all in my head. That achingly familiar leather and smoke and sage is real.

Heis real.

“You’re alive.” Those same awed words: the ones that tore from Wolf when he found me, hair loose and soaking wet in his room. “Maeve, I’ve got you. We’re getting you out of here.”

“Swear.”The word is all I can croak out over the splits down my lips, my swollen face.

His voice is a buoy in the dark, and I cling to each word.

“I swear, Maeve,” Wolf vows roughly. The warm promise of his touch hovers over my skin, but he hesitates. I hear the catch in his throat, then the spark of a match at his back. A burst of light blinds me, but not before the shadows peel back and I catch a glimpse through swollen eyes of Cash’s horrified stare.

Wolf leans in, filling my vision.

“Close your eyes,” he urges softly, and one hand curls around to cup the back of my neck. It’s probably the only spot on me that isn’t bloody or broken or bruised. “We need light to break the shackles. Trust me—you don’t want to see.”

I should be strong enough. I should be brave enough to bear witness. But I just know—this isn’t how I want to remember my sister.