Page 27 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers

I just have to survive long enough to find a way out of here.

I’ve survived worse, for longer. The uprising lasted three months—three months with no food coming past the city’s locked gates and smoke choking every street from the burning temples. We couldn’t open the windows for weeks.

Old Ones, it’s been years since we’ve seen the full face of the sun through the mist.

All I have to do now is stay alive long enough to run.

I raise my eyes to hers and plaster an innocent, awed smile on my lips. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

The guard pulls me up. We back away from the High Queen until, all of a sudden, the brass doors slam shut in our faces. The guard’s grip tightens on my wrist, and we set off at a quick, sharp pace with me stumbling after through halls that blend into one another and glitter with crimson and obsidian gems.

My ribs squeeze tight around my lungs. I try to mark every twist and turn for later as clues I’ll need to remember how to find my way back out of here.

A cold draft curls along stone halls that grow more stark the farther we go. Up a flight of stairs, and another, and I see a bead of sweat forming at the edge of the guard’s copper hairline. I take my chance and rip my arm from the tight grip around my wrist.

These halls are a maze. I could hide in them, then run.

My wrist screams, and I’m off balance—weak from however long they’ve kept me in that damn cell. The staircase shifts around me as my weight pitches back, and I start to fall.

The guard’s straining grasp catches me by the neck of myfilthy tunic and heaves me up. After a long look, the guard clamps another hand around my wrist and hauls me away from the staircase, down an eerily empty hall.

I kick, but the guard doesn’t let go—then shoves me up against the wall next to a wooden door.

“Try that again and it’ll bebothour asses up on the Black Quay before you can scream,” the guard warns, then kicks a heavy boot to open the door. “Now get in and don’t make another sound.”

EIGHT

The door slams shut behind me, and I’m alone.

“You piece of shit!” I yell into the still, dusty room, fists slamming at the back of the door. A flare of pain whips up my wrist, and I bite back a cry. “Damnit.”

A deep cold presses in. It’s a draft, wafting through my worn tunic. A flicker of orange light catches at the edge of my sight, and I turn to see a log snap and crackle in an enormous sandstone hearth, big enough to stand in. Despite myself, the rippling heat draws me closer. These aren’t the cheap peat bricks we use in Quayside but actual wood. Whole logs of it, fragrant bark curling lazily.

I reach my hands toward the heat, and slowly, my pulse steadies.

I can still do this. I can find a way out of this castle before the Assay starts and get back to Finn before the noble daughters get their chance to toy with me in front of the entire court.

I lean in close enough for the flames to coax blood into my cheeks and let the warmth sink into my chilled skin.

“Get any closer and that heat’s enough to burn,” a rough voice warns.

I whirl around to see the curtains shift at the far edge of the room.

Two figures emerge then from the velvet lengths hanging like a tapestry down the wall with a narrow-paned window and door set into it. Both of them are tall and wear heavy cloaks with the hoods pulled up to hide their faces. One navy and one black with a gold chain fastening around the neck.

The heat of the fire presses against my spine as I put my back to the hearth and shift my weight into the fighting stance Finn drilled into me over the last few years.

My nose tingles the closer the figures come. Something in the air between us smells… raw, and wild. The way it smells when the mist is thickest, a sheet of silvery gray hanging over Eireann like a damp veil.

The tallest of the cloaked figures laughs.

His tone is a thorn under my skin, and loathing heats my veins.

“You.”The word tears out of me.

He slides back his hood. The Whisperer’s features are as sharp as the knife he slashed at me the last time we saw each other—was it days ago? I lost track of time in that cell. The branching scar along his jaw tugs into a wicked smirk. “Miss me?”

I glare back at him. “Not even a little bit.”