Page 108 of The City Of Fractured Memory

“The Children of the Briar have taken the Irithys princess. Balance of probability—I’m assuming that must be your Stryx?”

I bite my lip, my hands starting to shake as I confirm with a nod of my own. A tear rolls down my cheek and he grabs my hand, his thumb gently stroking my cold skin.

“Do you know where they’ve taken her?” I whisper, my voice barely audible.

“Yes,” he says, his eyebrows scrunching into a frown. “They meet in the Mirror Cavern, that’s where they’ll have taken her.”

The Mirror Cavern? I give him a questioning look.

“It’s an enormous cavern deep inside the catacombs below the Memosyne,” he explains. “It’s named that because there is a mirror, fifty feet tall, inside. No one knows how it got there, but legend says that when it shatters, the Veil will fall. It's a silly superstition, but it’s the reason why the Briar hold their rituals there.”

Well, that’s not at all ominous.

I angrily wipe at my eyes, lifting my chin. “Then let’s go.”

He shakes his head. “It’s not that simple. The entrance to the catacombs is behind a secret door in the Archives. But if either of us set foot in the Memosyne now…”

He doesn’t need to finish the sentence. I know as well as he does we will be instantly killed the second we set foot in the Citadel, and that’s if we can even get near it without getting arrested. The city is crawling with wardens out for our arrest; we barely managed to get back to the apartment without being apprehended.

“I will not leave her,” I grit out, my hands curling into fists as I push him away and get back to my feet.

He does the same, frustration eating away at his features. “Octavia, I don’t see how it’s possible. The Briar know I’ve infiltrated them, and after your stunt with the council, and now Xavier…I don’t see how we can make it to the entrance, even with magic.”

I start to pace frantically, pulling at my hair as I try to figure a way around this. There’s something in the back of my mind, scratching away at me, but I can’t recall–

I stop abruptly.

Riven gives me a wary look. “I don’t like that face. That’s your ‘I’ve got a dangerous plan’ face.”

I give him a small smile.

“Riven, there’s more than one entrance to the catacombs.”

Forty-Four

“Has anyone told you to get a psychological evaluation? Because if not, I think now might be the time.”

We are both crouched in the shadows near the sky bridge to Lunoreth, Riven’s face completely drained of colour after hearing my plan.

“Says the man who’d rather kill first, ask questions later,” I mutter, giving him a pointed look.

He shrugs. “At least my methods are effective.”

“Yeah, effective at putting a target on our backs,” I scoff. “Now stop bickering and follow me.”

He stares at me deadpan. “There is no way you are climbing over that wall, Octavia.”

I stick up my middle finger and he gapes at me like I’ve offended him. I try to hide the smile on my face at his reaction, ignoring him as I start to climb, more surefooted than I was when I previously attempted this with Stryx. With a massive sigh he follows me, muttering something under his breath about ‘rude, stubborn women’.

My smile quickly drops when I make it to the top and look over the edge. The drop is just as terrifying as before, even more so in the pitch black of midnight. Faint reflections of the city lights glance off the water’s edge below, highlighting how far the drop is. The wind howls up the side of the floating city, tugging my hair loose as I swing one leg over the parapet of the outer wall. Below us yawns nothing, but two hundred feet of open air and the churning black mirror of Lake Voyd.

Riven stops dead. “Absolutely not.”

“Riven–”

He cuts me off, his voice echoing across the expanse. “This is your plan? Climb off the edge of a floating city and hope we don’t plummet to our deaths?”

I shoot him an exasperated look over my shoulder. “Oh, calm down. Stryx and I did it only days ago.”