Page 110 of The Devil

“It’s hers,” Sev says. “Must be.”

I crouch down to Cotton. “Good girl. You’re the best girl.” I pet her and she turns her face into the palm of my hand. “Find her for me. Find Amal.” I let her sniff the lace, hoping she’ll pick up her scent and she does. She bounds out the door, and we follow her and I’m sure if there are soldiers nearby, they must hear us, hear our boots on this stone floor, the panting run of a dog who somehow understands the urgency.

Music from the quartet in the Great Hall grows louder, the air around us warming. We must be nearing the interior of the castle. But before we do, Cotton takes a turn and a little while later, we hit a closed door. She paws at it, whining.

I open the door that leads out into the stormy night.

“Fuck!” I curse as we step outside and I watch Cotton go a few feet, then stop and turn in another direction, sniffing at the ground, having lost her scent in this storm.

“It can’t be that hard to find them,” Sev says, coming to stand beside me.

“Did you count the cottages on this damn island. Not to mention that?” I ask, pointing to the Tribunal building looming, a foreboding black hole in this already black night.

“Split up,” I say to the men. “She was in red. Maybe she tore her dress. Left clues. Maybe…”

“Here,” Cassin calls out, already doing just that without my instruction.

I look over to where he has wandered off to, watch Cotton run over to him, sniff what’s in his hand. I hurry to Cassian, take the sodden scrap of lace. “She must have caught it on the rock.”

Cotton bounds up the hill.

We follow the dog. If she’d managed to pick up the scent in this storm, and that’s a big if, then she loses it as quickly because she’s back to circling, going a few feet this way then back to go the opposite direction.

I glance back at the castle, see the light of the windows of the Great Hall, their masquerade ball still going on while they tried to murder us. While they hold Amal as a hostage. Or worse.

Rain turns to hail that pelts my face as I push against it, climbing the hill, head down against the wind.

Amal’s eyes haunt me. Her face hidden in that prison of lace. The tears that ran down her cheeks as I held her.

The feel of her pressing herself against me. Into me. Into my arms. The weight of her fear.

Emotion is a tide inside me swelling, swelling. I love her. I love her. It’s always been her since that first day she stumbled into my office four years ago. Always.

Christ, I fucking love her. And I need to find her. To get to her before they hurt her.

Rage wars with despair as we walk minutes that stretch to eternities when I finally catch sight of something red snagged on a stone just a few feet off. I lunge for it. Dropping to my knees, I rip it free from where it’s caught waving like a flag in the wind. Calling me this way!

I hold it up so the others can see then shove it into my pocket, rush onward, a new energy buoying me on. It’s then that in a lull in the storm I hear what I think is the sound of an organ. I stop, listen. But it’s gone. Did I imagine it?

I take two more steps up to crest this hill and there, at the top of the next rise, I see light.

Golden light glowing through narrow windows of an ancient stone chapel.

Soldiers stand outside unmoving as statues in this wind and rain.

My heart slams against my ribs because I know why.

I know that’s where she is.

39

AMAL

Callum bends to take hold of the chain that binds me. He wraps it once around his fist and stands to my side. When he tugs, it forces my head backward and the men pound their canes against the stone in approval. I imagine what we look like. Me kneeling here in this mockery of a dress, a bloody bride, my intended groom looming over me, gripping my chain as if I were his dog. His fucking dog.

“My brothers,” Robertson begins.

I wonder if I’m going mad. If this is really happening.