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“The garden?”
“Yes. It feels like it’s… I don’t know… like it’s trying to draw me in and unravel me simultaneously. It’s making my magic all twisty, I think.”
I study her, looking for signs she’s messing with me, but she’s not. Reaching up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, I sigh. “That’s a new one. Anything in the book about how not to get eaten by the flora if we venture down there? I only recognize some of it, and it’s dangerous shit.”
She shakes her head. “The book only reveals new things if it thinks we’ve earned them. Right now, it’s just showing me what we’ve already seen, and the cryptic stuff for coming to Midnight. Until we figure out what it needs to give us more info, I can read it a bazillions times and it won’t tell me anything new until it wants to.”
I lean my forehead against the glass. “For what it’s worth, if anyone can make the damn thing talk, it’s you, Sassy.”
“You’re just saying that because you want to see what happens if I fuck up and everything goes ka-boom.”
“Guilty.” I wink at her playfully. “But I’m only joking about that because these insufferable twats locked us in this room and I’m so bored that I might die. This is ridiculous and we’re wasting time abiding by their stupid rules.”
She raises her chin. “I’m not afraid of breaking their little lockdown, are you? I mean, we’re sitting here like chastised tourists in an embassy. You’re above that shit—supposedly.”
This is why I’m crazy about this girl; she’s as likely to go off book as me.
Before I can say anything clever, Khol’s voice cracks the quiet. “I think we should go exploring, too.”
The basilisk is now standing, head tilted as if listening to a radio only he can hear. “If the Court is under attack or hiding something, then keeping us boxed up only makes us more vulnerable. We don’t know what’s really happening.”
Tiernan’s rumble follows, soft but iron-edged. “We were told to stay put for our own safety. Is it really wise to thumb our nose at their protocols?”
Khol’s gold eyes flick to the leopard. “Do you trust them to keep us safe in here if there is a big bad out there? Or do you think they’ll exit stage left through some premade escape hatch and leave the rest of the castle to rot?”
Tiernan’s answer is a long, thin silence. “I trust my family and my employees—the second isn’t here yet.”
Dezi, who has until now been silent as a tomb, sits up and swings his legs over the side of the couch. He folds his hands, watching us with that old predator patience. “If we wait, we lose the distraction this event provides. At every place we’ve visited so far, the only way we got answers was by ignoring orders and going where we shouldn’t. Right now, no one is paying attention to what we’re doing.”
I let the silence stretch and Khol gives me a smug look. “Do you want to stay or go, Prince?”
“Go,” I admit. “But we’re only going if we stick together.”
Fiadh snorts. “No splitting the party? How original.”
I chuckle and shrug. “It’s the only way we all make it out. This place is designed to divide and conquer. There’s bound to be magical booby traps, and a slew of other defenses to keep random Fae and visitors from seeing things they shouldn’t.”
Dezi raises one eyebrow. “Then we’re agreed?”
“We’re agreed,” I say. I walk to the center of the room and clap my hands. “Alright, kiddies, secret mission time.”
Fiadh closes her book with a snap and stands, shoulders squared.
“Lead the way, sunshine,” she says.
Hell, yeah—we’re going on a scavenger hunt.
We prepare for our stealth mission with the efficiency only desperation and years of being chased by paparazzi can teach you.
Tiernan inventories the weapons, eyeing the ornamental blades on the wall with thinly veiled contempt before snapping one free from its display and tucking it up his sleeve. He checks everyone’s gear with the thoroughness of a kindergarten teacher prepping for a field trip and then gives the all-clear with a single nod.
Once we’re ready, Khol slips on soft leather gloves and makes a show of scanning the hallway through a micro-crack in the door. He gestures at the silent corridor and mouths, “Empty.”
The word hangs in the air, even though he didn’t actually say it.
Dezi holds his hand up for us to wait as he conceals the secret book. It vanishes into a false-bottom travel bag—one of those new, enchanted models that can only be opened by its owner’s blood. I’m not sure which scenario is more likely to happen, but he ups the ante by adding his own ancient vampire sigil to the clasp.
I knew that fucker bought more than he let on when he went on his little side quests.
