I gasped and stared at the door. I pushed against it, but it wouldn’t budge. When I curled my fingers through the slot and pulled, the door groaned and swung open. I stared at the opening, at my freedom, unable to believe what had just happened.
The door was open. And I’d done it.
With magic.
I jerked into motion. I had to get out of here as soon as I could. I could wonder and marvel at what had happened later, when I was safe. Right now, I needed to get away before this Fae that Zander was waiting for arrived and they came back down to find me. If they caught me, it would all be for nothing.
The hallway was long and narrow, made of the same smooth stone as my cell. I passed other cell doors at intervals as I crept quietly along. I was too hurried to peek through the slots and see if other prisoners filled the cells, or to even consider letting them loose.
Right now, I had to save myself, and that was all that mattered.
I was in a dungeon. I’d figured that out when I’d seen the window so high up. When I found a stone staircase winding its way upward, I stepped up. Before I moved on, I stopped and strained my ears for any sound.
No guards stood at their posts, which was strange. Nobody was around. I had to use that to my advantage, but the silence was worrying.
Everything felt wrong. That Conjurite magic was still thick in the air, although Zander wasn’t close by. That much, I knew. But I still had to fight the darkness that swirled inside of me as if I had ingested it. Zander must have used it to paralyze me when he’d taken me. But that hadn’t been my first encounter with the dark magic, had it? Someone had cast a shape-shifting spell on me. That had to have been Conjurite magic. And Lucia had tried to kill me. Twice. I didn’t doubt that she stood with her feet firmly planted in darkness.
The Conjurite magic clung to me, a parasite in my body.
It brought fear with it, but I wouldn’t let it consume me. I wasindarkness. I wasn’tdarkness.
You’re stronger than that,I told myself.
I’d been scared in my life many times. I’d been in danger a lot. I knew what it was like to think I was going to die and narrowly escape. This wasn’t my first rodeo.
Before I reached the top of the stairs, I heard the clanging of metal armor as someone walked toward me. I panicked and hurried back down the stairs again. At the bottom, there wasn’t anywhere to go but the cell I’d escaped from, and I wasn’t going back there. I found a dark corner and pressed myself against the wall, trying to become one with the shadows.
A guard came past me, looked up and down the hallway with the doors, and he jingled his keys as if it was a habit to fidget. His eyes flitted over me, but he didn’t see me. I held my breath, my heart hammering against my ribs.
He grunted, sat down on a chair, and leaned his head back. The wooden chair groaned under his weight.
When the guard closed his eyes, I made a run for it. I hurried silently and hoped he wouldn’t open his eyes before I reached the stairs.
Somehow, I got there without trouble and ran up the stairs. If another guard came down now, I would be screwed.
But there wasn’t anyone else. I reached the top of the stairs and looked this way and that. I was in a fortress of sorts, everything built with the same stone than in the dungeon, and it was ugly. The rooms and hallways bore no elegant decorations, no homey touches, nothing that suggested this place was anything other than a prison.
I didn’t know which way to go. I didn’t know how to get out of here. Staying in one place was going to get me killed or recaptured, so I could figure it out as long as I kept moving.
I chose a direction and moved swiftly, keeping close to the wall. The stone was cold, and I tiptoed to keep my footsteps from echoing on the bare stone floors. The wind howled outside, creating an eerie soundtrack to my escape. Everything around me was monochrome, and the lack of color was unsettling. I kept looking for a dark corner I could hide in if anyone came, but there wasn’t anyone in my way.
When I turned the corner again, I felt the darkness too late. I ran right into Zander’s muscular chest. I yelped, and he grabbed me by the arms, looking down at me with eyes filled with darkness and rage.
“Well, this is an unexpected twist,” a sharp voice said next to me. It scraped along my skin, high pitched and annoying, and it was too familiar.
When I looked at the female, dressed in a beautiful silk gown with hair flowing over her shoulders like a waterfall, it all came together.
“Lucia,” I said calmly.
30
Lucia laughed. The sound was as horrible as always, like sandpaper on my skin. This time, I didn’t fight the urge to rub my arms and wince.
Her smile faded, draining from her eyes, and she was like a predator. Beautiful, but deadly.
“You’re not surprised to see me.”
I shook my head.