Page 244 of A Touch of Poison
The trail led us to a bloodstained carpet and a busted door. My stomach dropped.
Faolán scented the air. “Not theirs.” Blade ready, he crept into the room.
More blood and something pulpy mashed into the carpet. Lysander wrinkled his nose.
Faolán shook his head. “Still not…” He stilled, then hurried over to the bloody settee. “Hmm.”
Thathmmmade my veins freeze. “Faolán?”
Exhaling, he strode out to the hallway, while Lysander and Asher gave me questioning looks. I shrugged and followed him. They didn’t understand his differenthmms, and I wasn’t going to dangle bad news in front of them until we knew more.
I found him sniffing at the next door. Its keyhole had been mangled beyond recognition.
Frowning, I touched the damaged metal. “Someone’s jammed the lock.”
“Rose,” he shouted, pounding on the door.
“Faolán?”
A ragged exhale came from him as his head bowed, and for a second I saw how close he’d been to breaking through all this. Then he straightened. “Stand back.”
A second later, he smashed the door off its hinges, and we rushed in.
Faolán grabbed Rose, burying his face in her strawberry blond hair.
Lysander pulled Ariadne into his arms, swinging her around. “Thank the gods you’re all right.”
Asher rushed to Perry, who sat on an armchair with her leg up, bloody bandages around her thigh. They kissed long and deep, all attempts at hiding their relationship forgotten.
Ella stood in the middle of it all, wearing an awkward smile.
Laughing with relief, I turned, looking forher. As I turned full circle, my heart grew tighter. “Where’s Kat?”
* * *
She lockedus in and headed for the throne room. She went after you.
Ella’s words to my other self reached through my mind as I crept through a glazed garden room full of plants and cosy seating. The sound of low voices drifted from a stone corridor ahead.
Gods damn it. If she’d just stayed there we’d be with her now. I’d know she was safe.
Instead, I had all the more reason to reach the throne room to find both Katandthe king.
Could this all be Lucius’s doing? He was behind unCavendish, so maybe it wasn’t such a huge leap.
If it was, he could cross over into Dusk and beg for sanctuary from this attack. Then he and his people could use that as an opportunity to gain access to the queen.
Muscles thrumming with tension, I entered the corridor lined with busts on plinths and peered around the corner. A dozen fake Ascendants.
Shit. I was a few minutes from the throne room, and this was the only way there without looping back on myself to take a long detour.
On the plus side, this narrow corridor meant only a couple of them would be able to reach me at once, and my shadows…
I adjusted the grip on my Shadowblade and sent wisps of shadow ahead. In their incorporeal state, they could take up more space than the concentrated form, which could touch objects and people. Although these formless shadows couldn’t trip anyone up or choke the life from them, I could feel where they were.
When they reached the attackers, I let them spread, and gave a vicious grin as troops swatted at the rising darkness.
“What’s—?”
