Page 62

Lautric’s pretty eyes narrowed. He tilted his head.

“I think the question might be: where didyoucome from? There’s no door at the end of that corridor.”

He was so close she could feel the soft caress of his breath on her face, the heat radiating from his skin. She felt weak, dizzy, disoriented. She had the mad urge to kiss him, fuelled by adrenaline and impulsion, like the recoil effect of her repressed anger and fear from the past week.

She stumbled back with a shocked gasp of laughter. Had she not made enough mistakes already?

Lautric frowned, stepping forward and taking her face in his hands.

“Are you alright?” he asked again.

The concern in his voice was sincere. His touch was gentle, his thumbs brushed over her cheeks. Fern took his wrists and moved his hands away. She didn’t need to kiss Lautric, she needed to get away from him—and theybothneeded to get away from here.

“We need to get back to the Mage Tower,” she said. “Now.”

“I was on my way there, but something happened that set all the Sentinels on this floor in motion.” Lautric paused and stared at Fern through the thick veil of darkness. “What on earth did you do?”

Fern threw him an incredulous look. He spoke as if he wasn’t lurking around at night, hooded, carrying the heavy pack she had seen him with that night in the atrium, with the long cylindrical object secured through it, as though he didn’t smell of frost and blood, and she hadn’t just found a threat in her mentor’s office sent fromhishouse.

“You’re in no position to ask questions, Lautric.”

“Please,” he murmured. “Call me Léo.”

Fern ignored him, turned and cracked the door open, peering into the corridor. There was no Sentinel in sight. Good. Time to go. Except that now she had a companion; she would be unable to take the secret passageways.

She turned back towards Lautric. “Do you know the fastest way back to the Mage Tower?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s go.”

He stopped her with a hand on her elbow. “Are you sure? We might need to run, and you seem—“

“I’m fine.”

She opened the door, letting Lautric through. He darted out, and she followed. His steps were long and a little graceless, and like the time she had seen him cross the atrium, each footstep sounded heavy and metallic.

He led her down several vaulted corridors and to the large marble landing of the central staircase. Lamps shone from the lower pillars, held aloft by statues of seraphim. When they reached the stairs, Lautric turned and said, “Will you be alright with the steps?”

“Yes. I—” Fern clapped her hand on her mouth. “Your face!”

It was her first time seeing his face properly, lit by the staircase lamps. Lautric turned away quickly and shrugged.

“It’s nothing,” he threw over his shoulder, descending the steps.

It was far from nothing. His face was mottled with bruising, and a cut crossed his mouth from his Cupid’s bow to his jaw. The purple shadows under his eyes were livid, and one of his eyelids was slightly swollen and bright pink.

“What happened?” Fern asked, following him down the steps and through the atrium of the second floor, trying to catch up with him to get a better look at his face. “Where did you go? Who did this to you?”

“I can’t tell you—I wish I could, but—”

In the distance, a long, wailingcry resounded.

Lautric jerked around, casting Fern a shocked look. This wasn’t a Sentinel, it was something else. A tremor traversed Fern, shaking loose a distant memory.Had she heard this sound before?

“Outside,” she said.

He nodded and set off, running towards the nearest window. They both peered through the glass: outside, a virescent moon glowed dimly from beneath a shroud of misty clouds. In the distance, the waves of the ocean rose and fell, indifferent. Far below the windows, the gardens of Carthane stretched, hedges shaking as the wind passed through them on its way to tear waning leaves from the trees of the Arboretum and send them spiralling towards the sea.