Page 14

“Considering where I found you, I don’t think you can.” He flung me higher, thencaught me effortlessly across his shoulder. The little goblin scurried out of the way just before I would have smacked into him with my face, then he was torn free by the big goblin’s other hand.

“Hey don’t hurt him!”

I received no reply, just a muscular arm clamping across the back of my legs, pinning them against his broad chest. As he carried us back toward the main path, then down it, I couldn’t help but wonder if I had taken the little goblin out of the cookpot, and into the fire.

7

My stomach felt bruisedand I couldn’t sense my legs anymore, yet the goblin’s steady footsteps continued, carrying me across the Bogs with only a view of the path just below us.

“I can walk myself,” I groaned for the hundredth time.

“I know your kind, night runner. You will not escape me so easily.“

He was really overestimating my talents. “Well then maybe you could just take the delivery for me.” I knew it was a moot point. He hadn’t believed a word I’d said thus far.

“You have nothing of value in your little satchel. You are a spy.“

Not this again. I had really gotten myself into it. I should have just kept my mouth shut all along. “I’m not a spy.”

I felt a wave of magic, then suddenly I was less annoyed and more sleepy. “Hey, what are you—” but my words were slurring. I felt another pulse of magic, and then I was out.

I wokeup with hard stone beneath me—I cracked my eyes open despite my splitting headache—andaround me. There was stone all around me. Wonderful.

I sat up, taking in the iron bars of my prison cell. Where I had been taken was dark, and had that peculiar damp claustrophobic feeling of being underground. A torch blazed against the wall outside my cell, and another to my left.

I moved enough to lean my back against the cold gray stone. My messenger bag was missing, and my clothes were still damp from the pond. I reached into my jacket to find my knife had also been taken.

“Sorry,” a little voice said beside me.

I looked down to see the blue goblin I had rescued from the trolls. Unlike my clothing, his fur was dry, and his tufted ears stood up at attention.

I touched my hair, feeling it frizzy and mussed from getting wet. I was pretty sure I looked as terrible as I felt. “It’s not your fault that jerk snatched us up.“ I looked down at him again. “Or is it?”

He visiblyshivered. “No, not my fault.”

I leaned my head back against the stone wall. “So do you know anything about this Mistral?”

I heard the scraping of claws, then felt his little body push against my side. He shivered again. “High Goblin of the Stone Clan. Very old. Cruel and cunning.“

Great. What had that devil gotten me into? Thinking of Sebastian, I reached into my boot, pulling out the playing card. It was still in pristine condition despite the water that had poured into my boot, but no magic emanated from it.

I lifted it in front of my face. “Hey, if you can hear me, I could use a little help.”

The two hearts on the card stared back at me, but nothing happened. I had expected as much. He had already told me he wouldn’t be able to reach me in the Bogs.

I hastily stuffed the card back into my boot as I heard a door open. I waited with my back against the wall as someone stepped into view. I had expected the goblin that took me, but instead I got a devastatingly handsome man with stone gray skin and pure white hair. I could see the points of his ears through the hair. He was lithe, but muscled, and moved with otherworldly grace.

He came to stand at the other side of the iron bars. He wore a white linen shirt and gray pants, looking like he’d stepped out of another century, though the clothing lookedrighton him.

Dark eyes looked me up and down coldly. “I’m told you had a delivery for me, but we found only candy and trinkets in your satchel.” His voice was rich with a hint of an accent I couldn’t quite place.

He’d said the delivery was for him, so he must be Mistral. Now to tell the truth, or not to tell the truth. Although, I certainly didn’t want this man catching me in a lie. “I was actually hoping to ask you a question, but your…friendkept insisting I was a spy.”

“Yes, Gabriel is rather suspicious of outsiders.” He crossed his arms, still looking down at me like I was an insect. “Well?” he said after a moment. “Ask it.“

Surprised, I considered my words. I probably shouldn’t mention Sebastian. Few people would take kindly to a mission from a devil. Myself included. “I wanted to ask you about a woman named Celeste. I’m trying to find her.”

His brows lifted in genuine surprise. “Now that is not a name I have heard in a long while.”