Page 35 of A Heist for Filthy Rivals (Mythic Holidays #3)

She’s going to hate me for this, but I’m not making her face the razorwings again.

The encounter with her former crew has hurt her deeply, and pain can make a person reckless.

Given her visceral reaction to those creatures, I’m afraid she might have some kind of mental break if she has to walk through that passage twice more—once on the way up, and once heading back down.

So I’ll do it for her. I’m half-dead anyway. Might as well give it a shot.

If I die, she’ll be forced to get the Doras àlainn by herself. I’m certain that, given enough time, she can get out of the ropes. By then, her anger with me might give her the strength to get her through the razorwings. She’ll survive. She’ll make it home.

My back still hurts from when I was thrown by the explosion, and my lost fingers are on fire with phantom pain. I hold the injured hand close to my chest and move cautiously down the hall, rounding the corner as silently as I can.

The floor is littered with burnt razorwings. The others have withdrawn some distance down the hall, away from their dead—which gives me an idea.

Bending painfully, I pick up the little dead monsters, one after another, taking care not to cut myself on the wings. I tuck the charred corpses into straps and pockets all over my body, until I’m studded with them.

With my uninjured right hand, I pick up the massive weapon Devilry dropped when she dragged me away from the monsters to safety.

When I picture her struggling with my body, determined not to leave me behind, tears spring to my eyes.

And when I imagine her using my brush and my explosive gel to blast a hole in that wall—I get so fucking hard I barely notice the pain in my left hand.

A woman like her, a partner like her, could give me the strength to face anything.

Buoyed by a heady mix of gratitude and desire, I walk past Grisly and stride into the tunnel of rustling wings.

The creatures shrink from me, as I suspected they would.

It’s almost comical how they create a space around me, like a protective bubble in which I pass by, unharmed.

Once I’m past them, I pluck the carcasses off myself and discard them.

My bandaged right shoulder hurts from holding the giant weapon, but I refuse to put it down. If I encounter the beast of many voices, I’m going to need it. With my wounds and the weapon, there’s no way I can climb back up through the hole in the ceiling through which we dropped down.

Teeth gritted against the pain, I hunt for an alternate way upstairs. There’s got to be a stairway somewhere. Fae or not, the Stewards would want access to the subterranean level.

At the end of a hallway I find steps leading upward, so I follow them.

There’s a door at the top—not locked, thankfully.

In my current state, I wouldn’t be able to pick it.

If I can’t get healing in time, I suppose I’ll have to learn to pick locks with eight fingers.

Could be interesting. I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.

The door at the top of the stairs leads into an empty wardrobe, which opens into one of the back rooms on the first floor. While crossing the room, I nearly step in a spring-trap laid by my darling Devilry, but I manage to avoid it.

I take the spiral staircase at the rear of the fortress, mounting the steps to the third floor. Devilry didn’t tell me which room contains the Doras àlainn, but once I find the observation spheres, I’ll know I’m in the right place.

Tucking the big weapon under my left arm, I open a door with my right hand—and instantly recoil as green ooze surges out of the room. But I’m not fast enough—it’s already sucking at my boots. I can’t step backward. I’m stuck.

“Shit!” I plant the barrel end of the cannon against a clear space on the floor and lean on it heavily while I drag my feet out of my boots.

It’s difficult, since I can’t undo the laces.

It hurts to force my feet through the narrowest part.

But I have no choice. The ooze is climbing up the boots toward my legs.

With a final jerk, I get my second foot out. My socks are still in the boots, so I’m barefoot now, which is unfortunate. But I’m alive, not trapped in sentient ooze, so I count it as a win.

I rush into the nearest room for refuge.

Instantly, pain stabs through my feet, and I look down to see broken fragments covering the floor. Some are glass, some are thin metal, some are scraps I don’t recognize. It looks as if Devilry smashed everything she could lay her hands on and scattered the remnants all over this room.

Heart pounding, I wait for tendrils of light to rise from the shards and wrap me up—but nothing happens. These are just normal shards, then, not magical ones like the bodach beads.

In the corner of the room, on a fat velvet pillow, repose two glossy spheres like the ones in the observation room.

So this is the place where she hid the Doras àlainn.

Behind a cabinet, she said. Which isn’t much help, because there are ten cabinets in this room, each one made of a different wood, each bearing a line of bold symbols along its doors, like some sort of pictographic Faerie label that I can’t read.

There’s a different jewel set in the engraved molding above the doors of every cabinet.

I spot amethyst, moonstone, ruby, and a few others I’m unsure about.

Exploring this room barefoot is going to hurt. Even if I brush aside the sharp debris, I’m bound to miss some tiny pieces and suffer for it. I need to think carefully here so I can minimize the risk to my feet. I have to try to figure out which cabinet Devilry might choose for a hiding place.

She’s practical. Analytical. Even her impulsive choices are based on rapid logic sequences in her brain.

She has a touch of whimsy about her too, a desire to stand out, as evidenced by the scarlet streaks in her black hair.

She can be vicious, but she’s also kind.

She has a deep love for beautiful, sparkly things, like the ring she stole when she was a child. The one with the purple gemstone.

After setting down the weapon, I take off my pack and use it to push aside the dangerous detritus on the floor, clearing a less painful path for my feet. Carefully I walk along the bare floor, leaving bloody footprints as I go.

Maybe I should stop and bandage my feet, but I’m desperate to find the Doras àlainn and return to Devilry before she gets free and puts herself in more danger.

Painstakingly I shove the pack along the floor ahead of me. I’m using my right hand at first, but the wound in my shoulder muscles becomes excruciating, so I switch to using my left forearm.

I closed the door to this room, but I keep glancing back, worried that the ooze might creep beneath the door. So far it hasn’t. Maybe it’s too thick to fit through such a small crack.

As I approach the cabinet with the purple gem, I peer at it, looking for trip-wires, triggers, anything that Devilry might have used to booby-trap it.

I don’t see any snares. She didn’t activate the door shield for this room, and the fragments on the floor seem like a hasty afterthought.

It makes sense that she’d want this area readily accessible for whenever she was ready to leave.

She wouldn’t place too many traps that would hinder her own path to the device.

I’m probably safe to step around and look behind the cabinet.

First I clear the floor around it. Then I lean toward the wall and place my eye to the crack.

It’s too dark to see anything, and my arms are too thick to reach into that narrow space. I set my left shoulder to the giant piece of furniture and shove with all my might.

The nerves in my left arm scream, and I groan, but I keep pushing, angling my body, trying to force the cabinet away from the wall. Its bulk shifts slightly, then a little more.

“Fuck this!” I bellow, and I throw all my pain and effort into the next shove. The cabinet moves outward at an angle, and I hear something fall to the floor with a clunk. Whatever was stuck behind it has been dislodged.

Kneeling, I run my right hand through the space beneath the cabinet and encounter a thick disc-shaped object with a variegated surface.

I draw it out, my heart thundering with agony and triumph. The device is crafted from moonstone, beautifully decorated with twisting black vines and pale mushrooms.

“Thank the gods.” I climb heavily to my feet. They’re slick and bloody against the wooden floor.

With the ooze still lurking in the hallway, I’m not sure how I’ll get out of here. I’ve got no explosives left, and I’ve lost my favorite igniter. Using the cannon on the ooze doesn’t seem like the right move—it would destroy my path back to the stairs.

I jam the Doras àlainn into my back pocket and decide that the simplest plan is the best. I go through my pack and remove everything I can carry on my person, including my second-best igniter. With the igniter, I light the pack on fire, giving it a moment to start burning in earnest.

Then I open the door and pitch the burning pack into the hallway, hurling it as far as I can in the direction opposite from the spiral stairs.

As I suspected, the heat and movement attracts the ooze. The whole bulbous mass scoots past the doorway, toward the flaming object. I can see my boots in the gooey center of the creature, being transported along with a variety of other small objects.

I’ve got a slim margin of hallway I can use, a narrow strip of boards not cloaked by the ooze.

A few steps and a leap carry me clear of the danger, and though the shock to my injured feet is excruciating, there’s a keen rush of glee in my chest at having outwitted the creeping slime, all while keeping my hold on the weapon.