Page 236 of Bitten & Burned

I blinked.

Quil.

It was Quil. And he was hurt. And I had no fucking idea where he was.

“Quil?!” I called, walking towards the sound. Something held me back. I thrashed as something grabbed my arm, holding me back from going to him.

“Quil?!” I struggled and tried to rip my arm from whatever was holding me, but I couldn’t. “QUIL!” I called, my voice no more than a choking sound because I could hear him, hurt and dying, and I couldn’t go to him. “I’m coming, Quil!”

“Rowena!”

I blinked as I looked around. Quil’s face was in front of me. Worried as hell, but not hurt.

“Quil?” I whispered, reaching for him. He gathered me in his arms, and I clung to him. “I’m sorry, I was trying to get to you, but something kept holding on to me and?—”

“That was me,” he murmured. “I was holding you because you were about to run down a hallway without us. A dark hallway.”

“No, you were screaming and I?—”

There was a dull laughter echoing through the halls now, and my face burned and my eyes narrowed. “That was another fucking illusion.”

Quil nodded, and the others did as well.

Fuck this. I needed to end this now.

I slammed the door shut in front of me and took a deep breath as I glanced around the room. I willed all other thoughts from my head but the ones I used while navigating ruins. And that’s all this place was. Ruins.

Pre-ruins, if I had my way.

I turned and looked around the now-empty room. I’d previously thought this was the dining hall, but now I could see it was actually more of a sitting room with a window to the outside. The moon was visible.

If I knew Silas, and I was fairly certain I did, he wouldn’t have his main lair in the basement. He was always upset that his ownoffices had been assigned to the ground floor at the Arcanum. He’d have them up high. We had to find the main room with the stairs.

I turned back through the door from whence we’d come, back down the hallway where my double had driven the others crazy. I turned in a new direction, pushing open every door and sighing with relief when I finally saw the staircase, big and expansive, leading to the upper floors.

“Come on,” I said.

The next part wasn’t difficult, thankfully. If we’d have kept going through Silas’s funhouse from the hells, we’d have been in here all night. But I was a better student than he’d ever expected, than he’d ever have allowed me to be on my own.

As it was, when I opened up the stone door on the top floor, I’d like to think I scared him just a little.

But only a little.

He looked surprised to see us, but he gathered his wits rather quickly. A skill common among cursebreakers.

“There you are, couldn’t wait to come see me, could you, Rowena? You always were an eager little pupil, weren’t you?”

Something about the way he said it, the way his lips caressed the words, made my skin crawl.

“And you were always a lecherous old man, weren’t you?” I countered. “Sorry about your watchdogs. We cut most of them down. I got quite a few myself. Really, placing all your hopes and dreams of security on a bunch of drug-addled simpletons was an oversight.”

“Necessary loss,” he replied. “Tell me… did you like my traps? I saw one of them catch you.”

I smirked. “Childish, all of them. I suppose that’s always been your problem, though. Still treating me like I’m one of your students. Does that do it for you? Is that what gets your blood pumping, Silas?”

“Not as much as facing your father and friends’ deaths got yours pumping.”

His eyes weren’t looking at me.