Page 23 of Dissection of Immortal Hearts (Hospital for Immortal Creatures #3)

Constantine

What an unusual move from the Queen.

She’d sent him whores.

Two exquisite beings, with sculpted bodies and provocative demeanours, hardly the kind to leave any man indifferent.

One played the innocent: a sheer white dress, silvery-blonde hair, fluttering eyelashes.

With a single lick of her lips, she’d shaken Constantine’s resolve.

He’d vowed to defy the Queen and reject her gifts.

But then again, what was the point of this obstinate defiance?

Then his gaze had shifted to the other reptilian courtesan. Coppery chestnut waves cascaded halfway down her back. She wore scant lace lingerie, similar to what Constantine had removed from countless women in his past. Lace had always been his favourite.

Yet now, he found nothing arousing in this stranger’s outfit. For her figure, her hair colour, and her slightly upturned nose – it all echoed Diana. And the only thing her memory stirred was sorrow. Loss.

“Leave!” He turned his back on them.

A moment later, the door closed. It surprised him. He’d expected more resistance from the Queen’s emissaries. Perhaps, in some twisted corner of his mind, he’d hoped for it.

Not long after the reptilians left, he sensed movement outside his room. Annoyed, he pushed himself away from the window and approached the door.

An unusual melody seeped through the crack beneath it, slithering across the carpet and spreading over Constantine’s skin. He rested on the velvet armchair and committed to his sole desire – to savour the beautiful music.

Snap.

“Constantine!”

The music stopped, and he jolted, startled to see… Amelia? The two of them were alone in his room, but he had no recollection of her entering. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving you!”

It was the funniest joke Constantine had heard in a while. He crossed his arms. “Are you trying to get us both killed?”

Although he’d had little desire to engage with those courtesans, he was even less willing to involve himself in whatever Amelia was plotting. This could be another one of the Queen’s tricks.

“I have music that distracts the reptilians. We’re going to free Mi—”

“Weren’t you on the Queen’s side?” Constantine recalled the smug expression on Kathrine’s face when she’d boasted about taking the Hospital, detaining Mikhail, and, most of all, the Oracle’s involvement.

Amelia shook her head. “Of course not! Mikhail and I planned it together – I gave her the ring and pretended to be on her side. Come on, we don’t have much time.” She scanned the room. “Do you have anything we can use as a weapon?”

“Does sarcasm count?”

Apparently, it did, because Amelia glared at him. “I believed your behaviour around the Queen was part of some plan, but I’m starting to think there’s no such thing. What’s wrong with you?”

“Me?” He touched his chest. “Nothing out of the ordinary. Except maybe for the fact that, for the first time in my life, I passed on a threesome…”

“Damn it, shut up and move! Otherwise, I’ll have to explain to Mikhail that his best friend isn’t with us because he annoyed me so much I left him behind!” Amelia turned her back on him.

Constantine sighed. Whatever the Oracle had in mind, it wouldn’t work. But if this was just another way to rile up the reptilians… He caught up with her and stood beside her at the closed door as she eavesdropped on the corridor beyond. “So, what’s your grand rescue plan?”

She lifted one hand, using the other to grip the door handle. Music filled the corridor, brushing over Constantine’s skin like a thousand invisible kisses. Someone approached him and rose on tiptoes to whisper in his ear, “I am music for the senses, but you listen with your soul.”

The words shattered the melody’s enchanting hold over him – the same hold that had turned the guards outside his door into two love-struck fools staring into nothing. Constantine didn’t have time to bask in their dazed expressions, because Amelia was already sprinting down the corridor.

When they stopped to check their surroundings at the first corner, he whispered, “What kind of magic is that?”

“It’s not hypnosis, because you can’t command them, but it disconnects them from everything,” she explained. “The ayradjakli said it works only seconds after the music stops, but they don’t remember what happened while they were under. You just have to enchant them before they see you.”

“And it affects all immortals?”

“You’re immune if you’ve already heard the cypher – what I whispered in your ear. Snapping one’s fingers in front of you is another way to break the trance.”

“Impressive trick. What did it cost you?”

“I ate half a heart.” Amelia peeked around the corner to check the next stretch of the corridor. “It’s clear.”

They stepped into the section of the corridor that overlooked the central foyer like a balcony.

Amelia descended the stairs first, moving with the certainty of someone with a plan.

Constantine trailed behind, carrying the air of a man with nothing better to do.

He was far from convinced this venture would succeed.

Besides, they currently had the advantage of night, but dawn came early in Antambazi, and soon the realm would wake.

No matter how captivating the melody, it couldn’t hold back an entire city.

When they entered the central hall, Amelia once again summoned the magic with her raised hand. The two reptilian guards succumbed to the melody.

“You’re getting better,” Constantine remarked.

Amelia led the way down the steps. The door closed behind them, plunging them into shadows and faint light from scattered lanterns.

Somewhere among the rocky recesses was a secret path blocked by an iron gate, beyond which lay a dungeon.

The dungeon where Constantine had endured some of the most harrowing days of his life.

A place where he’d come to understand the depths of his despair. His personal abyss.

“We have to reach the laboratory before dawn,” Amelia whispered. “The witcher gave me directions, but we’ll still have to search. I’m not sure where Mikhail is being held, but…”

“I won’t bother asking who this witcher is,” Constantine drawled, seeking the bannister for support. “Nor will I waste my breath dissecting your doomed plan…” He collided with Amelia’s back. “Damn it, don’t stop so suddenly!”

She faced him, her hand lifted. The magical melody filled the cavern, echoing off the stone walls.

“What’s happening?” He frowned, scanning their surroundings.

Amelia’s blue irises changed to ghostly white. The faint lantern light sharpened her features. “I need to make sure no one hears the following, because I feel like screaming! What is your problem ? Why can you be so at ease to lounge around here for all eternity?”

“Am I to blame for your misguided expectations, Amelia?” Who was she to judge him, anyway?

“The Queen has Mikhail. Why don’t you stop with the snide remarks and help me save him?”

A bitter laugh escaped him. “Still on about that? Do you seriously think Mikhail is alive? I’d bet she had his head severed the first chance she got.”

Amelia bared her teeth in frustration. “Mikhail is alive . I felt it.”

Her na?veté irritated him even more. “You felt it? Did you see him? Or did you divine this through some mystical beans? Because, as I recall, your Oracle abilities are so feeble, I doubt you could manage a genuine vision.”

She clenched her hand into a fist as if she were getting ready to hit him. “Screw you!” she snapped, storming down the stairs.

Constantine had no choice but to follow. “You didn’t use to swear so much.”

“I didn’t use to have a necromancer for an escape partner, who drives me mad,” she shot back.

“Why not just leave me behind, then?”

She kept descending, with him trailing behind. At the foot of the stairs, Amelia faced him once more. “You wonder why I don’t leave you? Because you’re one of Mikhail’s closest friends, and he would never abandon you.”

She started to turn away, but he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

“Amelia, be realistic. Why would the Queen keep him alive? I bet you’ve seen enough of her cruelty by now.

He’s a beast in a cage who would rip her apart if he escaped.

Even if he’s alive, even if she’s absent, she’d never make it easy for you to save him. ”

He didn’t want to be right, but ever since Kathrine had told him about Mikhail’s capture, he’d grieved for his friend. It had been the final blow in his spiral to rock bottom. And how na?ve he’d been to think he’d already hit it months earlier.

But Amelia’s expression wasn’t weighed down by loss.

Instead, it held a quiet hope. Her voice rose, steady and strong against the cold stone walls surrounding them.

“If what I sensed is true, Mikhail is in a far worse state than ‘a beast in a cage,’ but he’s alive.

Alive ! And every second we waste arguing only prolongs his agony. ”

As much as he wanted to share her conviction, the bitter experience of his life refused to let him believe her. Life wasn’t a film script with a miraculous twist that saved the hero at the brink of death.

The light in Amelia’s eyes hoped for a different story.

Constantine had thought his heart had hardened into ice over the past weeks, yet whatever lay in his chest wouldn’t allow him to argue further with Amelia. As a final gesture to Mikhail, he would do this for her – accompany her on to find out the truth.

“Are you certain?” he asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Very well, then. Let’s find him.”

***

Constantine

They’d reached the Circle of Arius. Both agreed it was wiser to hide and wait for the pair of reptilians in the distance to pass rather than risk using the magical melody on them.

“Where exactly is this ‘laboratory’?” Constantine whispered, crouching behind the corner of a stone wall.

Amelia lowered herself next to him. “The witcher said it’s south of the last houses on the outskirts.”

“Why do you trust him so much?”