Page 19

WE EMERGED INTO a large open courtyard dimly lit with the dancing flames of torches. We weren’t alone—pairs of guests roamed the gravel paths that wove between flower beds, trees, and shaped hedges. It seemed to be the place for couples to look for a bit of privacy to steal a romantic moment. One couple leaned against a tree, their lips locked together and their arms twined around each other in a passionate embrace. Lusty moans and cries from behind some of the hedges indicated others had progressed beyond kissing.

Jasper and Eunice sat on a bench next to a tall, tiered fountain.

Oliver, Bryna, and I moseyed over to stand near them.

“Bryna, you’re up,” I whispered.

“See that structure over there?” She lifted her chin to the left. “It’s a public restroom. In the end stall of the women’s side, there’s a trapdoor. It leads down into the service tunnels. I’ll go in first and wait for you.”

She broke off and strolled to the path that led to the small building, and a moment later she disappeared inside.

“The two of you should go next,” I said to Jasper.

He and Eunice rose and traced Bryna’s steps. I waited until they were in before nodding to my father. As our boots scuffed over the gravel, I looked around for Drifte, but the shifter was out of sight somewhere. I was just about to reach for the door when a man and a woman stumbled around the corner, the man plowing into Oliver. They smelled of alcohol, and they both wore broadswords on their belts. My insides tightened.

“Hey, watch it, mate,” the man said. He shoved Oliver’s shoulder.

The woman leaned forward, peering at us. “That’s the ladies’ room. You can’t go in there,” she said to Oliver, slurring just a little. She turned to me. “Honey, is this man trying to get you to do something you don’t wanna do?”

“No, I’m fine,” I said impatiently.

The man was still focused on Oliver. “I said you need to watch it.” He punctuated every other word by jabbing his finger into my father’s chest. Dumbass.

“Back off,” Oliver growled.

That was all the man needed. He reached down and drew his sword.

Oliver nudged me toward the door. “Go, I’ll be right behind you.” He drew his own sword and nimbly tossed the handle between his two hands, obviously relishing the thought of taking the drunk man down a notch.

With a grumble, I pushed through the door, hoping Oliver would quickly knock out the man and catch up. But the clangs of metal outside indicated there might be more of a fight than I’d hoped.

I got to the last stall and found Bryna waiting. “Oliver got waylaid,” I said.

She cursed under her breath. “You might as well go down.” She pointed to a square opening in the floor where a tile had been removed.

I sat on the edge, let my legs hang through, and then dropped into the darkness. My feet hit a rough surface, and the stale and slightly rotten smell of standing water filled my nostrils. Eunice and Jasper stood off to the side. The unfinished ceiling was only about a foot and a half over my head.

“Someone tried to pick a fight with Oliver,” I said and huffed an annoyed sigh.

“Damnit,” Jasper muttered.

I looked up, hoping to see my father appear. Half a minute passed.

“Can you hear them out there?” I called up to Bryna.

“Shh!” she hissed irritably. She paused for a moment, listening, and then shook her head. “It sounds like the fighting’s stopped. Hang on, I’m going to look.”

She left and then reappeared several seconds later. “He’s not out there,” was all she said.

My heart dropped as I watched her lower herself through the opening.

I knew Oliver could handle himself, but I’d already lost him once. It made me edgy to not know what’d happened to him.

“Others may have noticed the fighting,” Jasper said. “He probably had to hide to avoid more trouble. Next time we cross paths with Drifte, I’ll see if he can locate Oliver.”

I nodded, but my jaw worked as I tried to squash the uneasy sensation growing in the pit of my stomach.

“Boost me up?” Bryna asked Jasper.

He interlaced his fingers to create a step and then lifted her so she could reach through the opening and slide the tile across, plunging us into semi-darkness. Faint light leaked from far ahead.

Bryna landed back on the ground and brushed off her hands. “This way.” She pointed in the direction of the weak light.

Plumbing conduits hissed and thumped above us as we followed her, and every so often water splatted on my head or shoulders or ran down the walls to form puddles. Widely spaced caged bulbs saved us from complete pitch dark.

My boots crunched on the gravel of what looked like an in-ground drain, and Bryna’s head whipped around. “Try to keep it down, will you?”

I lifted my hands and shrugged. I was being as careful as I could, and I didn’t think I was any louder than Jasper or Eunice. Bryna had always enjoyed criticizing my lack of stealth.

When we reached a crossroads in the tunnel, she stopped and looked both ways, hesitating for several long seconds.

“We’re not lost, are we?” I finally asked.

She shot me a glare. “No.” Then she stalked off to the left.

After a couple more turns, the tunnel dead-ended at a metal ladder. Bryna put one hand on it and turned to us.

“This’ll put us out into a mechanical room,” she said.

I tipped my head to look up at the rusted ladder. “How far will we be from the luxury quarters you were talking about?”

“About half the distance we were before,” she replied.

“That’s fantastic progress. Where to after the mechanical room?” Jasper asked. I cast him a quick, grateful look. I’d wanted to ask for more details, but Bryna was more likely to be helpful to him than to me.

“There’s a stable nearby,” she said. “We’ll go outside and regroup there.”

She reached for a rung over her head and nimbly made her way up. I went next with Eunice behind me, and Jasper climbed up last.

The air in the mechanical room was heavy with steam that immediately condensed and clung to my skin. Loud chugging of pumps drowned out all other sound. There was no sign of any workers, and again I was thankful for the Unseelie style of revelry that meant everyone was allowed to abandon their work to join in the party. Well, everyone except guards, soldiers, and servants who supplied the food and drink.

Bryna wove us through the machinery to an exit that spilled us into a corridor. By its plainness and the white-clad servants scurrying around, it was clearly a service hallway. And we most definitely did not fit in. Servants cast us odd looks, and one man gave us a dark frown, turning to watch us as we passed him.

“We need to get out of here,” I muttered to Bryna.

“Yeah, I know.”

She cut to the right, then left, and we came to a door that was propped open by a chair. We stepped through it and were once again outside. The smell of hay and manure indicated Bryna’s memory was good—there were horses nearby. We skirted the wall of the building we’d just exited, following her as she speed-walked.

Behind me, I heard Jasper’s reverberating low whistle, probably calling our location to Drifte. Half a minute later, it sounded again.

Avoiding the brightly lit open doors where attendants stood chattering and laughing, Bryna took us around the side and to the back of the horse barn.

She pointed to a keep, a rectangular building smaller than the one we’d just left, with a pointed roof that featured a glowing jeweled orb at the peak. “That’s the luxury quarters.”

The structure stood about half a mile away. Not a challenging distance to cover, except for one thing. Between where we stood and the luxury quarters, the place was thick with guards. We were within the outer wall of Palace City, but there was another layer of wall to get through in order to access the luxury quarters. A gate to that area was open, and horse-drawn carts loaded with bulky items concealed under tarps were lined up, ready to go through. Soldiers swarmed each cart, inspecting everything from the bottoms of the horses’ hooves to the wheel cogs to the pockets of the cart drivers. I watched as guards peeled back a tarp to reveal a cart bed full of barrels. Elvish wine, if I had to guess.

“Between the supplies and the level of security, I’d say we’re headed in the right direction,” I said.

Jasper spared a quick glance at the carts, but his attention was trained on the sky. He stepped away from us and raised his fist.

“That’s Drifte,” he said.

It took me a second to pick out the shape of the dark bird against the night sky. Drifte swooped down toward us, and something landed with a soft ping on the dirt in front of Jasper’s boots. The raven shifter banked away and then circled back.

Jasper bent to retrieve the object. “It’s a key.” He tipped his head back to watch Drifte. “Give me a moment. I’m going to speak to him.”

Jasper darted away toward a spindly hawthorn tree and blended with the shadow of its trunk. A moment later, I saw a bird alight on the ground near the tree. The bird blurred, the blur expanded and shimmered, and then Drifte was there next to Jasper.

After a few seconds, Jasper and Drifte appeared to be finishing up their conversation. The raven shifter crouched and then sprang up to catch one of the hawthorn tree’s lower branches. He swung up and blended into the foliage. As Jasper walked back toward us, a bird took flight from the top of the tree.

I saw the spark in Jasper’s golden eyes, and I knew he’d gotten something useful from Drifte.

“See that door?” Jasper leaned around the corner of the barn and pointed.

Bryna, Eunice, and I peeked out to look. It took me a second to identify what he was talking about—a plain door that was almost completely obscured behind a trellis with decorative climbing plants threading up about twenty feet. It stood about halfway between where we were and the line of incoming carts getting inspected by Daoine guards.

“Yeah?” I said, scooting back into the shadows.

“Apparently it’s the entrance for, ah—” He skirted a glance at Eunice. “Companions who’ve been granted entry to the luxury suite.”

I moistened my lips as my pulse jumped in anticipation. “The key?”

Jasper nodded. “That’s our way in.”

Suddenly, I knew I couldn’t allow Jasper to go in with only Eunice. There was simply no way I was going to stand around smelling horse shit while he went after the Unseelie High King.

“I’m going in with you,” I said. “Not all the way to Finvarra, if that won’t work, but I want to be nearby.”

Bryna snorted and muttered under her breath.

Ignoring her, Jasper’s eyes tightened as his gaze remained trained on me. “We don’t know what’s on the other side of the door. Eunice and I have a cover, but how would we explain your presence when we’re questioned?”

“I’ll say I’m offering myself to Finvarra as well,” I said.

He peered at me doubtfully. “Petra, you don’t do subservient. Plus, that’s not the truth, and we both know it’s not possible to tell such a lie. I really think—”

“No,” I interrupted, my voice pitched low. I stepped close to him. “I’m sorry, but hanging back while others jump into the fray is not who I am.” My hand went to my hip, where I drew my broadsword a few inches. “This is what I do. This is who I am—a fighter. It’s the best I have to offer. And if something went wrong in there—and let’s be honest, there’s a very good possibility of something going wrong, and I was standing out here with my thumb in my ass while it was happening—I’d never get past it. So I’m going with you. Deal with it.”

His gaze shifted back and forth between my eyes for a moment, as if he was reading something in my face. “Okay,” he finally said.

“Good luck with that,” Bryna said, the sarcastic edge to her tone making it clear enough what she thought of my little speech.

I turned to her. “Where’ll you be?”

“I’ll be looking for another way through the wall surrounding the luxury suite,” she said. “No guarantees, but I’ll try to get close. And more important, I’ll be looking for a good escape route for all of us.”

“I appreciate that,” I said sincerely. I turned again to Jasper. “Did Drifte have anything to say about Oliver’s whereabouts?”

I was trying not to think too hard about my father’s vanishing act, but my throat tightened a little when Jasper looked down and shook his head.

“I’m sorry, he didn’t.”

I nodded and tried to keep my focus on the task at hand.

“I’ll keep an eye out for Oliver,” Bryna offered.

I gave her a tight smile of thanks and then drew a deep breath and set my sights on the door hidden behind the trellis.

“There’s one oddity of the door,” Jasper said. “Apparently it’s charmed to only allow one person in at a time. So the first person unlocks it and goes in, and Drifte will come for the key and bring it to the next person.” He shrugged.

“A form of security, I guess,” I said.

Jasper, Eunice, and I crept around the other side of the barn and waited until the attendants were occupied. Then we scurried silently to the wall and kept to the deep shadows until we reached the trellis. Crowding behind the foliage gave us decent cover from eyes that might happen to peer our way.

Jasper stuck the key into the lock, and the mechanism shifted with a soft click. I elbowed the door open a few inches and peered inside. There was a carpeted hallway with candle sconces on the walls. The hallway dead-ended to the left, so there was no choice of direction to make. The ceiling was open to the sky. I spotted Drifte perched above.

“The two of you go in first,” I said.

The vines jostled a bit as Eunice moved past me and slipped inside. The door closed, and several seconds later the soft swish of a birds’ wings above was followed by the plink of the key hitting the ground. Jasper retrieved it and followed Eunice.

I tipped my head back and watched as Drifte appeared high above. He swooped my way, but instead of dropping the key, he bobbled it, let out an alarmed caw, and darted away. Confused, I leaned around the vines and craned to see where he’d gone. Drifte disappeared over the wall at the same time the drawstring of my cloak snapped against my throat as a strong hand violently hauled me backward.

I threw one elbow back at my attacker and reached for my sword with my other hand, but fingers clamped over my mouth and my sword hand. I quickly summoned armor.

“Not so fast, Your Majesty,” a male voice hissed in my ear.

Before I could try to peel the hand away from my face, it released and something smacked my temple, right in one of the areas stone armor didn’t protect. The world reeled, and I fought to cling to consciousness.