In the Veins of the Drowning(107)

“What happened?” My voice was a shaking whisper. “Did he call it off?”

Lachlan’s shadowed brow bent, a wary look in his gaze before eyeing the paneled wall at the base of the western stairs. “Keep moving.”

I dug in my heels. “Did he call it off?”

“Please, be quiet, Imogen.” He scanned the room once more, and whispered, “No.”

“Then what—”

“Not here.” He started us toward the far wall, and the narrow door hidden there. Each step had me feeling like I might crumble. He took my arm when my knees started to give. Hinges squealed, and I hobbled into a small, windowless room. An armory. There was a narrow hearth, a handful of lit torches in their holders. Maces, flails, and battle-axes hung on the dark wood walls. An old table and chairs took up the center of the space.

Lachlan clicked the lock over and stared at me. His even mask fell away, replaced by dire intensity. “Where did the empress take her?”

An awful cold crackled through me. “To Anthemoessa,” I said. “Where Eusia is.”

His color drained, his skin looking suddenly waxen. With a horror-struck look in his eyes, he seemed to sort through battering thoughts.

“Tell me what’s happened with the wedding.” I spoke too strongly, making pain flare deep in my middle. “Yesterday, when I left—”

Lachlan gave a sharp shake. “Yesterday?” The word broke in his throat. He shook his head again. “It’s been two days, Imogen. Two fucking days since you left.”

I sucked in a breath as I tried to comprehend. I could not wrap my mind around it—that I’d spent two whole days on the water, fighting toward land in a spell-sick stupor, clinging to my meager, inactionable plan, while Agatha sailed nearer and nearer to danger. By now, she might have reached it.

“How far is Anthemoessa?” My voice was small and frantic.

“Just over three days.” Wood scraped as he pulled the nearest chair from the table and collapsed into it. He clutched his short hair in his fingers. “But it’s near impossible to get there.”

I gaped at him, willing my pain, and shock, and anger, to solidify into something violent enough to sustain me. “Stand up, you ass.” His head snapped up, wet eyes to mine. “You have pined for her for a lifetime and now you collapse? When she needs you most?”

His fist slammed the table. “What can we do? You’ve been proscribed—”

“No thanks to you—”

“It wasn’t me. The council put it to a vote at Eftan’s insistence.” His look was severe. “Everyone in the palace knows who you are and that you are to be imprisoned until trial. Admitting to regicide, like you just did in the garden, won’t help you either.”

“Tell Theodore to pardon me.”

He shook his head. “He’s not here.”

A new pain tangled in my chest. I took a small step back, as if I could escape what he would tell me next.

“The wedding has been moved to Theo’s ship.” He spoke in starts and stops, like it took effort to form the words. “After that battle, after you went missing, Theo snapped… He altered all the wedding contracts. They set off for the docks a couple hours ago. They’re headed to Obelia so Halla can have a proper wedding celebration with her own people.”

I had to play the words over again in my head, had to fight to keep my stumbling heart intact. I needed Halla. I needed to get to Agatha. And foolish and dangerous as it was, I couldn’t snuff out the insatiable want I felt for Theo.

For a long moment, our gazes held. I could nearly feel the charged air between us slowly transmute our sorrow and terror into an unmapped, awful idea.

“Lachlan.” Despite how it ratcheted my hideous pain, I forced in a deep breath. I clung to the table’s edges to keep myself still. “We need to get to that ship.”