I yank open the fourth door and rush through. Right into a dusty sitting room. I stop short. “What the fuck?” I was sure this was the way out. A moth-eaten couch squats against one wall, directly across from two equally decaying chairs. There’s a dresser that appears one sneeze away from collapsing and a large swivel mirror on a stand that seems completely out of place.
Hushed voices sound in the hallway, accompanied by the sound of quick footsteps. I scan them without thinking. Humans, but that doesn’t mean I want to get caught. I pull the door shut softly behind me and hold my breath as I wait for them to move past.
Except they don’t.
They stop a few feet away from my door and continue speaking in soft, harried tones. I could wait them out, but I have mere minutes before the vampires reach the house.
The window it is.
I head for the window, scrunching my nose as each step sends up clouds of dust. Why don’t the maids clean this room? Every other part of this house I’ve explored has been pristine. I shove the curtains aside and instantly regret it when a sneeze threatens. It doesn’t matter. I just have to get the window open …
It’s painted shut.
“You have got to be kidding me.” I don’t have time to cut the damn thing open. Surely there’s another exit somewhere. I take a few steps toward the door but pause when the mirror in the room flickers oddly. Even knowing I don’t have time to explore, curiosity takes hold. It will take only a moment to investigate. I move to it and send a flicker of my magic at it. What I find makes me grin.
“Lizzie, you’ve been keeping secrets.” She’s got a portal in her house. No wonder this room is forbidden to the staff. Having them fall through a portal when they try to clean the mirror would be a nightmare to deal with.
Where does it go, though?
I glance at the door and bite my lip. Trying to find the exit is still a good plan, but I can’t move as fast as the vampires outside, and if Lizzie figures out I stole from her, she’ll come after me. And not in a fun way.
But the portal? I can go through it and ensure no one can follow. It won’t stop her from hunting me, but I’ve spent my entire life learning to lose myself. I can stay ahead of her long enough for her mother to send her off to do some murderous shit or for Lizzie to find some other poor soul to torment.
Easy peasy.
The words feel like a lie, so I ignore them.
It takes two precious minutes to cut my thumb and carve a quick spell onto the mirror frame. Once I trigger it, it will explode in thirty seconds, closing the portal behind me. A risk, but giving Lizzie a direct way to follow me is riskier.
I hope.
There’s no time to hesitate. I pull my shirt open a bit more to reveal the network of tattoos on my chest. Each is a prepped spell, just waiting for a bit of blood to activate it. I press my bleeding finger to the one in the center of my chest, drawing a shield around me. It will only hold as long as my concentration and power do, but I don’t know what I’m walking into.
The door flies open as I take one step into the portal. Lizzie rushes into the room. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Escaping.” I just have to trigger the spell to destroy the mirror after I step through. Damn it, I’m going to have to time this right.
My backpack clinks as I shift farther into the mirror. She narrows her eyes. “You didn’t.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” My heart is beating so fast, she has to be able to sense the lie. I need to go and I need to go now.
I thought all warmth was gone from Lizzie. Turns out I was wrong. The last bit of softness disappears and she bares her fangs at me. “Drop the bag right now, Evelyn.”
It’s the smart thing to do, but I haven’t been doing the smart thing for a long time. No reason to start now. “Nope.” One last deep breath and I trigger the spell on the mirror frame.
Lizzie lunges for me, but it’s too late. The last thing I see is her furious face as she screams. “I’m going to fucking kill you!” Then the mirror explodes, cutting us off from each other.
I realize my mistake the moment it does. This isn’t a direct portal at all. Of course it’s not. I should have known Lizzie wouldn’t keep an open door to somewhere else in her house.
Darkness presses close, thick and syrupy. I can’t see a single thing, can’t breathe, can’t think. Oh gods, please tell me I didn’t flee from Lizzie only to die in this space of nothingness.
Damn it, no. Instinct gets me moving, despite the difficulty it is to take one step and then another. The only other option is holding still and suffocating, and I’m not going out like that. Panic flutters in my chest, screaming through my mind. I’ve heard drowning is a peaceful way to die, but there’s no peace in this. Just terror.
Keep going. Keep moving. One foot in front of the other. You still have strength, and you’re going to fucking use it.
Step after step after step. It feels like the abyss is swallowing me whole, but I’m walking on something, even if I can’t see it. There has to be a way out. There has to be. I just need to find it.
But nothing has changed by the time my lungs start screaming for air. In desperation, I pick up my pace. I don’t have much time left. Hard to say if black dots are dancing across my vision when I can’t see anything at all. The very non-air seeming to fight against me, trying to hold me still and slow me down.
Fuck you.
I’m running now, pumping my arms as fast as I can while my lungs shriek. I clamp my lips together to keep from gasping, but I’m seconds away from my body taking over.
I’m moving so fast, I don’t realize the ground beneath my feet is gone until I’m falling.
Between one blink and the next, the darkness is replaced by pale dawn light. I drag in one glorious salty breath … and then hit something hard enough that everything goes black.
CHAPTER 3
Bowen
“MERMAID OFF THE STARBOARD SIDE!”
The call brings me out of my cabin. We’re not in mermaid waters, but if the sighting is correct, we have one bastard of a fight on our hands. I grab a spear from the rack, noting that my quartermaster, Miles, has the spelled net already in his hands.
We meet on the starboard side and I narrow my eyes against the glare of the sun on the choppy water. How the lookout saw anything at all is a damned miracle. “Where?”
Miles is a head shorter than me and built lean, his skin covered in fine green scales like a reptile. He shields his eyes and looks up to the crow’s nest where Sarah is perched. I can barely see her blond hair from here, but it’s obvious she’s communicating with him using her air magic. A few moments later, he points. “There.”
I follow his finger to see a figure in the water less than ten yards away. I tense, half raising the spear, before I register what I’m seeing. Pale skin. Long hair that’s hair and not water weeds. A face that is decidedly more human than the merfolk I’ve come across in my years hunting with the C?n Annwn. “Not a mermaid.”
Miles shrugs. “Then leave them. The sea will take care of it.”
He always does this. If there’s a change of plan, Miles would rather run it over than bend to adapt to new circumstances. I swear he’s started doing it solely to undermine me. If I say we go north, he starts arguing that south is a better route. Every. Single. Time.