My heart skipped a beat. I felt the vibrations moving through the stairwell, the clanking of armored guards hurrying up the winding stones.
My gaze flicked to the open window, where the vines hung inside, clinging to the stones. When I held out my hands, the indigo vines unfurled, snapping around my wrists. They lifted me into the air. I landed against the wall with bent legs to cushion the impact and crawled out the window onto the side of the tower. The night wind rushed over me, whipping my hair into my face. Protectively, the plants slid around my waist, a harness of claret leaves.
Under the darkening night sky, I crawled down the tower’s exterior until I reached the floor beneath it, then lower to the third floor .
My thoughts snagged on what the crone had said—that ultimately, Queen Mab was in control of everything happening here. But what was I supposed to do with that knowledge? And who knew if it was even accurate? All I could do was keep moving forward.
I moved east across the castle’s surface, avoiding the windows.
When I glanced down at the earth far below, my heart skipped a beat. Holy shit, I was high up. Dizziness blurred my thoughts. The old crone had been right. If I didn’t get water soon, this would all be over.
Midnight vines carried me across the castle’s face, moving me lower toward the floor with the shattered windows. Beneath me, some of the armored guards still dangled from the wreckage.
They kicked in the air, flailing and screaming. I aimed for an opening as far as possible from the trapped soldiers. The vines lowered me down, then lifted me in through the shattered window. My shoes crunched on the glass, and I broke into a run.
I stumbled through the halls toward the throne room with a rising sense of dread spreading through me like poison.
Because—gods, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do it. I wasn’t sure if I could handle seeing him dead. The horror of it all might shatter what was left of my fragmented mind, and I was already turning into a monster.
And yet…there was that feeling again, that his presence was here, the raw, masculine power of the Seelie king. I kept thinking I could smell him, that I couldn’t leave here without him …
My nostrils flared as the scent was gone again, replaced by a sharp sense of loss.
And something else now, a sharpness in my belly. The scent of cooking vegetables and the pungent smell of coal curled through the vaulted corridors. When I breathed in, I smelled food. Something else, too. Burning coal, melting steel. But it was the food I needed.
As I rounded a corner, moonlight slanted in through shattered windows. Flame-colored plants climbed cobalt walls, and a few burning cinders floated through the air. My legs were shaking uncontrollably. The crone had been right. I was absolutely desperate for water, and I wasn’t sure I could make it through the rest of this castle without it. I’d never make it back to Faerie with Torin’s body unless I drank. If only I could feast off light itself as the tree did.
I followed the scent of food until I arrived at a kitchen. It was the size of the throne room, and I peered around the corner. I spotted a great hearth, eight feet high and made of the same bluish stones. A black metal pot bubbled in the center of the hearth, a cauldron of sorts that emitted the most delicious scent. I didn’t feel a normal sense of hunger anymore, but rather an incandescent survival instinct that screamed at me. I would collapse soon without food and water.
Unfortunately, though the rest of the castle had emptied out, the kitchen was bustling with servants, all of them dressed in aprons and white caps. Cooks were chopping vegetables, hurrying around with sacks of flour. My gaze snagged on a pile of carrots that I very much wanted to snatch, but a large man with a wheelbarrow was ambling closer to me.
I darted back into the hallway and waited until he emerged, pulling the wheelbarrow behind him.
He froze as his eyes took in the bloodstains on my dress, but thorny blue tendrils were already around his throat, silencing him. His wheelbarrow slammed to the ground, and I snatched a steaming piece of bread, so hot it burned my fingers. With my other free hand, I grabbed a pitcher of water from inside the doorway, and I was off again, searching for a quiet place to eat and drink, clinging to my new treasure like some kind of raggedy scavenger bird. Behind me, the vines slid together across the hall, shielding me.
I didn’t stop moving until I found an open archway in what looked like an empty temple. Near the entrance, I found a dark alcove overgrown with plant life. I nestled down in the corner and peered out into the temple to make sure no one was around.
On the far side of the flagstones stood an altar with a fireplace in the center, flanked by columns. A temple to the ash goddess, maybe, spitting burning cinders into the air. Gleaming swords jutted from the arched rock above the flames. From the smoldering forge, smoke curled.