“I think . . . I think I can.”
Pretha steps forward, her brow creased. “Then why didn’t you do it when you were there tonight?”
Finn scoffs. “Because she can’t.” He turns to me. “Your optimism is charming, but we aren’t deep enough into your training yet. You can hardly control the smallest bit of your power, and if you lost your hold on it while slipping through the queen’s wards, you’d have the entire royal guard on your ass.”
My cheeks burn. I feel like a fool for what I have to admit, but I force myself to say it. “You’re right. I can’t. Not by myself, but my power . . . it’s stronger when you’re around. And when you touch me . . .” I immediately regret my words. They sound far, far too intimate. My face is on fire, but I lift my chin and go on. “I think if you go with me, the boost I get from you will give me the power and control I need to do this.”
Finn stares at me.
Pretha shakes her head. “It’s too risky. What happens if you get inside that cell and you can’t do it. Then all three of you are stuck. Putting aside the trouble that would mean for us, Brie, do you really want to risk your prince discovering what you’ve been up to?”
“Let’s show her.” Finn steps forward and offers me his hand.
I put my hand in his and arch my back as my power awakens inside me. The room goes wholly dark, and Pretha mutters a curse right before I take her hand and the three of us walk through the wall and into the back alley.
* * *
“Wake up, you lazy bastard,” Finn says, nudging Jalek with his boot. “Unless you want to be the queen’s breakfast this morning.”
I cringe at Finn. In the pitch black of the cell, I can hardly make out his features, even with my excellent night vision. “Her breakfast? Is she a cannibal?”
“She’s a monster,” Jalek says, pushing himself off the ground and scowling at us. “How the hell did you two get in here? You have a damned death wish?”
Finn tilts his head in my direction and shrugs. “The princess insisted. I didn’t want to disappoint her when she was in the mood for an adventure.”
“If you end up sacrificing yourself for me,” Jalek mutters, “I’m gonna kill you before the queen has the chance.”
At the sound of feet scuffing on the stairs, I turn toward the bars and try to see who’s coming, but the angle makes it impossible. When we snuck past the party roaring outside and into the castle, there were two guards stationed in the hall with the glamoured doorway and another two at the top of the dungeon stairs. “Someone’s coming,” I whisper.
Finn’s head snaps to the stairs, and before I can even follow his gaze, he’s yanked me to the back corner of the cell. There, we become the darkness.
Jalek’s eyes widen. “Gods above and below,” he mutters.
I see the light before I see the sentry. He’s dressed in the traditional attire of Arya’s guard and holds an orb of light in the palm of his hand.
“Are you talking to yourself, traitor?” the uniformed sentry asks.
Jalek’s face becomes a mask of indifference as he turns to face the bars.
The sentry flashes the orb over Jalek’s face and then around the cell. Finn keeps ahold of my hand as he pulls me against him so my back is flush with his front. My breath catches at the contact, and my body stiffens.
“Shh,” Finn whispers, his breath hot against my ear and his free hand flat against my stomach.
I close my eyes and swallow. I hate that I react to him this way. Hate even more that part of me wishes he’d move that hand, stroke the skin that burns beneath his touch. “You’re enjoying this far too much,” I whisper.
His chest shakes against my back in a silent chuckle, and his lips brush my ear. “You have no idea.”
The sentry paces down the corridor past Jalek’s cell, but we stay hidden, waiting for him to return to his post at the top of the stairs.
Finn’s thumb circles ever so slightly against my stomach.
“Stop that.” The protest is too quiet to sound sincere.
“As you wish.”
But the feel of his splayed fingers flattening against my stomach is almost worse, and I have to swallow back a contented groan. The darkness pulses around us.
“Easy, Princess, focus on the magic. When we’re out of here, you can go back to imagining all the ways you want my hands on you.”
I open my mouth to tell him he’s a disgusting pig who is absolutely wrong about the direction of my thoughts, but I snap it closed when the sentry returns. He casts light into the cell again. When our back corner remains blanketed in darkness and he returns his attention to Jalek, unaware that anything’s amiss, I release a breath.