AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I know,” he says grimly. “I’ve met them too.”
I break his gaze, knowing I could get lost in it, in my joy at being found. But we don’t have time.
“Cebba’s on my tail,” I say. “The real one, not a ghost.”
His eyes widen. “That’s who took you? But how?—”
“We need to keep moving,” I interrupt.
He nods, closes his eyes, then points to a left turn when he opens them again. “This way.”
“You know the way out?” I ask as we jog along the passageway.
“Not exactly. Cebba knows the maze far better than me. She had this place built, and she’s the one who has spent time in it. But my High King link is helpful for locating things in the realm. It helped me find you that day in the forest.”
“And tonight?”
He shakes his head.
“We were too far apart. The pendant still carries a trace of you that I could use for tracking, but it only told me you were in the forest. Then that rag you buried helped me get close enough to hear the Hunt.”
I absorb the fact that if I hadn’t left the pendant at my bedside, he might not have found me.
A woman appears up ahead and my breath catches before I sigh in relief. For a terrifying moment I thought it was Cebba—she has the same chestnut brown hair—but she’s older and wearing a delicate crown.
“What happened to me is your fault,” she starts to say to Ruskin. “You’ll never be worthy of—” Ruskin waves his hand and the illusion disappears.
“Wish I could do that,” I murmur.
“Does Cebba want my true name?” Ruskin asks.
Guilt twists within me. “Yes.”
We pass another illusion I don’t recognize, a man with dark hair and cat-like eyes, muttering about Ruskin never avenging him. Ruskin doesn’t even look at it as he waves it away.
“But you didn’t give it to her yet?” he continues as if nothing had happened. “That’s why she’s still after you?”
“Yes,” I say. “Though not for lack of trying.” I hold up my hand, showing him the place where my finger used to be.
His eyes blaze with rage.
“She’ll die for this, Eleanor.”
“Oh look, one of mine,” I point to the end of the corridor, where my mother stands. Except…she doesn’t look like the apparition from before. She’s dressed differently and looks much younger.
“She’ll find out, and then what will you do?” The apparition’s whispers rush towards us and my brow creases.
“That’s new. I don’t even know what it’s talking about.”
Ruskin jerks his hand upward, and she’s gone. I stare up into his face, an odd lump of worry in my stomach on top of everything else, but his expression is unreadable.
“Come on,” he says. “I think we’re close, I can taste the change in the air.”
I hurry after him, the apparition’s strange words still echoing in my ears.
“How did Cebba take you?” he asks, as he tugs me down another junction, and I think I glimpse a lightening sky ahead of us.
“She’s been hiding at court, disguised as Lady Rivera’s human servant.”
