I tried my best to stay calm, to not get my hopes up. To calm my racing heart.
“So?” Nico pressed.
Luciana took a deep breath.
“I got a location.”
The location Luciana’s spell gave us led us to yet another abandoned warehouse. This one was so far south in the Star Court it practically bordered the Lunar Court. It would have taken days to travel by horse, so Luciana offered to bring us there using her magic instead.
We quickly readied ourselves, strapping as many weapons to our bodies as we could before taking off.
Now, we sat crouched behind an abandoned wagon, eyeing the depleted warehouse, plotting the best way to get inside.
“There are no guards stationed at the door,” Nico noted.
“They could be waiting inside,” Declan countered.
“Last time we decided to walk right in it didn’t go in our favor,” I muttered. “Is there any kind of spell you can do, Luce? To see if there’s someone guarding the doors from inside?”
Luciana shrugged. “I could try reaching out my magic, see if I can sense anything.”
“Do it, please,” Kara insisted.
Luciana nodded before closing her eyes. I could feel her magic as it reached out, it coiled around me before shifting and moving toward the building. Luciana’s dark brows furrowed as she continued. “I can’t sense anything.” The crease between her brows grew deeper. “I can’t feel anything anywhere.”
A pit formed in my stomach, and I swallowed. “Let’s try the door.”
I rose from my crouch, leading the way toward the building. The door was left open a crack, it swung open easily as I kicked it with my boot.
We silently made our way through the hallway, the space eerily silent.
We scanned the entire building but found nothing. It was empty.
“There’s evidence they were here.” Declan kicked at a discarded box on the ground with his foot. “It looks like they packed up quickly. Whoever was here.”
“It was them,” Luciana said quietly. “There was a corpse of a dead Dhampir back there.”
“Do you think someone knew we were coming?” I questioned.
Luciana let out a deep breath. “There’s no way to know; they had a way to put a damper on our magic, I wouldn’t be surprised if they found a way to track us.”
“So what do we do now? If they can track us, they will always know when we’re coming. How will we ever get Lennox back?”
“We have to beat them at their own game.”
4
LENNOX
I lost track of how long I had been here.
I had tried to keep track at first.
But after they had beaten me so badly the one day I passed out, I started losing track.
Time after time, I refused to perform the spell on Adreona’s subjects. Most days, she killed the victims in front of me. Their losses weighed on my soul, it was partly my fault they were being slaughtered, but at least it wasn’t by my blade or by my spell. That I could live with more than the alternative.
But Adreona quickly grew tired of my insolence. Her temper wore thinner and thinner every day I refused. I should have kept my mouth shut, but that wasn’t in my nature. If I was going to go down, I was going to go down swinging.
