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I knew it was a lie, but I was okay with that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The next thing I remembered feeling was a greasy coldness covering my lips and nose. I tried to breathe, couldn’t get air—I was in the darkness of space and I didn’t have a helmet on, all the air had left my body and I’d never draw another breath—I threw my head back in panic and hit my head on stone.
“Stop that,” said a voice beside me in the dark. I found I could breathe again, and took in huge gulping lungsful.
I wasn’t at home with my Minnie anymore. I was in a cell, in the dark—and I’d just heard a voice.
“What are you doing here?” the voice asked me. It was so quiet it was hard to hear.
“Shadows?”
“We waited at the entrance for you for a day—we thought you’d abandoned us.”
I shook my head in the dark. It hurt where I’d walloped it on the ground. Raven’s blood in me was slowing down.
“After a while we got tired of waiting and divided again to look for another way out.”
I scooted myself to sit up. “Did you find the prisoner?”
“Of course. Stay still, so you may hold us.”
I crouched, waiting, one hand stretched out. A small wet weight crawled to the center of my palm. “Why were you choking me?”
“We were spread out to search. Also, we were hungry.”
“I’m so glad my terror at suffocating was good for something.”
“As are we. Let us take you to your friend now, so that this can end. We want to go home.”
“Join the club. But I’m locked in here.”
The portion of the Shadows in my hand made a mocking noise. “Oh, really?”
* * *
It took a second, but with their instructions, and using the lighter once, I placed my hand up on the rusty lock that Wolf had used. They slid inside and shortly afterward the latch came undone. I unlooped it from the metal bars and set it down open.
“Hurry. The others wait.”
“What time is it?” In the utter black, I couldn’t see my watch.
“Night, a few hours until dawn.”
Maybe enough. “How will I know where to go?”
“Don’t worry—we’ll hold your hand.”
The Shadows oozed back and forth depending on the direction they wanted me to take, and I followed them. It was hard to trust them—my imagination had them walking me off endless cliffs and me falling onto stalagmites below—but the lighter didn’t have endless fuel, and I needed to save what was left of it. Soon I didn’t know how far we’d gone, and there was no way I’d be able to find my way back without their help.
“Stop,” they said. “Let us down. Not on the silver!” they cried, rolling back and forth across my palm like mercury. I swung my arm farther out to one side and felt them sluice through my fingers.
“He’s … here?”
“You told us to look for a silver grate, so we found one. If there’s more than one person trapped under silver in this forsaken wasteland, we will have to start over.” They sounded irritated. “We couldn’t cross the barrier to go looking inside for ourselves.”
I still couldn’t see. “I’m going to turn on a light. Hide, okay?” I counted to ten before pulling the lighter out of my bra and flicking it on.
We were in a small room, carved out of more stone. I wondered at the people who’d taken so much time making these catacombs. The lighter’s flame made the shadows jump off every imperfection in the rough-hewn wall. In front of me, just as the Shadows had promised, was an ornately carved grate, decorated with the image of a scorpion, looking archaeologically old.
I leaned over it to see inside, but the light from the flame didn’t travel far, and the scorpion emblem scattered shadows. I had an impression of a person at the bottom of it—or a person-sized bundle of rags.
“Prisoner?” I whispered.
It was night out; he should be awake. But he said he’d been starved—maybe he wasn’t strong enough? Or maybe he was fooling me? Or maybe it was a corpse at the bottom of the well, and my vampire was in another castle.
I reached forward for the grate itself. “Don’t!” the Shadows warned, but too late.
I gasped in pain and almost dropped the lighter. “What the—”
“Just because it’s tarnished doesn’t mean it’s not silver.”
“Oh.” I rubbed the fingertips of my left hand.
“Careful, you’ll scar,” said a parched voice that wasn’t the Shadows’.
“Prisoner?” I crouched forward. “Is that you?”
There was a groan from below.
I held the lighter up again, and then bit the meat of my thumb, hard, and flicked the blood that welled up there
down into the pit before I could heal.
The trapped creature at the bottom rushed up in a burst. It crawled up the sides of the well like someone was pushing FAST-FORWARD. It had a gaunt and drawn face, teeth straining out from a withered skull. It was the stuff of nightmares, the exact image of the last thing you see before you know you’re going to die.
I yelped and jumped back into the dark. The sound of my shout echoed, echoed, and echoed behind me.
In the darkness, the first thing I was afraid of was that somehow he’d gotten out, that he was in the same room as I was. It took a moment for me to swallow my panic and start feeling around on the floor until I found the lighter. I flicked it on again, because I needed to look around and make sure I was still alone.
“Didn’t mean—starved,” hissed a voice, now much closer than it had been.
“Prisoner?” I asked, my voice rising.
“Yes. Don’t look,” he recommended, from inside his cell.
I nodded, eager to agree. Just a second of the silver had felt like fire—and it looked like it was three inches thick. I was strong, but was I that strong?
“We can’t help you. It burns us,” the Shadows said, as if reading my mind.
I leaned toward the pit. “Your promises are still good?”
“Always,” whispered a too-close voice.
“Then get back.” I wished there were a way I could keep the lighter on while holding it with my teeth. Then again, seeing him get nearer would only help me to imagine him breaking off my fingers and sucking on the stumps like bloody teats. My imagination didn’t need any help. I set the lighter down again, and before I could think about it reached in, grabbed hold of the grate, and pulled.
It didn’t budge. Not even a fraction of an inch.
I tried again, hands on fire, and it felt like the silver was cutting through my fingers as I pulled.
“Fuck.” I reeled back, holding my fists up to my chest, teeth grinding together so I wouldn’t scream.
