She startled at the flare of light illuminating Shaw’s face.
“A thief, remember?” The small flame elongated his canines and sharpened his cheekbones, turning his grin into a wolfish sneer.
Her eyes dropped to the satchel slung across him. “What else do you have in there?”
Shaw strode to the surgeon’s worktable, and said over his shoulder, “Lock picks. Rope. A set of knives. And a couple surprises I hope to go unneeded, courtesy of Aline.” Her ears ached again just at the mention of them. “I don’t know what half of these are.”
She stepped around to his side as he stood, vial in hand.
“Then I wouldn’t touch them. The concoctions created here are abhorrent.”
He nestled the glass bottle very carefully back in its place, his gaze searching. “What did they do to you?”
Lux tried to fix her eyes in front of her, but the lone, narrow door pulled at her vision. She stared into its shadows. “I was bound, some toxin forced in my veins. And then…nightmares.” She swallowed. “But before that, I watched a man gutted, and when his inevitable death arrived, witnessed just how exactly lifeblood is extracted. It was…enlightening. I vomited all over the Shield’s boots.”
She heard Shaw’s breath catch behind her, but only too late did she realize he was likely imagining his father in the man’s stead. She’d been tactless.
But when she turned toward him, the eyes mirroring the flame weren’t filled with grief as she’d expected. Nor impenetrable shadow. Rather, her own widened at the compassion she saw there. And the immeasurable fury.
“I’ve changed my mind.” His words were clipped, menacing.
“About what?”
“Our mission here, tonight. Don’t look at me like that. I still plan on stealing every last remnant of lifeblood. But I’m burning this place down with it.”
“You can’t. You’ll harm the prisoners.”
“The flames won’t get past these doors. It’ll cause enough damage to prolong the fates of those down here until we can save them.”
We. Lux bit at her cheek as she observed his determination. His faith in their alliance.
Irreversibly.
She cared for him irreversibly.
But she still had to ask. “What makes you so sure?”
“Another gift of Aline’s.”
She snorted. “Now I’m even less thrilled with this plan.”
The room was empty. Empty of any substance that glimmered and glowed with a silvery sheen. Lux let Shaw investigate the small space she’d been held, tortured by her own mind. She had no desire to see it again. When he appeared through the doorway once more, his arms hanging in dejection, she felt only relief.
“Any other ideas?” Her nerves were getting the better of her. They’d been down here too long.
“Maybe his study—”
“We’ve looked there.”
“Not long.”
She clamped her eyes shut, shaking her mind free of the memory of a kiss she’d only ever thought of while alone. But when she opened them, something new occupied her attention. Behind them both, behind even a stacked set of stained, white sheets, stood a narrow cabinet with a curiously shaped padlock.
Lux plucked the wavering light from Shaw’s hand and strode toward it.
The cabinet was dark wood and finely crafted, but other than keeping the flames from touching its surface, she didn’t pay further mind to it. Her gaze roved over the lock instead. It was unusual, its ends coming to points instead of smoothly rounded, and, as far as she could see, it didn’t have any place for a fitted key let alone a lock pick.
She tugged on it anyway. A bolt of cold swept up her arm, and she dropped it.
