The alarm rose, in both tempo and volume, almost eclipsing the pounding of boots upon stone beneath it. Shaw ground to a halt. Lux followed a few paces beyond him, breathing heavily. It was far more than exhaustion that screamed in her lungs and set her heart hammering, and even though her body was grateful for the reprieve, her mind was not.
“Why are you stopping? We can still make the old entrance!” She splayed her hand across her chest, trying and failing to ease her heart back to a steady rhythm. Shaw hung his head. “Shaw!”
The strike of boots drummed closer.
“Run, Lux.”
He didn’t raise his eyes, even as she was sure hers would pop from her skull. “What? No, come on, you imbecile!”
His eyes were twin storms, dark and thunderous when he lifted them. But his voice was sad. “Remember how I once said I could come to like you?” His quiet laugh was lost. “I think Ihave, after all, and I think it might be more than even that. I can hardly believe it.” He shook his head, strands of gold highlighted and shimmering by the torchlight. She stumbled back beneath the weight of his bag as he tossed it to her.
“Use the last device in there. A switch on the bottom and then you run. Promise me.”
“Never. I won’t promise you anything.”
Shouts lashed through the air.
He was before her in two long strides, cupping her face in his hands before bringing his lips down upon hers in a kiss that was unlike either of the ones prior. Fast and hard, it almost hurt. A goodbye. He broke from her. With unguarded eyes brimming with emotion, he shrugged off his coat. Settling it around her shoulders, he pulled the cap from his head. He fitted it over her hair.
“Be safe, love. Be happy.”
A mass of tall, uniformed bodies barreled through the passage toward them. Shaw’s hands dropped to his sides, and he squared his shoulders. Following a final, lingering look at her, he turned. Her eyes stung, but it couldn’t be from tears. Wiping her cheeks, she stepped away from him. From his faded blue shirt.
This isn’t real,she thought.
But the Shield kept coming.
It isn’t real.
But he didn’t look back.
Chapter thirty-eight
The passage had givenway to quiet at last, the alarm a distant peal her ears strained to hear. Lux ignored her body’s cries of protest, reveling in the physical pain that occupied her mind against every other form. It finally received its reprieve at the base of the darkened stone stairs spiraling upward. She’d found the entrance, and all that was required of her now was to climb.
She demanded her legs to obey, to step forward. But they only wanted to sink down and rest onto her knees. Lux hung her head, her breaths filling the air around her, loud and gasping, and she clutched Shaw’s bag like it were Shaw himself, the scent of him wafting from his coat to torment her. She closed her eyes, pressing her nose into her shoulder, inhaling deeply.
A grunted oath floated down from the stairs. Followed by a shuffling gait and a steady thumpas if something were being dragged.
Lux didn’t give her limbs a choice as she shoved herself up from the floor, flattening against a shadowed wall.
The shuffling grew louder.
A swish of skirts followed.
Lux caught her lip between her teeth, forcing the air in her lungs to remain still. Her eyes squinted into the darkness to observe deep skirts of blue or plum. She’d only a moment to focus on them before they were hidden once more beneath the covering of a familiar grey cloak.
The hooded figure didn’t look toward her.
Instead, long fingers reached back into the entrance alcove and dragged forth a body. A body in a blood-red gown and a mangy sack over its head.
The phantom hoisted it up and into its arms. Without a glance in either direction, as if it knew its path with comfortable surety, it continued to drag its captive. Down the hidden passage, Lux had felt but not seen, and into the icy beyond.
Shaw’s long coat providedlittle comfort from the frigid gusts that assaulted her with reckless abandon. Lux wrapped her arms about her chest and attempted to keep her teeth from alerting the phantom to her presence with their incessant chattering. All the while, she followed.
The passage had sloped downward at first, but had since leveled out, making the pace easy if not terribly cold. At least the phantom had the exertion of towing another body along to keep it warm.
Lux knew she shouldn’t complain—she’d chosen to give into the mystery. The phantom wore no rags or spectral skin but a very real gown. She doubted this event occurred often within the safety of the mansion, and right now, the being was an ideal distraction to keep her from running back to take on the Shield single-handed.
