One
Kyrith
“LEO!”Lambert’s voice is muffled.“DAKARI! What the fuck? Stop gawking and help me get her out!”
I strain to hear him. Am I underwater? No. I’m trapped in glass.
The burning, constricting pressure across my chest stole my ability to scream after the first time. Now my breath is forced to come in shallow gasping pants, each one ricocheting off the crystal and coating my face with humid, stuffy air. I can’t move. There’s agony between my ribs and?—
Smash!
Tiny ice-cold splinters rain down on my face. The stuffiness eases, and I gasp like a fish out of water. The pain in my chest blooms bright again, and I whimper.
“We’ve got you, boss. We’re here. Don’t move,” Lambert reassures me over and over, louder now there’s nothing between us. “JASPER! Get your ass down here! She’s hurt!”
His fingers—magic, they’re so warm—caress my face, brushing back the crystal pinning me to the altar with franticsweeps until his hands are slick with blood and the scent of iron overwhelms me.
Wait…
Warm? Iron? Humidity?
“Move!” Dakari’s voice is deep and urgent, richer than it was before. It vibrates right down to my bones.
“Dosongreti!”
It’s a manipulation spell, but somehow it frees me. My chest expands painfully with my next breath. Hands touch my waist, burning me through the fabric of my kirtle. I flinch, and agony flares again.
“Keep your eyes shut,” Lambert coaches. “That’s it, boss. You’re being so brave.”
To any other woman, perhaps that would be reassuring, but being coached like a child rankles. Also… My eyes are closed? Everything is soheavy.
“Help me get these shackles off her!” Galileo orders. “Jasper, stop staring at the knife, and do something about it!”
The familiar rustle of paper beside my ear is deafening.
Jasper’s panicked reply is close. “It’s been a long while since I healed a stab wound, okay!”
Stab wound?
I fight to open my eyes, but someone jostles me from behind. There’s a grunt, and then my head is lifted away from the cold hard surface and cradled in a warm, muscled lap.
My neck aches from the change in position, or perhaps it’s simply protesting the indignity of it. Either way, the sensation distracts me, making it even harder to arrange my thoughts into a coherent stream.
My head is in someone’s lap, and I canfeelagain.
What happened? Why am I here? I wrestle with my eyelids, but only succeed in freeing a humiliating groan that rattles through my bones.
“Hey, hey. It’s okay.” Lambert strokes hair out of my face. “Jasper will have you fixed up in no time.”
“Fixed up?” Is that my voice? So reedy and thin?
“You might not have noticed”—Wait, North is here too?—“but there’s a massive fucking knife pinning you to this ugly-ass altar.”
Of course there is. There has been for half a millennium.
Oh, no. I’m in the vault, which meansthey’rein the vault.
My eyes fly open, every part of me ready to berate them or kick them back upstairs.
