“I’ve been here longer than you, and I’m warmed,” Ianto said. “Take the blanket and eat; Ryker would kick my ass if I let you go without.”
I managed a wan smile for him, but the reminder of Ryker was a sharp pang to my heart. The cavern was full, yet I felt empty.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ellery
“Eat,” Ianto insisted.
I swallowed the lump in my throat as he draped the blanket around my shoulders. I’d just bitten into a piece of jerky when Farley whirled his way into the cavern. He spun in excited circles as he barreled toward me.
“Lery!” he cried before skidding to a halt only a foot away.
Many saw the poltergeists as annoying and ugly, but they’d proven their loyalty to us and been outstanding fighters in our quest to destroy the duke. Farley’s red eyes glimmered with excitement, and his crooked teeth jutted out of his mouth as he grinned at me.
He waved the dagger we’d armed him with in the air. Dried blood still stained its blade. Like all poltergeists, he was mostly a see-through blob.
“Farley,” I greeted.
“Glad to see you’re alive.”
“I can’t say the same to you.”
Farley chuckled. “I always did like your sense of humor.”
“Now I can say the same to you about that. How are things in the woods?” I asked around a mouthful of jerky.
“Quiet. We haven’t seen any of the duke’s men. I think they’ve all retreated from the forest.”
“The duke probably has them gathered all around him,” I muttered.
“He’s a coward,” Ianto stated.
“If I could leave the forest, I’d…” Farley mimicked stabbing movements with his blade. “He ever comes back here, I’ll make him leaky.”
My eyebrows rose at this promise. “That’s one way to describe killing someone.”
“You’re a bunch of bloodthirsty dead guys,” Ianto muttered.
“That’s because we have no blood and like to see it flow.” Farley made a few more stabbing movements before settling down again. “Did everything go well tonight?”
“As well as can be expected.” I turned to Ianto. “Indon learned where the children are.”
“In a dungeon beneath the palace,” he stated.
“You learned the same.”
“No, the gargoyles Fletcher went with discovered it.”
“It’s good to know it came from two sources. Hopefully, they weren’t both lying.”
“They weren’t,” Indon said.
I didn’t question how the gargoyle knew this; he was the one dangling the earl’s son over the ground, not me. Another set of gargoyles returned with the group they’d gone out with.
The three returning amsirah hurried over to the others and buried themselves under the blankets held out to them as the gargoyles flew from the cavern. After being trapped beneath the temple for hundreds of thousands of years, they preferred being outside.
“The last group is on its way,” Indon said.
