The chokeweed was already sprouting up again, creeping toward us like the fucking ghouls of Beggar’s Moat in search of a warm body.
“We gotta move. Now.” Without waiting for her response, I grabbed her arm and dragged her toward the glamoured entrance in the garden wall, but it was too late. The chokeweed covered the entire Sanctuary, new vines awakening with our every footstep.
“Fuck!” I lifted her off the ground and away from the vines, but no matter how hard I stomped them down, they just kept coming back. They covered the entrance, covered the wall, covered the fountain, slithering toward us like snakes. I might have been able to outrun them alone, but not with Haley in tow.
“What do we do?” she breathed. “What the fuck do we do? My magick isn’t working!” She tried to call up a spell with her spilled blood, but that fucking cuff was muting her, and it fizzled out at the first flicker of light.
Still holding her in my arms, I smashed down more vines and tried to head back the way we’d come, thorns ripping at my legs, the tell-tale bright green gas drifting upward. We weren’t going to make it. Not to the glamoured entrance, not to the old gate we’d come through. The vines were too thick, too strong.
“We hold our breaths,” I said again. “That’s what. And then we—wait. Haley, look!”
A dark shadow passed overhead, then circled back, swooping lower.
A shadow in the shape of a massive gargoyle.
I laughed, relief surging through my limbs when I recognized our long-lost brother. “Looks like we fly, angel. We fucking fly.”
14
HUDSON
Her fear was sharp and sudden, and it churned through me like acid, so painful it had me clutching at my chest and struggling for breath.
An icy chill gripped my whole body, shaking me like a rag doll. I was a hundred feet off the ground, yet I felt like I was drowning.
I pushed myself harder, faster, soaring right for Vanderham’s Wall. There were no starshowers keeping the guards hidden in the towers tonight, and they were more than happy to use me for target practice.
Fortunately, they weren’t as fast or determined as a gargoyle on a mission to protect his charge, and once I was over the wall and on the ground, it wasn’t long before I lost them in the dank allies of Amaranth City.
Fast as I could on foot, I made my way to that fucking castle, the bond an urgent, incessant tug. When a fresh bolt of terror rattled through my bones, I leaped up into the air once more, keeping an eye out for Marcus and his crew. My hope was they were off drunk or stoned somewhere, comfortable in the assumption I was locked up in that cave.
Cocky motherfuckers always made the best enemies.
High above the castle, I circled the grounds, my gaze roving over the last of the inebriated Midnighters stumbling home after gorging themselves in every way possible at the Feast. The taste of Haley’s fear grew sharper, sharper still, until finally…
There.
I spotted them in the walled Sanctuary, Jax holding her close as he smashed his foot down on…
Aw, hell.
Chokeweed.
Motherfucker.
Stuff would cut you to shreds and poison you at the same time, just to make sure it got the job done.
I tucked my wings in close and dove down, pushing myself faster and faster until I had them both in range. Jax glanced up just in time to see me coming and lifted Haley up high. I snatched her out of his arms, then reached for him, but he shook his head.
“I’m going back for Saint!” he shouted, thrashing free of the vines around his legs. “Get her out of here and stay out of sight—I’ll find you in the Hollow. Gem can’t be trusted!”
It was the last thing he said before he took off, fighting his way back through the chokeweed to that spot in the wall the guards used sometimes to sneak in and out of the dungeons.
I assumed that’s where Saint had gotten held up.
Haley struggled for a minute, desperately reaching for Jax, but my girl wasn’t stupid. No way could she fight through those vines—best to just let the demon do what he needed to do. The demon would be fine—we’d all tangled with the stuff more times than I cared to remember.
Just another one of Midnight’s many fucking charms.
