“I didn’t say anything.”
“Of course you did. I’m a princess. Or I was until you stole that from me.”
“Good point.”
“What’s a good point?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Oh, it matters.”
The keening crescendoed into a caterwaul.
Baz’s shoulders hitched tight. “How do we get to her?”
“How the scorch should I know? It’s your creepy castle, not mine.” Even so, I called out, “Mauldrene, what’s going on?”
I waited to see if Baz would snicker at me for trying to have a conversation with a freaking castle. When he didn’t, I continued: “It sounds like someone’s hurting, and hurting a lot. Will you lead us to them?”
The wailing, already unbearably loud, grew louder.
“Or is that … you?”
The intestinal-lining-like floor upon which Baz and I stood opened up beneath us. One instant we stood on a solid surface. The next we were free falling in a repeat of our descent from the small library into Mauldrene’s guts.
More of that intestine-like smoothness rushed up to greet us, banging into the soles of my boots. My knees bent to absorb the shock. I crouched to stabilize myself a second before Baz, tugged along by the rope, landed on me, knocking me to the ground.
It was wet, cool, and slimy. Baz was heavy as a boulder until he pushed upward to brace himself on his hands and off of my chest. His legs, of fucking course, had found their way between mine.
His lumoons jerked to a stop beside our faces as I scowled up at him. “Funny how you were falling ass over boots, and you still managed to position yourself just right.”
He circled his hips, pressing his dick against my sweet spot, and smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “So you admit this feels ‘just right?’”
I tried to pull away from him but he was too close, his breath warm on my face. “I admit to no such thing. I didn’t say that.”
“You did.”
“Not like that I didn’t.”
His lips tipped upward in devilry so dangerous that it darkened his face. “It’s okay. You can tell me how good I feel between your legs. Trust me, I want to know.”
“I don’t trust you. I?—”
A moan crashed against us, so deafening it was as if it originated from Baz or me.
He jumped off me. I leapt to my feet. He clasped my hand and turned us.
From a chain so long it disappeared up into the cave’s yawning darkness … hung a cage. Even from the fifty feet or so that separated us, and with the darkness largely concealing it, I could tell the cage was exactly like the pair that swung from the cliffside beneath the Palace of Zaraga—another person-sized birdcage.
I stood frozen as memories battered me: the fierce sea wind rocking my cage, whipping it against the cliffside—me clutching the bars until my fingers ached, holding on despite my terrible exhaustion, regardless of the trembling that racked my frame, suffering a gnawing emptiness and a panicked desperation. Rafaela never told me how long my sentence would last, nor when my next meager meal in a cup would be sent down the chain with a pulley system.
“Velle?” Baz was saying—from much too close.
I staggered away from him. My eyes zeroed in on the cage. I blinked, then blinked again. I shook my head to clear the vision in front of me. It didn’t waver.
Its occupant wasn’t me, but…
Baz stalked toward me. “What is it?”
