I scoffed. “Are you trying to order me around? ’Cause that sounded like an order.”
“You can take it that way and come along. Or I can pick you up and carry you.”
“Like fiery flames, you’ll carry me.”
“Then follow me.”
When he stalked toward the door, picking up his pair of broadswords along the way, the rope tugged. I rose and walked after him—like his scorching little shadow.
When I passed Aziza, I hissed at her, then yanked on the rope. Baz turned.
“What of the phantom? Who’ll guard her so she’s here when we return?”
“No one. She’s not going anywhere.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I do. I didn’t take her memories, but I feel her.”
“Then you have answers for me too.”
“Maybe I do. Either way, after.”
I snarled like a pissed-off feethle, but fuck if I didn’t still pad after the asshole when the rope next went taut.
To Aziza, I tossed over my shoulder, “Call me a ‘little shadow’ again and I’ll take your tongue.”
She barked a laugh as she, Ed, Night, and Félix trailed after us.
Chapter 24
Good Boy, My Ass; It’ll Be Bloody, Really Fucking Bloody
Mauldrene’s shadows guided us swiftly to the opposite side of the castle from Baz’s chambers, though guided was barely the correct term. Her string trio strummed out a fast-paced tune that had my nerves strung as tight as the instruments. The music would have been the perfect accompaniment to a pack of hungry wolves chasing a lone deer through a forest. Like the imagined deer, my instincts told me to flee for my life. Since the shadows herded us by actually snapping their teeth at us, we loped to keep ahead of their invisible maws. Not once did I actually spot teeth emerging from the shadows, but I knew exactly what gnashing teeth sounded like; there was no mistaking it.
We traversed twenty different passageways, climbed three spiral staircases that were so cramped that Mauldrene could have all too easily trapped us inside them, squeezing and crushing our bones. It took perhaps ten minutes before the six of us ground to a stop outside a closed door that had to be the empress’. The music suddenly slowed and quieted, receding once more to its usual haunting background; the shadows ceased their lunging. The pair of lumoons that had appeared for me when I was trapped with Baz in the castle’s depths had vanished. However, each of the others had at least one of the glowing orbs keeping pace with them. Their lumoonlight was plenty to gleam across the blood dripping down the front of the door, which was a solid piece of iron. The blood was dark, though not quite black, as if Mauldrene’s shadows might be what was oozing through the fluid.
Whatever bad act Baz had feared from Terencia had almost certainly already occurred.
As far as I knew, and as person-like as Mauldrene often behaved, she didn’t bleed.
“Mothertitfucker,” Night said in a deep rumble.
“She’d better not have…” Ed said but didn’t finish.
Baz tugged on the Rillis rope, pulling me closer, then inhaled deeply, releasing the exhale just as slowly. As sänglures, we didn’t need to breathe, that much was true. But for those of us who’d been rebirthed, who had once needed to breathe to survive, I doubted the habit ever fully left us.
As if one steeling breath weren’t enough, again Baz breathed slowly in, then out.
From Baz’s other side, Félix brought his mouth to his friend’s ear so the sänglures opposite the door shouldn’t be able to hear: “You can’t kill her.”
Baz’s muscles, largely bared in his vest, clenched into distinct cords. He wore a wide, copper band, etched in faint engravings I wanted to examine, circling his bicep. The band squeezed, indenting the skin surrounding it.
“No matter what she’s done,” Félix said, “you cannot.”
Baz’s jaw only clenched harder.
“Brother, calm yourself first.”
