It wouldn’t take much for this whole thing to go sideways.
“You have to leave.” Dante’s breathing hitched, turning into a wet, rattling cough. “Listen to me. You can’t escape the Fossa or the Overseer. Leave me behind. Get Emberline out of here before it’s too late.”
My jaw clenched. “We’re not leaving you in this fucking hole.”
“He’s right about the Overseer,” Nico agreed from behind me, and I wanted to punch him in the throat.
Dante’s chest started heaving. “You think you’re saving me, but you’re not. I’m a… I’m a…” His eyes were wild, unfocused. “You have to leave me here. Get out before this becomes a slaughter.”
“We’re all walking out of here together,” I snapped, focused on achieving that goal without any of us dying. “Nico, get this cell door open.”
He studied the lock, the hinges, and the chain points. “It’s old iron. No magic. Mechanical. But I can pick it.” He dropped to his knees. “But I need something…”
Emberline set a long, thin needle in his hand, so delicate it looked like a sliver of silver. I didn’t see where it came from, but Nico nodded.
“This will do perfectly.”
“You’d better hurry,” Emberline whispered. “I think someone’s coming.”
I felt it too, the way the silence shifted from silence to danger, the way the prisoners sank back into the darkness of their cells. “Work faster,” I urged. “We’re about to have company.”
“Gabriel, you need to leave me here. But first… there’s something…” Dante’s voice dropped, his hand reaching for me through the bars while Nico tinkered with the lock. He grasped my hand, pulling me closer. “Giovanni is poisoning Marcello. Silver oxide. The new chef is putting it in his food.”
The news hit me like a fist, everything about his sudden turn making perfect sense.
Dante’s swollen mouth twisted into what might have been a smile, if his face wasn’t so ruined. “He’s been dosing him for months.”
“That’s…” My heart slammed against my ribs. My father—our father—wasoursto take down, not become one of Giovanni’s many victims.
Dante’s grip tightened, nails biting into my skin. “When he dies, Giovanni is coming for you next. Don’t know how, but you need to leave this place. I am begging you, while you still...”
“Got it,” Nico said triumphantly, handing Emberline back the thin needle, which she promptly…tucked back into her braid?Gods, did she ever run out of surprises?
The next second, Nico hoisted my brother to his feet, even as the stubborn bastard kept trying to shove him away, insisting we leave him behind.Like that would ever happen.
Giovanni was killing Marcello. My brain tried to reject the idea as too monstrous. But poison was so like Giovanni. The dirty work handed off to someone else.
“If you won’t leave for me,”—my brother’s eyes flicked toward Emberline, and there was nothing soft in his expression, only dread—“do it for her. At least get her out of here while you still can.”
Emberline’s eyes flashed in the dark. “I’m not leaving you…”
“Shut up,” I told him violently, throwing his other arm over my shoulders. He weighed half of what he should. A once-powerful male carved down to bone and rage.
Yet underneath all of that, the Dominico stubbornness was strong.
“Easy,” I murmured, even as my throat burned. “I’ve got you.”
Dante’s head lolled onto my shoulder. “This is… stupid.”
“Technically, you are correct,” I grit through my teeth. “But lately, stupid is our specialty. You’ll be glad to know we’re getting better at it by the day.”
Emberline hovered close, hands trembling as we navigated the maze of corridors. Dante’s leg wasn’t healing, not even from her blood, but he was moving, which I doubted he could have ten minutes ago.
“Leave me here,” he kept groaning. “You don’t understand, I’m dangerous. Dangerous to you. Dangerous to everyone.”
Dante kept ranting as Nico and I dragged him between us. Each step had him hissing in pain, that leg dragging behind us. The labyrinth twisted and turned, darkness leading to even deeper darkness, a never-ending maze meant to confuse and trap and devour.
I didn’t know how she knew where she was going, but Emberline guided us, murmuring directions. “Right. No… left. Straight. This way.”
