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He nodded, his expression a mix of excitement and wariness as he drew Ilianna’s knife. I hoped like hell he’d use it if we got into trouble.
I took a deep breath, released it slowly, then opened the door. The room behind it was deep and dark, and the air still. The sensation that had briefly caressed the door handle wasn’t evident in the room itself, yet my uneasiness increased, and I wasn’t sure why.
I took one step into the room. The flooring was wood rather than concrete, which seemed odd. I paused, waiting.
Nothing happened. No one and nothing jumped out at us.
I took another step. Still nothing. Yet tension continued to crawl across my skin, and the feeling that something watched—waited—was growing.
“I can’t smell anyone or anything unusual.” Jak stopped beside me. His words seemed to jar uneasily against the still blackness of the room.
“That’s the problem.” I took another step.
It was one step too many.
With very little warning, the floor collapsed and we fell into deeper darkness.
Chapter 7
Wood and dust rained around us as the blackness swallowed us whole. There was no light, no stirring of air, no sound except the harsh rasp of our breathing.
After what seemed an eternity, I hit the dirt feetfirst and stumbled forward a couple of steps before falling on my face. Pain shot up my legs, then raged through the rest of me, until even the mere act of breathing hurt.
Jak landed with a grunt and slightly more balance, ending up on his knees rather than his face—a fact I knew simply because the sharp rasp of his breathing was close but not ground-close.
For several seconds neither of us moved. My breath was caught somewhere in the middle of my throat, and tension wound through my limbs as I waited for the axe to fall.
Nothing happened.
“You okay?” Jak asked eventually. Dirt stirred, and then his hand caught mine. I gripped it gratefully.
“Yeah. You?”
He helped me to a sitting position. “Winded, but okay. Can’t see a goddamn thing, though.”
“No.” I dusted my hands, then reached back and drew Amaya from her shadowy sheath. Flames flared along her blade and spread across the darkness in lilac waves.
“And where the fuck did that come from?” Jak asked.
“Long story.”
My gaze swept our cage. The pit was about ten feet square, and smelled of earth and age. I squinted up. Even if I stood on Jak’s shoulders and jumped, I wouldn’t be able to catch the edge and haul myself out. And I doubted I’d be able to take my energy form. If the magic in this place prevented Azriel from entering, it was a fair bet it would also prevent me from changing into Aedh.
It was also a wonder both of us had come through the fall relatively unscathed. But then, I guess werewolf bones were stronger than human ones, even in those of us who couldn’t actually shape-shift.
But our going through the floor was no accident—the concrete slab had been neatly cut, as had the timber that had covered this hole. It had held only long enough to catch the two of us.
“It can’t be a traditional sword,” he murmured, and reached out.
“Don’t—” I said at the same time that Amaya hissed and spat tendrils of fire at his fingertips.
He quickly withdrew. “Shit, that thing is alive.”
“Alive and aware.”
His gaze jumped to mine. “How the hell is something like that even possible?”
“It’s not—not in this world, anyway. She was born on the gray fields—forged in the death of a demon—and she has a life and a mind of her own.”
