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Stasia gave my forearm a squeeze. “He’ll carry you, on his back like a pack. We used to do it as children when the mud⁠—”

“We have to move!” Finan barked. He snatched my wrist and told me to reach my other arm over his shoulder. When he lifted me, I hooked my legs around his hips. “On my count, Sass,” he breathed.

A coil of embarrassment wound through my insides. I felt like a child carried by the older brother I never had, a boy my father would have preferred over an illegal witch daughter. After Finan counted down to one, they dashed to the opening. His pace was rough, and every bounce only made me feel sillier, but after coming all this way, I was unable to run the last stretch.

A knot of dread tightened in my gut at the thought of the blood dripping on me, the notion itself as unpleasant as chewing on ash.

After only seconds and a few lunging steps, we ducked inside and the ‘pup’ ‌dropped hold of my arms. I slid off his back and palmed my face, aware of the cold sweat at my hairline though I hadn’t been the one running. The tunnels provided warmth from the biting wind that dragged its icy teeth against my scarred cheeks. Winter howled at the opening where the blood almost reached.

Breathless, I stumbled a few steps further into the tunnel, grateful for the instant cover, because as musty as it smelled, the darkness provided shelter from the Grimward and wind. A muted shriek came right behind the shell of my ear. All the hair on my arms prickled and my veins buzzed as I spun around to see Stasia slap her hand over her mouth.

With her eyes wide, she whispered, “I’m sorry.” But she wasn’t apologizing for startling me. She wasn’t even looking at me. Her gaze fixed on the loose waves that’d escaped my braids. “Your hair…”

I touched it, and a tepid stickiness met my hand, not warm or icy, just wet. So wet that when I stared at the black staining my fingertips, I didn’t know if they’d ever wash clean and dry from the vampire blood.

I slapped my fingers against the rough stone and dragged my hand alongside it, marking the inside of Mara’s Keep to match the outside. It wasn’t the vampire blood that disturbed me, but that those vampires were gone—forever, and that however Silver tortured and killed them was unknown, likely in the most painful way, and only because of their loyalty to their king.

The blood left the tips of my fingers a dull gray. My hand shot to my pocket, tucking deep enough to grasp Drak’s soul, because the crystal edges soothed me. I pulled it from my pocket and stared at its gleam.

“Get moving,” Finan growled from deep within, already having pushed further into the tunnel.

While the shadows obscured him, the crystal illuminated our path. I stretched it out before me like a lantern at the center of my palm. Though it glowed, it didn’t radiate outward as a flame would. It absorbed the surrounding darkness by sucking shadows into nonexistence. As I crept along the narrow tunnel, the glow cast sharp shapes against the stone, like moonlight filtered through the craggy branches of a dying tree.

As we pushed deeper, Stasia at my heels, Finan’s silhouette came into view. He’d stopped and turned to face us. The glow caught the edges of his wolf’s eyes, and behind the mask I couldn’t see his real eyes, too shadowed by clay. He looked hollow.

His voice, like the keen edge of crystal, cut through the silence. “We’re beneath the throne room right now.”

“What?” I blinked. “No, this leads to Drak’s old bedchambers. The throne room is on the opposite side of the castle.”

Finan’s frown twitched. “Are you doubting me? I’ve served in this castle.”

“So have I,” Stasia shouldered her way between us. “Stop trying to argue, Pup.”

“Stasia,” he said. “Now that we’re back in Mara’s Keep, you will address me as Executioner.”

She laughed, her long curls tumbling down her back, the blond almost bright enough to stave off the shadows as well as Drak’s soul. “Oh, will I?”

Following her line-of-sight back to Finan, a red bloom behind his head caught my eye. I raised the crystal and guided the glow toward the wall above him. Drak’s soul flickered as though the light were a flame catching wind. Once, twice, then the light dulled, and it cooled, if only for a second.

Was Drak withdrawing?

The crystal resumed as normal, neutral again, and I finally traced my eyes over the images painted in stone.

Painted roses adorned the walls. Hundreds of them, with prickles and thorns jutting from long, oddly shaped stems. Some looked slanted and angular instead of depicted with the usual round petals while others appeared to be melting, their red paint running like blood from the bloom. A shudder coursed across my shoulders.

With my free hand, I brushed my fingertips over the paint. It looked fresh in some areas, cracked and faded in others. Did Soren recently paint these? The images seemed to react to my touch, though I knew that was just the glow of Drak’s soul dancing along the wall.

“We’re definitely not beneath the throne room,” I breathed.

“Right,” Stasia agreed. Finan grunted, but she cut off the sound. “You worked as an executioner here, Finn. You don’t have experience using the servant’s halls and hidden tunnels. You had the freedom to walk anywhere while we hid in all the nooks and crannies. Trust us.”

“Fine. What are we doing next?” Finan demanded.

“Stopping,” I said. “There are clues in these paintings that will help us find Axel’s son. He will help us.”

Finan only grunted and shook his head as if I’d gone mad, but he didn’t argue or push us to keep moving.

Stopping here gave me what I needed. This was it; my connection to Soren. Though I’d never met him, I could project myself into his near future because in this tunnel, I had a kinship with him. I knew what it was like to hide and to bury yourself beneath the floorboards, to run from monsters, and become nonexistent. Soren dedicated his life to running, and he still found time for art, not just paint slapped on stone, but emotion stained in lifelike images that gradually grew sharper, deeper inward, and then seemed to melt toward the entrance.