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“Is this all I need?” I asked the castle.
The air warmed. I took that as a yes, though I didn’t speakcastle. It was kind of hard to decipher.
I threw myself into Rhoan’s arms. “Step us out of here.”
He gave me an incredulous look. My heart sank. The excitement of finding a connection to my biological parents wore off. Fear slid in.
The barrier holding Beryl back shattered. The impact ricocheted through me. I grimaced. My knees went out from under me. Rhoan had to catch me before I collapsed to the floor.
“What is it?” he growled.
“She’s coming.”
Beryl’s laughter echoed downstairs. She was far below us on the first floor of the castle. I could feel her feet like they were on me—and I hated it. This was such a gross, intrusive feeling now that the castle and I were one.
“Why can’t we step in-between?” I asked in a hushed whisper.
“Beryl has the Court trapped in a pocket of her Unseelie Court. She controls all the entrances and exits. I was only able to enter because she’d been sloppy and left the front door open.”
“That means the front door should still be open. Can you fly us out?” I hugged the notebook close to my chest.
My gaze slid sideways towards the other tomes and notes. A greedy curiosity overwhelmed me. For the first time, I wanted to know more about my biological parents. Here was evidence that I shared something tangible with them. One of my parents practiced potion-making. The cauldrons and ingredients covered in dust were proof.
While I wanted to ask Rhoan why he hadn’t told me, the fact that this had been hidden behind an enchanted door was enough to tell me that this had been a family secret. Rhoan hadn’t known. No one had.
Why did my biological parents hide this? What was so wrong with potion-making? What did they know that I didn’t?
Rhoan wrapped an arm around my waist and twisted towards the window we’d come through. At the same time, curiosity got the better of me. I lurched away from him and grabbed an ancient book wrapped in worn leather. Rhoan hissed in annoyance and beckoned me back into his arms so we could attempt to escape.
“Come downstairs, Cerridewen.” Beryl’s croon swept over the castle.
Thorned vines sprang up over the windows. I tried to shove out with my own arcana, but it bounced off. The castle shuddered when the vines tightened. I noticed then that these vines were not made of anything living. They were more like tentacles made of shadow and malice.
I grabbed at one to rip open a hole so we could escape. A thorn ripped through my hand and made me jerk back. The blood pouring from my palm bubbled and turned black.
Rhoan growled. “That can’t be good.”
I felt nothing. There was no pain, no sense of poison. This wasn’t Beryl’s doing—at least it wasn’t because of her vines. This was the consequence of the dark blot in my power. I wasn’t the perfect Seelie princess anymore…
Which was a bit laughable because I’d never been perfect. What I’d meant to say was that my arcana was corrupted and had a touch of Unseelie now. Now wasn’t the time to consider what that meant. The castle didn’t seem to care, so I plowed forward with our escape. If we could get out of here, I could use these books to save both my family and myself.
We just had to escape first.
29
CERRI
No matter where we looked, every exit was blocked by the thorned vines. I cradled my bleeding hand with the other while carrying the heavy tomes under my arms. It was cumbersome, but I couldn’t heal the wound no matter how I tried. It kept bleeding, kept dripping black blood throughout the castle.
When we realized that Beryl had forced our hand and left us only one exit, Rhoan and I shared a look. His eyes blazed with the inhuman light of his beast. He seemed to flinch when the beast moved inside him, like he hated the creature trying to help us right now.
If I could have reached over and taken his hand without dropping the books or covering him in ichor-tainted blood, I would have. Instead, I bumped him with my shoulder.
“Now is not the end,” I told him.
He met my gaze. A small smile lifted the corner of his mouth as he sucked in a fresh breath and raised his chin. “Now is not the end.”
Together, we went downstairs to meet Beryl. I would have felt like a princess walking down the wide, velvet covered stairs leading down to the main foyer had it not been for the sight of Beryl sitting on a pile of bodies. Beryl had one knee carefully balanced over the other. She picked her teeth with a long talon until my foot touched the main floor.
