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“Grady.” He nodded in my direction. “This is Lis and that’s— ”
“Allyson,” she said, nervously rubbing her hands over her bare arms.
A scream pierced the air, causing both Allyson and me to jump.
Milton swallowed. “Let’s get to this cellar so we can get drunk enough that we don’t think about what’s happening on the other side of that wall.”
“Sounds like a plan. You good?” Grady asked of Allyson, who nodded. Then he turned to me. “You?”
Foot stinging, I limped slightly as I started for the door at the other end of the chamber. I couldn’t look too long or too closely at Milton and . . . especially not Allyson. Not because I worried that what had happened in the receiving hall would overwhelm me again. I feared I’d discover how the night would end for them, and I already . . . I already knew how it would end for Allyson.
As I proceeded forward, an all-too-familiar sense of fragile calmness descended upon me, one that had sprung from dark, scary nights that had come before we’d fled Union City and after, when we’d slept on streets and in ditches, when we were chased off by lawmen or were running from adults whose thoughts were full of terrible things. We’d been in a lot of bad spots, many I didn’t think we’d make it out of.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t scared. I was terrified. My heart hadn’t stopped pounding. I felt sick with fear, but this was . . . it was just another bad spot to get past. To survive, and I would. We would.
I opened the door that fed into another hall, which was the length of the manor and wrapped around the whole back. It was empty. Grady motioned the other two forward. We hurried down the dimly lit hall, the muted sounds of screams coming from the other side of the wall following us, haunting us.
Remembering the dagger, I halted and hitched up the skirt of my gown. I unsheathed the dagger. I looked up.
Beside me, Milton raised his brows as he spotted theluneablade. “I’m not going to even ask.”
“Probably best that you don’t.” I let the skirt fall back into place.
“Why are they doing this?” Allyson asked, nibbling on her fingernails.
“Don’t know,” Grady said, then repeated what he’d told me about the Hyhborn Court. “But a bunch of theni’meresflew over the manor, heading straight for Primvera.”
“You can’t be serious,” Allyson gasped. “They’re attacking their own?”
“He is. Saw it myself,” Milton confirmed, and I had a feeling we’d see it soon enough when we reached the back hall. “Looked like the whole city was burning, but I think it was just the wall outside Primvera.”
“But why attack us?” Allyson stuck close to Grady. “We weren’t doing anything.”
No one answered, not even my intuition, but I didn’t think this was the Westlands or the Iron Knights. This was something else entirely.
“You lied to me,” Grady muttered under his breath.
“What?” I glanced at him.
“You said you weren’t hurt.” He raised his brows. “Your foot is bleeding.”
“You’re bleeding?” Concern filled Allyson’s voice.
“It’s not a big deal. Just a minor cut on my foot.”
“Minor cuts get infected all the time, Lis. Then you end up with your foot getting cut off.”
My brows shot up.
“That escalated quickly,” Milton commented under his breath from behind us.
Grady ignored him. “As soon as we get a chance, we’re washing it out.”
I sighed heavily. “I was planning to, but currently, I’m more worried about theni’meres.”
“Agreed,” Milton commented.
We neared the corner where the hall turned to continue along the back of the manor. I peered around. The hall was dark. “The windows are intact.”
