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Bryce began to turn away, sensing that she was witnessing something deeply personal.
But Nesta pulled back from Azriel. Steadied her feet before facing Bryce, Ataraxia still in one hand. She flicked the fingers of her other hand and the Mask instantly vanished, off to wherever she’d summoned it from.
Bryce had so many words in her head that none of them came out.
Nesta just sheathed Ataraxia down her spine again and said to Bryce, “Keep walking.”
15
It took Bryce hours to stop shaking. To chase that cold, deadly wind from her skin. To stop hearing the whispering of her death, the death of all things.
She’d never encountered anything like that mask. Nesta had seemed at its mercy, brought back to herself only by Azriel’s list of whoever those people were—clearly people Nesta cared about.
Through love, all is possible. Even getting free of death-masks.
Nesta didn’t speak, staying close beside Azriel. Or maybe he was the one staying close to her. The male didn’t seem to want her farther away than he could grab.
Eventually, Bryce could stand it no longer. “I’m sorry,” she said.
At their silence, she twisted to look back at them. They wore twin expressions of ice.
“I’m … I’m really fucking sorry,” Bryce said, heart thundering.
“You’re proving,” Nesta said tightly, “to be more trouble than you’re worth.”
“Then why not just kill me?” Bryce snapped.
“Because whatever you think you’ll find at the end of these tunnels,” Azriel said with lethal quiet, “whatever warrants the effort of trying to kill us … that has to be something worth seeing.”
“You could leave me here and go ahead yourselves.” She probably shouldn’t have suggested that. Too late now.
“That star on your chest suggests otherwise,” Nesta said, and left Azriel’s side at last to head into the dark. “We’ve put this much effort into seeing what you’ll do. Might as well see it through.”
“Effort?” But even as she spoke, Bryce understood. “You knew I’d go through the grate.”
“Rhysand guessed, yes—and you made him smug as hell when you winnowed. Granted, he was surprised that you could winnow at all, but … the bastard sent us after you.” Nesta spoke without turning around, striding with that unfaltering confidence into the gloom. “He had us make sure there was only one path forward. Make sure you believed there was only one path forward, too. So you’d show your hand—show us what you truly wanted here.”
“You caused the cave-in.”
Nesta shrugged. “Azriel caused it. But yes.”
“Why—why do any of this? Why do you care?”
Nesta was quiet for a beat. Azriel didn’t say a word, a wall of silent menace at her back. Then Nesta said, “Because I’ve seen that star on your chest before.”
“Yeah, you said that,” Bryce said. “Your tattoo—”
“Not my tattoo.”
“Then where?” Bryce breathed. If she could get answers—
But Nesta strode ahead again into the darkness. “No place good.”
* * *
After another fitful rest, Azriel and Nesta were both still clearly pissed at Bryce. Rightly so, but wasn’t she allowed to be pissed, too? They’d manipulated her every step of the way, watching her like some animal in a zoo, making her think she’d caused that cave-in when they’d engineered it themselves …
She shot Azriel a sidelong glare as they walked through the tunnel. He gave her a cool look in return.
