Chapter 23

Hanna

Thorne was gone.

The brutal reality of it felt like being sucker-punched in the gut. One minute, he”d been by my side; now he and the Snake Queen were gone.

I wanted to get somewhere I could just think and make sense of what had just happened. Except I could already hear someone else entering the house. The sound of boots striking the ground reminded me of the guards” boots shaking the ground when they came to attack Thorne and me in his mother”s castle.

Was there anything in this house that could lead me to the magician? Once I had Kaelan on my side, he could help me rescue Thorne. The thought of leaving Thorne in the Snake Queen”s clutches for even a moment destroyed me, but I had to keep moving.

I cast a longing glance at the window that would lead me to the street, and then I moved further into the house. The guards were searching too, and I frowned at the sound of them overturning furniture and ripping art from the walls and tearing open cushions. They hadn”t been the ones to search the house already? Had it been the Snake Queen”s people who ransacked these rooms?

What had she been looking for? She wanted Seraphine returned to her, so was the magician Seraphine’s servant? Or was this damage related to his other so-called sins against her?

Maybe I could trust him even less than I thought.

The air was thick with dust stirred up while the house was ransacked. I moved as quickly as I could while being cautious, because I was sure he had set traps everywhere.

Shards of broken vials crunched under my boots as I stepped cautiously through the ransacked study.

Every sense was heightened, attuned to the echoes of the guards” heavy footsteps elsewhere in the house . . . and between me and the door.

I rifled through scattered papers. They were scrawled with incantations and shopping lists and cryptic notes, and I had to move so quickly I was afraid I”d miss something.

Then I caught a few lines of command, scrawled in a loose hand. Ekardo had been planning exactly what he’d say to be sure his zombie minions did his bidding. Apparently, any misstep could end badly. I grinned at the sight of the words that preceded the command, though, knowing that now I could command them. Now, if I found them, perhaps I could free them and send them off, never to do his or the Snake Queen’s bidding ever again.

A floorboard creaked ominously nearby, and I dove behind the sofa. My pulse quickened, a silent drumbeat urging me to move, to find what I came for before it was too late.

”Get anything of value,” one of the guards said to another.

The other, knowingly: ”From the looks of things, I don”t think he”ll be coming back.”

Value.They could have whatever money he had. But they clearly didn”t know where he had gone, or I would”ve tried to learn what they knew.

When the guards” attention was thoroughly diverted by a chest full of gold---that then snapped one of the guard”s hands inside its lid and refused to surrender it, which led to a lot of yelling and flailing---I slipped from my hiding place and made my way to the hallway. The dark shadow of the guards rushing up the stairs fell over the wall, and I burst into the next room. It was dark as I eased my way around the room, avoiding the doorway as the guards rushed past.

A library. There were books scattered across the table; the walls were lined with shelves of books.

My fingers brushed over the cool leather, tracing the arcane sigils before flipping open the cover. I didn”t need powerful incantations, as much as I wanted them, unless I could find the one that would heal Kaelan”s heart.

I wanted something that would lead me to the damned magician. And then I found a diary, recording---in excruciating detail---conversations that he”d had at the club or memories of Alys. Thank the gods.

I tucked the journal into the folds of my cloak, its weight a comforting presence against my skin.

I felt, as much as saw, someone in the hallway that could see me as I melted into the shadows.

”Something moved in that room!” shouted a guard, his voice slicing through my momentary victory.

I moved quickly to the windows---only to pull aside the curtains and find a brick wall. Gods. I cast a quick glance at the doorway, calculating the distance and the likelihood I could escape past the guards. I didn”t like my odds.

”Come out, thief.” The guard”s voice was slow and thick with threat.

And I definitely didn”t like the guards.

But there was a doorway to another room, so I slipped through it. The guards saw me moving and raced for me, and I slammed the door shut between us. I whispered a spell to secure it as the guards slammed into the door.

I turned toward the dimly lit chamber and stifled a gasp.

There, arrayed leaning along the wall like a dozen grotesque, overgrown dolls, stood the Snake Queen”s former servants, now the magician”s marionettes. Their eyes were glassy and vacant, their mouths slack, but they looked as if they were waiting for his orders.

The taste of dread sharpened on my tongue. There was something about them that made a visceral feeling sweep across my skin as if I were in danger too.

There was another door on the opposite side of the room. The magician”s home was a labyrinth. But I”d have to walk past all these living dead to reach it.

I tried to focus on the door, gripping my knife in my hand as I moved quietly across the floor. The guards were still yelling and trying to break down the door, but the sounds were muffled by both the closed door and the pounding of my heart.

I couldn”t help but imagine the servants jumping on me, pulling me down to the floor and swarming over me as they chanted the same spell the magician once had, making me like themselves. From the corner of my eye, I kept an eye on them, too hyperaware of them.

The spellbound guardians shifted. I froze, my heart a staccato drumbeat in my ears, but they were still again.

I edged out of the room, a sigh of relief escaping my lips as I closed the door behind me with the gentlest click.

”Over there! The thief!” The shout tore through the corridors.

They had a lot of nerve calling me a thief when we were all in this house uninvited.

I bolted. Armored footsteps slammed into the ground behind me. Echoes of orders and the rasp of unsheathing blades filled the air. I was about to be murdered by the Grey kingdom”s guards.

That was me, Hanna Hannaby, walking interkingdom incident.

”Capture her alive!” barked one of the guards.

I raced through the magician”s interconnected rooms, searching for a way out.

Panic clawed at my chest, each breath a gasping plea as I tore through the corridors. The guards” heavy footfalls thundered behind me.

”Fuck,” I hissed under my breath. The path before me forked, and without hesitation, I veered left, only to find myself hurtling back toward the room of horrors---the magician”s grotesque, enchanted thralls.

”Corner her!” The guard”s voice sliced through the dark.

No time for second thoughts, no time for doubt. I plunged into the chamber, where the air was thick with the stench of decay and dark enchantments.

The zombie servants stood motionless.

”Alright, puppets,” I said, scanning the paper I’d collected, my heart pounding so loudly I could barely think. ”Your master left me some directions. I”ll free you later if I can.”

Though I wondered if I would lose all control of them, and if then they would return to the Snake Queen, or hunt down Ekardo. Had the Snake Queen known they were here and not bothered to collect her own people?

I pinned the paper against the leather cover of the journal. I hoped like hell he”d jotted down all the answers we needed---met the nicest young woman today, here”s everything she needs to save her dragon prince from the clutches of that bitch Seraphine without trusting the Snake Queen.

For now, I read the incantation aloud, quickly, desperately, focusing my magic on the zombies and trying not to acknowledge how my voice shook.

Their lifeless eyes flickered with an unholy light. Then their limbs jerked into a semblance of life.

As soon as the first guard burst into the room, his sword raised high, he stopped in horror. A strangled cry escaped him, terror etched across his face as the animated corpses lurched toward their new prey.

”Gods,” he gasped, stumbling backward, the color draining from his cheeks. Then again, a question or a plea: ”Gods?”

As I raced for the shattered window, the nearest servant turned its vacant gaze upon me. His cold hand lashed out with terrifying swiftness.

With a surge of adrenaline, I dove through the window. Shards of glass sang as they scattered through the air.

My body contorted, shifted, bones crackling. For the briefest flash of a moment, agony and ecstasy intertwined.

My wings unfurled like sails, carrying me up, high out of danger.

If only they could carry me home.

Wherever that was now . . .