Still, I hung on to every word, and it wasn’t the urge to save a tortured vampire that drove me—I wanted to get out of there alive, to make my escape. And, if I was to be honest, a small part of me wanted to impress Alcántara, too—to have a moment of triumph before I disappeared into the sunset.
A single phrase popped from the rest, and my heart kicked up a notch. Had I heard correctly?
“Von der Eyja næturinnar?” someone repeated.
Excitement zinged through me. I lingered at the table, pouring wine and listening.
Jacob was interrogating a younger-looking vampire who bore a circular bald monk’s tonsure on the crown of his head. He demanded, “What of our prisoner?”
“We have him still. We have been interrogating him.”
My blood ran cold. Were they talking about Carden McCloud? They’d mentioned a prisoner and the Isle of Night in a short span. I stepped closer, my movements slow, refilling glasses that didn’t require it and straining to understand.
A black-haired vampire asked, “Have you learned anything?” He’d spoken in a German so archaic, I wouldn’t have understood had I not heard the sentence before.
“No. He refuses to speak.”
The head vampire put down his knife and fork. “Then we destroy him.”
“As you wish it, Brother Jacob.”
“Tonight,” the leader added, and then he shot me a glare.
In my concentration, my movements had slowed to a halt, and I flinched back into action, going to put the wine on a sideboard and thinking hard all the while. This was my first—and hopefully last—mission. Failure might destroy my chances for escape. I would not, could not fail Alcántara, and Alcántara wanted the prisoner alive.
Carden McCloud was here, and these vampires wanted to destroy him, tonight.
Except I would find him first.
“Have the young female clear these,” one of the vampires said in German, clinking a fork against his glass. “I have a taste for your brandy.”
Jacob gave me the order, and I went from seat to seat, gathering the glassware and making room for brandy snifters. As I was clearing, something caught my eye, and I did what was either the cleverest or the stupidest thing of my life.
A pretty, lone steak knife had drifted between place settings, forgotten amidst all the plates and cutlery. But I saw it—it was sharp, shining, and calling my name. Its handle was thin and elegant, and with a blade tapered to a fine point, it was balanced, looking eminently throwable.
I dropped a soiled linen napkin over it. I gathered glasses and arranged them on my tray. Then I plucked up the napkin, knife and all.
My ears buzzed, I was so panicked somebody had seen what I did. I was terrified that at any moment claws would grab me from behind and teeth rip into my flesh. But the conversation continued as before, a jovial wine-soaked hum.
I hustled down toward the kitchens, pausing on the spiral stairs, my heart pounding and sweat trickling down my back. The passageway was miniscule, each step just a tiny, triangular sliver, and I leaned against the wall for balance. The stone cooled my damp back, and the glasses clinked on my precariously balanced tray.
Using one hand, I hiked up my skirts and slid the knife inside my panties, along the hip. I flipped it over twice, twisting the fabric to hold it tightly in place.
I smoothed my dress and scurried all the way down, navigating the darkened corridors. Adrenaline coursed through me, and my senses were heightened, hyperaware of every sound and every movement around me.
And then I perceived a slight shift behind me. I was going to ignore it. Until I smelled it.
The unexpected stench of sulfur.
I turned. It was then I saw her. The hair gave her away—even pulled taut into a bun, even in the shadows, that maple hair gleamed, impossibly.
Lilac.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I had to concentrate. That was just nerves getting to me, because there was no freaking way that could’ve been Lilac.
Lilac von Straubing. My enemy. The girl I’d beaten—supposedly killed.
It was as if the world tilted on its axis, and everything went all melty and surreal, the torches brighter, the hallway darker. I turned again, my heart in my throat.
But the Lilac look-alike was farther away now, trailing some long, lithe, mysteriously hooded vampire like a shadow. They disappeared around a corner.
Was I imagining that she’d shuffled away quickly? That she’d looked nervous? Was my mind playing tricks, or had she stolen one last glimpse of me? I’d know her anywhere—I saw that maple hair and heard the flick-flick of her lighter in my nightmares.
But surely it wasn’t Lilac. Not only had I killed her; this girl seemed way too subservient to be von Slutling. It was my imagination going haywire under the stress, or maybe it was some bad vampire mojo in the air, making my greatest fears materialize before my eyes. Because Lilac’s survival was inconceivable, impossible.
Unthinkable.
Either way, I was shaken. There was no way I could’ve gone back upstairs to serve brandy with anything remotely resembling composure.
Upstairs. The thought jolted me back into the moment.
McCloud was going to be destroyed…and soon. That was what needed my focus. I had to find McCloud and do my job before I experienced any other hallucinations.
I’d prove Ronan wrong—not only would I survive the mission; I’d make it a success. I’d discover McCloud’s whereabouts and report back to Alcántara, who now seemed to offer all the comforts of an old and trusted friend. And then I’d make my getaway, disappearing forever, and Ronan would rue the day he’d doubted me.
One of the head matrons bustled by, and I darted my eyes down, bursting into a brisk walk and trying to look busy. But I caught sight of my apron—it was white, while all the head maids’ aprons were black. It gave me an idea.
I scurried into the kitchen and back to the scullery, the small room where the dishes were cleaned. “Ingrid wants you,” I told the scullery maid in German, repeating a name I’d heard in passing.
Apparently I’d chosen well, because the girl hustled out. It left me alone. I quickly cleared my tray, darting my eyes around the room. A basket in the corner held a pile of dirty rags, with a black apron balled on top.
I made a beeline for it, tearing my apron off and pulling the black one on. The lap of it was soaked, stinking of chicken broth. I pulled off my white cap, too, shoving it all to the bottom of the dirty laundry. Then I smoothed my hair, snagged seven empty brandy glasses for my tray, and walked brusquely into the hall.
Before, I’d been a wilting, English-speaking maid. But now, in my black apron, I was a bossy, in-charge kitchen Frau.
I stopped the first girl I saw whose hands were empty and ordered her in crisp, perfect German, “Go upstairs. Tell them the other girl is indisposed.” I saw by her widened eyes, she knew exactly who was upstairs. I shoved the tray at her. “Serve them brandy. Do not spill.”
She stared at me blankly, the glasses tinkling lightly as they jostled on the tray in her trembling hands.
“Schnell,” I barked, enjoying it more than I should.
My mind whirring, I stormed on. How to find the dungeons?
I passed another woman in a black apron like mine. The head maids were older, and I was afraid I looked far too young for the part. I felt her pause, assessing me.
I headed her off at the pass, spitting, “Es ist keine Zeit. Es Probleme mit den Gefangenen.” No time. Trouble with the prisoner.
Her expression softened, accepting me as a peer. She felt my urgency, though, and nodded down the hallway, where I spotted a shadowy chasm. Another spiral staircase, I guessed, this one going down.
“Carl has the keys,” she told me in German.
I gave her an officious nod. Carl was about to meet my steak knife.
This staircase was darker, and foul odors rose from below, damp and rotting. I paused on the narrow stairwell, hiking up my dress for the second time that day, and slid out my knife. Holding up my skirts, I tiptoed the rest of the way down.
Carl was probably the guard—I hoped he was just a Trainee, or better yet, a human man. I wasn’t sure how I’d do facing a full-on vampire.
Cells lined the hallway, most empty, a few not, their occupants all catatonic, or worse. I kept my movements fluid and light as I went, repeating my mantra. I am water that flows. I am Watcher. Murmuring was coming from the end of the hall, and I walked toward it. The only other sound was the whip-whip of the single torch hanging on the wall.
The guard didn’t hear me, but the rodents did, and a burst of chittering and scurrying announced my arrival.
“Vas isst—?” I heard a German voice hiss in the dark.
I sped up. I was distantly aware of a pale face floating in the shadows, in a cell at the end of the hallway, but I didn’t have time to consider it. The guard had turned and spotted me. He was headed my way.
Crap. It was a full-on vampire.
No time to think. I stopped short, grinding the balls of my feet to the dirt-packed floor. I readied the knife in my right hand, finding its balance just below the midpoint. I imagined his beating heart—if a vampire’s heart did beat—and I threw.
The adrenaline, the ghostly figure at the end of the hall, the vampire rushing toward me—all of these things focused me, and instantly my mind snapped to a different place, one where it was only me and this target, a bright, razor-sharp point where the vampire’s heart would be. Like iron to a magnet, my knife flew truly, struck the left side of his chest, and stuck.
He staggered and crumpled. My concentration broke, and I stood there for a second, brutally thrust back into reality. My right side was killing me.…I couldn’t catch my breath.…There might be other guards.…That was my only weapon.
And…the vampire imprisoned at the end of the hall was staring right at me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The clap of a hand broke the silence, and then another, until it became clear that the vampire imprisoned at the end of the corridor was giving me a lazy round of applause. It was accompanied by the hideous sound of rattling chains—if I could see more clearly through the shadows, I imagined I’d find him shackled.
