Untethered, page 23
A swish of skirts followed.
Lux caught her lip between her teeth, forcing the air in her lungs to remain still. Her eyes squinted into the darkness to observe deep skirts of blue or plum. She’d only a moment to focus on them before they were hidden once more beneath the covering of a familiar grey cloak.
The hooded figure didn’t look toward her.
Instead, long fingers reached back into the entrance alcove and dragged forth a body. A body in a blood-red gown and a mangy sack over its head.
The phantom hoisted it up and into its arms. Without a glance in either direction, as if it knew its path with comfortable surety, it continued to drag its captive. Down the hidden passage, Lux had felt but not seen, and into the icy beyond.
Shaw’s long coat provided little comfort from the frigid gusts that assaulted her with reckless abandon. Lux wrapped her arms about her chest and attempted to keep her teeth from alerting the phantom to her presence with their incessant chattering. All the while, she followed.
The passage had sloped downward at first, but had since leveled out, making the pace easy if not terribly cold. At least the phantom had the exertion of towing another body along to keep it warm.
Lux knew she shouldn’t complain—she’d chosen to give into the mystery. The phantom wore no rags or spectral skin but a very real gown. She doubted this event occurred often within the safety of the mansion, and right now, the being was an ideal distraction to keep her from running back to take on the Shield single-handed.
The tunnel eventually gave way to hard-packed soil. So much so, it was an almost imperceptible shift from the carved stone prior. She may not have noticed had she not felt something similar beneath the trap door of her apartment. And that of her parents.
At first, only the grating sound of booted heels upon stone, and then soil, alerted her to exactly where the figure walked ahead. But now the phantom’s breaths were labored. It must not be accustomed to carrying bodies such long distances. It was little comfort.
A draft of warmer air brushed against Lux’s cheek, and she turned into the darkness. She stretched out her fingers. Where rough soil had been beneath was now empty space. A connecting tunnel.
Her skin crawled.
She knew where this tunnel led. Which meant her growing suspicions about where her current path was taking her were also likely correct. Lux dropped her fingers back to her side, tucking them deep within the sleeves of Shaw’s too-big coat. Another gust of frost-tipped air ran over her exposed skin in a gentle caress.
Welcome back, Lucena.
Lux pulled back into the darkness of the tunnel when the first glimmer of silver fell through the trap door.
The phantom abandoned the body in a crumpled heap at the base of the ladder, rising to push along the seam, opening with ease against its hands. The silver glow emanating from the trees in the center of the cottage spread to the passage beneath it now, and with a grunt of effort, the cloaked figure hoisted the body up and through the narrow space. Red silks and finely made boots were the last things Lux glimpsed before they were swept from sight.
Tentatively, she reached for the rung at eye level.
When Lux first peered over the floorboards, her mind flashed with visions of her death, stabbed mercilessly by the phantom’s narrow blade. When the attack didn’t come, she braved a look around. A flourish of red and the body was gone—around the trees and to the opposite end of the cottage. Muttered whisperings and a choked cackle of feminine laughter followed. Her heart bounded.
A madwoman?
Pulling herself up and through the trap door, she reeled back from a snuffling snout pushing against a cage. A cage that had materialized at her side, shrouded in shadow, along with a rat. His companion laid asleep, curled in the corner. What awful pets. Her lingering doubt over the cloaked being’s sanity was no longer; it must certainly be unhinged.
Lux crept alongside the trunks of the silver-barked trees. She crouched, giving them as wide a berth as possible before peering around their glowing trunks.
The phantom finished tying its prisoner—either dead or unconscious—to a hard-backed chair with a coil of thick rope. The victim’s soft hands rested limp and pale against the wood grain. The grey figure stood still, studying their charge for a moment. Then, with one quick movement, it flung the dirty sack from the prisoner’s head.
Morana.
Her lips were blue with cold, and Lux thought she might be dead until she saw Morana’s chest move with a shallow exhale. Her dress was askew, her hair a knotted mass about her head, and her skin much too pale. Lux could imagine how infuriated she would be to know someone saw her in such a state. Particularly, if that someone were her.
Morana moaned.
The sudden strike against her cheek rang out over the edges of the cottage, driving a gasp from Lux and ensuing silence from the mayor’s daughter.
The phantom lowered its hand.
All Lux could discern was an unyielding shadow beneath the hood as it turned to her. As it took in her crouched position, her body hidden beneath a massive coat and her fingers clutching tight to a dead boy’s things.
Lux bolted.
The phantom flew after her.
Down into the tunnel she dropped, no time for the ladder. Righting herself, she hurtled forward, her shoulder scraping painfully against the wall. The fabric shredded, the exposed skin stinging and hot, but she couldn’t slow. For the phantom leaped down behind her.
She tore back a cry of panic.
The monster at her back knew these tunnels well; it didn’t need light to guide its way, and Lux was going to die in the cold darkness because of it.
Even with the knowledge of her futile escape, adrenaline pushed her. Far beyond the normal boundaries of her capabilities. Her muscles bunched and stretched, heat tearing through them, sweat beading her brow, but she still didn’t slow.
The phantom gained.
Lux could feel it, the long fingers enclosing around the narrow knife that had tended to so many bodies so diligently. Her exhaustion shifted into the realm of delirium. She wondered what appendage the phantom would choose from her. An eye, perhaps? She’d long been complimented on them. Her toes?
Maybe it would carve out her very heart.
A switch on the bottom and then you run.
Shaw’s voice filled her head. So achingly real, it was as if he stood at her side calling her all sorts of foolish in her forgetfulness—which was exactly what she called herself in his honor as she attempted to maintain her pace, her hand diving within the bag.
A brush of warmth fluttered across her face, and Lux spun toward the welcoming air, racing down the connecting tunnel with everything in her. It wasn’t much anymore, but the quick change of direction gave her the added time to enclose her fingers around Aline’s device as the phantom regained the ground lost.
Hands fumbled in the dark until a small protrusion caught at the pad of her fingertip. She pushed against it and didn’t hesitate.
She tossed it over her shoulder.
Blinding white light flooded the passage like the sun, and a cry sprang up at her back. But Lux didn’t pause. The phantom’s quick breaths were gone. The only footfalls were her own.
With the synthetic, fading sunlight, she came upon a ladder, and climbed.
The stains were ignored. Lux tugged and pushed the couch over the trap door within her parents’ home, and when it was done, she collapsed upon shaking legs, resting her back against the rear of it. Morning had arrived, the grim glow of a new day creeping through the windows.
She wondered why she wasn’t crying. Shouldn’t she be? Part of her remained in denial, the rest of her too exhausted to argue the point. It couldn’t be real. It wasn’t possible that their plan had gone so awry. That Shaw was captured and now at the mercy of monsters, that the phantom had discovered her at last.
It isn’t real. That’s why.
Her eyes fluttered closed, a small, relieved smile on her lips, and with Shaw’s scent cocooned around her and her head propped against his bag, she drifted into fitful sleep.
Chapter thirty-nine
The marching of booted feet faded from her dreams and grew louder once Lux blinked open her eyes. The crunch of debris over stone sailing through the shattered window forced her to stand and creep to the fragmented glass. Her legs ached with every step. Her heart ached even more. Denial wasn’t a luxury afforded in the daylight. Lux peered through the window.
The Shield. They filed down the street.
An entire squad of them.
She kept to the shadows, but when they turned, their faces trained upon her parents’ door, her breath caught.
They couldn’t know. They couldn’t know she’d accompanied Shaw, broken into the prison, drained the mayor’s stores of lifeblood and set fire to its remains. They couldn’t know she was here.
Could they?
She glanced to the dried blood marring the tip of her finger.
“Devil’s tits.”
Lux shoved the worn couch back to its place. The rug was rumpled, its edges pulled back from the trap door, and she wrenched it open. When no phantom flew out to run her through, she steeled herself, slipping onto the rungs of the ladder. She could hear them at the front door, prying off the final board attached to its frame as she reached around the edges of the floorboards, tugging the rug up and over. She only hoped they didn’t look too closely, because she wouldn’t be able to cover the seams entirely.
She sunk below, darkness clinging to her like chains, the weight of the bodies above sending dust raining onto her head. She stepped back.
Muffled voices drifted downward.
“The mayor wants her brought directly to him. Unhurt. For now.”
A derisive snort. “As if she’ll come quietly. Did you hear what she did to Blackwell? Clawed his eye!”
A new voice chimed, “And now he’s dead.”
“Orders are orders. I’d rather deal with one crazed girl than have the mayor after me. Check every corner of this shack.”
Heavy footfalls sent more debris cascading down as they stomped over the trap door.
Lux released her breath at last, her body screaming for air. Clutching Shaw’s bag tight to her chest, she turned, following the tunnel once more. She would go home. She would tell Riselda everything.
She was going to need her help.
Lux threw open the floorboards of her home without a care if Riselda witnessed it. She’d planned to tell her all she knew—and all she’d guessed—and that hadn’t changed in the time she’d spent below ground.
But Riselda wasn’t there.
Lux smoothed out the rug, and with a quick sweep of the house to ensure no Shield had yet rifled through her things, she walked to her room. Shaw’s bag and coat were the first items to go, shucked onto her unmade bed. Aside from digging inside to find the bizarre, but effective, invention of Aline’s, she hadn’t looked through it. Remedying that now, she let Shaw’s coat fall from her shoulders before reaching for the bag once more, dumping the contents onto the mussed mound of blankets.
He hadn’t lied to her. There lay the rope and the knives. The vials of lifeblood. But Lux’s hand didn’t reach for those. Instead, her fingers enclosed around a small, worn book.
His grandfather’s journal.
She frowned. “Why would he bring you of all things?”
She flipped to the first page:
Keep it safe, Necromancer.
The cover fell closed. How had he known she would accompany him? Did he plan to give it to her all along? Or only if he were captured?
Her fingertips whitened over the fraying leather for seconds more before it fell from the bed as a door clicked closed.
Lux hauled Shaw’s things to her, crouching to the floorboards to grasp the old book. She winced as the leather pulled further away, loose at the back, but when she took a moment to examine the damage, it was to find another page folded within. She didn’t have time to read it, shoving everything inside her wardrobe with shaking fingers. The Shield could never find his things. It would damn her.
Footsteps descended the stairs at the same moment Lux materialized in the doorway.
“Lucena.”
She sighed in relief. “Riselda. I—” And like once before, her lips ceased to obey. A twinge deep within, and a burst of ice bloomed in her chest. What was the matter with her? Riselda’s arched brow, now raised in question, sent her stammering. “I…was curious how the rest of your errands went last evening.” She blurted the first thing that popped into her head. It was a pathetic attempt.
Riselda’s eyes narrowed before she laughed. It didn’t sound the same. “Wonderful. My preparations for the festival are coming along as planned.” Lux shoved her hands in the pockets of her skirt. “Though I am interested as to why the Shield is hell-bent on your arrest again, my dear.”
“They were here?” Lux hurried toward her workroom, inspecting it closer. But as before, nothing appeared out of place, and she couldn’t imagine the Shield to be gentle in their search. She turned back toward Riselda.
“They were. So was I, however, and unfortunate for them. I turned them away.”
“And they obeyed?”
“Of course they did. But I cannot protect you forever.” Riselda’s gaze hardened. “Not yet anyway.” She moved around Lux, studying her. “They did let slip a little something of interest, though. Apparently, a young man has been captured. And they’ve spent the morning torturing him for information. He must have done something terrible. I’m afraid they believe you may have done something terrible, as well. Have you, Lucena? Have you done something terrible?”
Her aunt’s eyes didn’t appear natural. Bile seared Lux’s throat. “I’ve done many terrible things, Riselda.”
She wasn’t sure if she imagined the gleam fading away at her words or if it’d never been there to begin with.
Riselda smiled. “I know.” Long fingers enclosed around Lux’s forearm. “Ghadra’s gossips have never been of the forgiving sort.”
If the touch had been meant in comfort, it had the opposite effect. Lux shook off her hand. “I don’t need your pity.”
“And I offer none. But you must go into hiding, darling. Even I can only do so much. Your imprisonment prior wasn’t your fault. This time… Well, I can tell from your face alone, you deserve the mayor’s wrath. And if he deems what you’ve done unforgivable…”
Riselda stared upon her dirtied nails as the unsaid words pressed down above them, weighing on Lux’s shoulders.
“He will die before he drains the lifeblood from me.” Lux’s voice was low, steady, and thrumming with an anger that pulsed and spat. She meant every word. She would carve his chest hollow, and there would be no one to bring him back.
A cackle filled the space between them. “I do adore your spirit, Lucena. I really do. Though that changes little now. Pack your things. I will purchase supplies, and you’ll leave tonight.” Riselda reached into the pocket of her blue cloak, pulling forth a small pouch. She placed it on the table. “As promised. Though you may not have much use for them anymore.” She smiled, her teeth laid bare.
Lux stared after her for a long time. Even when the door closed between them, and the footsteps faded. Until, finally, she reached for the little pouch, dumping the contents onto the table. The howler teeth scattered across its surface.
“Oh, dear Aunt. You know nothing of my spirit.”
Chapter forty
If Lux could describe Aline’s face when she knocked upon her door, it would perhaps be less than thrilled. Perhaps even hostile. But also, maybe, there lay just a hint of curiosity.
That curiosity grew by a fraction at Lux’s words: “I need your help.”
Unfortunately, it didn’t prevent the door from being slammed in her face.
Lux pounded on its worn surface again. But when another woman answered, she stepped back. A woman with Shaw’s eyes in an age-lined face, its shape an exact replica of her daughter’s.
“Can I help you?”
Lux absorbed the red-rimmed eyes and raw nose. This woman had clearly been crying, and for a long time, too. “I’m here to speak with your daughter, actually.”
“She doesn’t want visitors. And, quite frankly, neither do I.”
Tears pooled once more, and Lux shoved Shaw’s coat into the space between them. “You know he’s missing, I suppose.” The woman’s eyes widened, her mouth slack. “I know where he is.”
Lux sat in a decrepit kitchen at a rickety table as Shaw’s mother listened with rapt attention. Aline, with her back slouched against the chair and her arms crossed, seemed not to listen at all. The space had been meticulously cleaned. Lux couldn’t discern even a speck of dust marring any visible surface.
Shaw’s mother pressed her hands flat against the table only to fold them. She did this again and again until Lux couldn’t take it anymore and pressed her hand atop the one nearest her. It stilled, warm and callused beneath hers, and Lux bit back the urge to withdraw from the contact. She needed the woman to understand. For her and Aline both.
“They seek whatever information they can get from him now, and I don’t believe he’ll give it to them.”
The hand beneath hers went limp in defeat. “No. No, no, no.” Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks, following the grooves left there by hard work and a harder life. “This means…”
She couldn’t force the word.
Death. Lux found most couldn’t speak it.
“It means he’s being tortured at this very enlightening moment, and they’ll kill him when he proves himself no longer useful.” Aline’s eyes were twin daggers as she hurled the words at Lux. “And how did you escape without a scratch? You’re not stronger. You’re not faster. You’re certainly not cleverer than my brother. Tell me.”
Lux wondered if her own eyes had been so hard at such a young age. She reined back her irritation. No, they hadn’t. They had been worse.
“I abandoned him. He told me to; he gave me this.” She swung his bag up and onto the table, packed with all except the journal. “I left him.”
