chapter 41
As soon as he’d entered the dungeons, Griffin could feel something was wrong. He reached out with his telepathy, only to be greeted by silence.
“Stay close, Ellie,” he murmured in a low voice.
“I feel it, too,” she said. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure.” Griffin’s gaze swiveled from side to side as they moved deeper into the long hallway lined with doors. Cautiously, they glanced in each room but found each one empty.
“Try bolstering my power,” Griffin suggested.
He felt his sister’s small hand slip into his. And then nothing.
“Not good. Can you hear anyone?” Ellie asked.
“Griffin!” The sound of Selene’s voice blasted into his mind.
Griffin winced. “Selene? Where’d you go?”
“Get out of there now… The blocker. He’s there somewhere.”
“Get Charlotte,” he called back, but her presence was already fading.
Griffin tugged on Ellie’s hand. “Move!”
Together they ran back toward the door they’d entered through. Just as they were nearing the exit, a mammoth, misshapen thing stepped into their path. They couldn’t tell if it was a man or some sort of metamorph. Ellie and Griffin skidded to a halt and started to back up carefully.
“Any bright ideas?” Griffin whispered to Ellie.
Suddenly a wave of power, almost like a jolt of electricity, pulsed through the entire castle. Griffin and Ellie were knocked to the ground. When they looked up, the giant was gone, and Griffin could hear Lila calling him.
“Selene’s hurt. Come quick.”
Griffin and Ellie jumped to their feet. They’d started to move toward the door again when a small sound caught his attention. Ellie must’ve heard it too, because she stopped and turned.
“I think someone’s down here,” she whispered.
They hurried as quickly as they could, searching each cell. Griffin’s focus stayed with Selene the entire time. Finally, they opened a door and found a woman huddled in a corner, filthy and shivering from cold.
Griffin gently picked her up in his arms. “Charlotte, we need you,” he called.
“Just a second. I’m getting Hugh to Selene,” she replied.
A few seconds later, Charlotte silently appeared beside them in the cell.
“Where to?”
“Get us to Hugh. I think this woman needs help,” Ellie directed.
With a nod, Charlotte placed her hands on them, and then they were standing in the middle of the Council’s chambers. Griffin could see Hugh bent over someone on the floor. The second he realized who it was, Griffin passed the woman he was holding off to Alex. Then he was kneeling beside Selene before he’d even made the conscious decision to move.
“What happened? Is she all right?” Alex asked.
“Maddox stabbed her,” a distraught Lila told him.
“It’s all right.” Hugh’s calm authority kept Griffin from becoming unhinged. “Nothing I can’t handle. Just give me a few minutes.”
The room remained shrouded in a tense silence as everyone watched Hugh work. After ten miserable minutes, Selene opened her eyes. With a little help, she sat up.
Selene rubbed at where the knife had slid into her stomach. She grinned at Hugh. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
Selene looked around the room. “Have they gone?”
Hugh nodded. “Vanished.”
She said nothing… only held out a hand to be helped to her feet. “Desmond is against the wall over there. Please help him,” she said to Hugh.
“Do we know how many we lost? Who’s hurt?”
“Still tallying,” Alex said.
Selene frowned and then glanced over at where Hugh was still working on Desmond. “Hugh, please do what you can for the injured. Ellie can you—?”
Ellie nodded. “I can help him move through everyone more quickly.”
“Who’s this?” Selene moved to the injured woman Griffin had carried in earlier. Selene crouched down beside her and took her wrist to feel for her pulse.
“We found her in the dungeons,” Ellie explained. “Do you know her?”
Selene shook her head. “No.”
“I do.” Dexter had just arrived with Charlotte. By the sound of his voice, something had severely shaken him. Selene looked over her shoulder to see that he was as white as a sheet.
“Who is she?”
Dexter sank down on the floor beside them.
“My mother.”