The door closes.
“Well, your ability was strong enough to grab their attention.” Myles glares at the space where the guard was just standing. He stretches the kinks from his neck. “Might I suggest a short break in which you adjourn to your room and I stay in mine? I’d like a final nap before heading to whatever death’s being brought on by Draewulf’sss army.”
“Did you see those bodies in Rasha’s room? We don’t have time—”
“I’m simply pointing out we’ve been at it eight hoursss, and it’s now nightfall, and I, for one, have not eaten yet from that plate of less-than-mouthwatering mush sitting on the desk. Nor have I enjoyed the peace and silence that comes when a woman’sss doing whatever she does elsewhere.”
Eight hours?
I look down at my sweat-soaked shirt and stringy hair. Does the vortex inside of me absorb time as well as power?
“Might I beg food at leassst? After that we can resume up on the roof if you promise to refrain from speaking. Perhaps tossss things over the side at the Dark Army while we’re at it.”
I nod but I’m hardly listening because something’s caught my eye. I frown. My deformed hand. My wrist is straighter. As if the broken bones in my gimpy fingers have almost smoothed back into place.
I lift it to him.
His expression doesn’t show the surprise I expect. Instead he almost seems pleased.
As if he was expecting it.
I stare at him but he just shrugs. “I’ve spent the past two monthsss trying to show you what you can become. You wouldn’t listen.”
“And what am I becoming?” I ask cautiously.
“Perfection.” The way he rolls it out, as if savoring the word on his tongue . . . It evokes that image of him and me standing over Draewulf’s dead body and the entire Hidden Lands together. “At least in body and ability. Because I’m fairly certain your personality’s hopelessss.”
CHAPTER 26
AN HOUR LATER, OUR STOMACHS SATED ON FRUIT and chewy bread, Myles and I slip up the staircase toward the roof. Hissing fills my head even from five corridors away. I try to shake the noise off but it just seeps in, like angry ocean foam spitting at the back of my neck. It makes my skull ache. I shiver. “Don’t they blasted ever stop?”
“Who?”
“Those things with their ghost language.”
He tips his head and gives me a curious sweep with his eye.
“What?”
He clears his expression and peers ahead. “An effective method of communication that’s undetectable to people for the most part.”
“Can you understand them?”
“No, but the fact that my mirages work on them means they understand usss.”
I halt on one of the steps. “If that’s the case, then why not use your ability to stop all of them? You could stop the war! Why the litches are we wasting time sneaking around here when—?”
“As flattering as your confidence is, my abilities do have limitsss. One of them being their lessened impact the more widespread a space they’re used on. Sneaking us up here is easy, but deceiving an entire army is a bit much even for me.” He continues climbing.
I frown. “Why not use it on a few at a time then? Get the wraiths to turn against Draewulf or Isobel, or each other even. What if they’re gathering information or they’re the ones that killed those guards and maid?”
“Oh, I’m quite certain they’re gathering information. And I think any number of people or things could’ve killed those guardsss. But as I’ve told you, some gifts are best left unannounced until they’re needed. Much like yoursss.” He pushes a door open and enters first. It leads us to another stairwell, which, if the cold air is any indication, is close to the roof. How he’s so adept at maneuvering us through the Castle, I can only imagine. How much time did he spend here selling out King Sedric and Faelen?
Another door, this one heavier, thicker, looms from the dim, and when he clicks the handle and shoves the metal open, we’re suddenly outside.
On the roof.
In the middle of a lush garden.
The hissing clobbers my head. It’s a million times louder up here and requires a minute to get my bearings amid the noise. After days of only seeing copper walls, everything looks alive and green in the dim—the white brittle trees and tiny flowers and the trickle of a brook. And the sky. Deep, midnight blue, lit up by freckles of stars winking through the leaves. Was this Eogan’s mother’s garden?
A private oasis in the middle of madness.