House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City, #2)

But her hands were icy, her skin drab and waxy. Even her shimmering hair had dulled. His own skin appeared paler, sickly. As if the Bone Quarter already sucked the life from them.

He interlaced their fingers as they strode up the seven steps to the archway and tucked all the worries and fears regarding Baxian, regarding this rebellion, deep within him. They’d only be a distraction.

His boots scuffed on the steps. Here, Bryce had once knelt. Right here, she’d traded her resting place for Danika’s. He squeezed her hand tighter. Bryce squeezed back, leaning into him as they stepped under the archway.

Dry ground lay beyond. Mist, and grayness, and silence. Marble and granite obelisks rose like thick spears, many inscribed—but not with names. Just with strange symbols. Grave markers, or something else? Hunt scanned the gloom, ears straining for any hint of Reapers, of the ruler they sought.

And for any hint of Emile, or Sofie. But not one footprint marked the ground. Not one scent lingered in the mist.

The thought of the kid hiding out here … of any living being dwelling here … Fuck.

Bryce whispered, voice thick, “It’s supposed to be green. I saw a land of green and sunlight.” Hunt lifted a brow, but her eyes—now a flat yellow—searched the mists. “The Under-King showed me the Pack of Devils after the attack on the city.” Her words shook. “Showed me that they rested here among shining meadows. Not … this.”

“Maybe the living aren’t allowed to see the truth unless the Under-King allows it.” She nodded, but he read the doubt tightening her ashen face. He said, “No sign of Emile, unfortunately.”

Bryce shook her head. “Nothing. Though I don’t know why I thought it’d be easy. It’s not like he’d be camped out here in a tent or something.”

Hunt, despite himself, offered her a half smile. “So we head to the boss, then.” He kept scanning the mists and earth for any hint of Emile or his sister as they continued on.

Bryce halted suddenly between two black obelisks, each engraved with a different array of those odd symbols. The obelisks—and dozens more beyond them—flanked what seemed to be a central walkway stretching into the mist.

She drew the Starsword, and Hunt didn’t have time to stop her before she whacked it against the side of the closest obelisk. It clanked, its ringing echoing into the gloom. She did it again. Then a third time.

“Ringing the dinner bell?” Hunt asked.

“Worth a shot,” Bryce muttered back. And smarter than running around shouting Emile’s and Sofie’s names. Though if they were as survival-savvy as they seemed, Hunt doubted either would come running to investigate.

As the noise faded, what remained of the light dimmed. What remained of the warmth turned to ice.

Someone—something—had answered.

The other being they sought here.

Their breath hung in the air, and Hunt angled himself in front of Bryce, monitoring the road ahead.

When the Under-King spoke, however, in a voice simultaneously ancient and youthful but cold and dry, the sound came from behind them. “This land is closed to you, Bryce Quinlan.”

A tremor went through Bryce, and Hunt rallied his power, lightning crackling in his ears. But his mate said, “I don’t get a VIP pass?”

The voice from the mist echoed around them. “Why have you come? And brought Orion Athalar with you?”

“Call him Hunt,” Bryce drawled. “He gets huffy if you go all formal on him.”

Hunt gave her an incredulous look. But the Under-King materialized from the mist, inch by inch.

He stood at least ten feet tall, robes of richest black velvet draping to the gravel. Darkness swirled on the ground before him, and his head … Something primal in him screamed to run, to bow, to fall on his knees and beg.

A desiccated corpse, half-rotted and crowned with gold and jewels, observed them. Hideous beyond belief, yet regal. Like a long-dead king of old left to rot in some barrow, who had emerged to make himself master of this land.

Bryce lifted her chin and said, bold as Luna herself, “We need to talk.”

“Talk?” The lipless mouth pulled back, revealing teeth brown with age.

Hunt reminded himself firmly that the Under-King was feared, yes—but not evil.

Bryce replied, “About your goons grabbing my sweet brother and dragging him into the sewer. They claimed they were sent by Apollion.” Hunt tensed as she spoke the Prince of the Pit’s name. Bryce continued, utterly nonchalant, “But I don’t see how they could have been sent by anyone but you.”

The Under-King hissed. “Do not speak that name on this side of the Rift.”

Hunt followed Bryce’s irreverence. “Is this the part where you insist you knew nothing?”

“You have the nerve to cross the river, to take a black boat to my shores, and accuse me of this treachery?” The darkness behind the Under-King shivered. In fear or delight, Hunt couldn’t tell.

“Some of your Reapers survived me,” Bryce said. “Surely they’ve filled you in by now.”

Silence fell, like the world in the aftermath of a boom of thunder.

The Under-King’s milky, lidless eyes slid to the Starsword in Bryce’s hand. “Some did not survive you?”

Bryce’s swallow was audible. Hunt swore silently.

Bryce said, “Why did you feel the need to attack? To pretend the Reapers were messengers of—the Prince of the Pit.” She clicked her tongue. “I thought we were friends.”

“Death has no friends,” the Under-King said, eerily calm. “I did not send any Reapers to attack you. But I do not tolerate those who falsely accuse me in my realm.”

“And we’re supposed to take you at your word that you’re innocent?” Bryce pushed.

“Do you call me a liar, Bryce Quinlan?”

Bryce said, cool and calm as a queen, “You mean to tell me that there are Reapers who can simply defect and serve Hel?”

“From whence do you think the Reapers first came? Who first ruled them, ruled the vampyrs? The Reapers chose Midgard. But I am not surprised some have changed their minds.”

Bryce demanded, “And you don’t care if Hel steps into your territory?”

“Who said they were my Reapers to begin with? There are none unaccounted for here. There are many other necropolises they might hail from.” And other half-life rulers they answered to.

“Reapers don’t travel far beyond their realms,” Hunt managed to say.

“A comforting lie for mortals.” The Under-King smiled faintly.

“All right,” Hunt said, fingers tightening around Bryce’s. The Under-King seemed to be telling them the truth. Which meant … Well, fuck. Maybe Apollion was the one who’d sent the Reapers. And if that part was true, then what he’d said about Emile …

Bryce seemed to be following the same train of thought, because she said, “I’m looking for two people who might be hiding out here. Any insight?”

“I know all the dead who reside here.”

“They’re alive,” Bryce said. “Humans—or part-humans.”

The Under-King surveyed them once more. Right down to their souls. “No one enters this land without my knowledge.”

“People can slip in,” Hunt countered.

“No,” the creature said, smiling again. “They cannot. Whoever you seek, they are not here.”