House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3)

The mistress bowed again and hobbled past the sunken tubs and machinery, the trail of her robes white with salt.

Rigelus strode past the mystics without so much as a downward glance. They were mere cogs in a machine to help facilitate his needs. But Lidia couldn’t help assessing the watery faces as she passed. All slumbering, whether they wanted to or not.

Where had they come from, the dreamers locked down here? What Hel had they or their families endured to make it worth it? And what skills did they possess to warrant this alleged honor of honors, to serve the Asteri themselves?

Rigelus neared the dimly glowing center of the hall. There, in a crystal bubble the size of a cantaloupe, a female made of pure flame slumbered.

Her long hair lay draped around her in golden waves and curls of fire, her lean, graceful limbs nude. The Sprite Queen was perhaps no bigger than Lidia’s hand, yet even in repose, she had a presence. Like she was the small sun around which this place orbited.

It was close to the truth, Lidia supposed.

The mistress hobbled to the warded and bespelled orb and rapped on it with her knobbly knuckles. “Get up. Your master’s here to see you.”

Irithys opened eyes like glowing coals. Even crafted of flame, she seemed to simmer with hate. Especially as her gaze landed on Rigelus.

The Bright Hand inclined his head mockingly. “Your Majesty.”

Slowly, with dancer-like grace, Irithys sat up. Her eyes slid from Rigelus to her mistress to Lidia. Nothing but calculation and resentment shone on her face—an uncommonly plain face, considering the usual beauty of her kind.

Rigelus gestured to Lidia, the golden rings on his long fingers sparkling in Irithys’s light. “My Hind has a request of you.”

My Hind. Lidia ignored the possession in the words. The way they raked down her very soul.

She stepped closer to the bubble, hands once again clasped behind her back. “I have three prisoners in the dungeon who will find your sort of fire particularly motivating. I require you to come to the dungeons, to help me convince them to talk.”

The Mistress of the Mystics whipped her head to Lidia. “You can’t mean for her to leave here—”

Not sparing the crone a look, Lidia said, “Surely, as mistress of this place, you can find it in yourself to protect your wards for a few hours.”

Beneath the thin veil, she could have sworn the mistress’s eyes sparked with hostility. “Irithys is here because of the need for her specific kind of protection. Because of her light, a beacon against the darkness of Hel—”

Lidia only leveled a bored look at Rigelus.

He smirked, always amused by the cruelty of others, and said to the mistress, “Should Hel come knocking, send word and I will assist you personally.” A huge honor—and an indication of how badly he needed Athalar broken. Ruhn and Baxian, she wasn’t entirely sure about, but Athalar …

The mistress bowed her head. Leaving Irithys now staring at Lidia.

Lidia lifted her chin. “Will you be amenable to assisting me?”

Irithys glanced down at herself, as if she could see the small band of tattoos around her throat. A halo of sorts—inked on the Sprite Queen by an imperial hag to keep her power in check.

The queen’s gesture was a silent question.

Rigelus said, “The ink remains. You can wield enough of your powers to prove useful.”

Lidia kept quiet. Let Irithys study her.

She’d been kept down here more than a century. Had not seen daylight or left that crystal bubble in all that time. There was a good chance that behind the glimmering eyes, the queen had gone mad.

But Lidia didn’t need her sanity. She could do the thinking for the two of them.

Irithys’s chin dipped slightly.

Rigelus turned to Lidia. “You have a week with her.”

Lidia held the sprite’s blazing stare, let her see the cold fire within her own soul. “Breaking Athalar won’t take that long.”



* * *



Bryce left what she assumed was dinner—roast chicken, more bread, and some herbed potatoes—uneaten on the tray. No one had come by in the hours that had passed, so she assumed they’d either check in with her tomorrow, or perhaps wait until she was banging on that wall of night and howling for someone to come talk to her.

Neither of which seemed like an appealing option.

That left two choices, really. See if she could break through the magical barrier, then make her way out of this mountain and into a strange new world with no idea where she was going, or …

She glanced down. Or she could see what lay at the bottom of the grate, if there was some opening beyond the beasts that might take her out of this place … and into a strange new world with no idea where she was going.

Hours, and that was the best she could come up with.

“Pathetic,” she muttered, zipping the Archesian amulet along its chain. “Fucking pathetic.”

What was happening to Hunt? To Ruhn? Were they even—

She wouldn’t let herself think about it.

Her captors had taken her phone before bringing her here, so she had no idea what time it was. Or at least what time it was on Midgard. She didn’t even want to wade into the tangle of how time might pass faster or slower on this world. And how long had actually passed since that run down the hallway in the Eternal Palace—

Bryce stood from her crouched position against the wall. Stalked to the grate in the center of the room. A chorus of hissing rose from it as she approached.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” she murmured, kneeling and prying the grate out of the floor, her fingers straining painfully with the effort. But inch by inch, it pulled away, scraping too loudly against the stone floor.

She waited a moment, listening for the sounds of her approaching captors. When no one came to investigate the noise, Bryce peered into the yawning dark pit she’d opened.

She lowered her head a little toward the hole. The hissing stopped.

Bryce willed starlight to her hand and held it up. Nothing but emptiness waited below. Bryce fisted her palm, balling the starlight into an orb, and dropped it down—

A writhing sea of black, scaled bodies silvered by her light appeared.

Bryce scrambled back.

Sobeks—or their dark twins. Tharion had faced them when they’d escaped the Bone Quarter, concentrating his water magic into lethal spears that pierced their thick hides, but …“Fuck,” she breathed.

She glanced over a shoulder to the door. To the shield that echoed there with a sense of Rhysand. Power the likes of which she’d never encountered—at least, other than from the Asteri.

If he had as much power as an Asteri … It was all a hunch, really, but if he could be manipulated into helping her, somehow coming back to Midgard with her and kicking ass—

She might very well replace six conquerors for another. And something had to change, the cycle had to stop now, but not if it began anew with another overlord. And if Rhysand did indeed have that much power, she doubted these interrogations would continue so peaceably for much longer. Especially now that they knew she had something of importance tattooed on her back. Whatever Made meant, it held considerable weight with them. She had little doubt their patience would soon wear thin.

And whether it’d manifest in Rhysand going against his oh-so-polite insistence on her consent to be mentally probed or in Azriel carving her up with that black knife … she didn’t want to be around to find out.

Bryce peered at the hole, the beasts below.

That kernel of magic that had altered the language in her brain and set the Horn glowing had left something in her chest. Just enough fuel.

She’d have a nanosecond to teleport—winnow, as they called it here—down to the beasts. To that sliver of rock she’d noted jutting above them, little wider than her foot. Then she’d have to see if there was any way out. Some tunnel through which they moved beneath this place.

Unless it was only a pit, a veritable cage where they sat in darkness and waited for meat—dead or alive—to be thrown to them.

It would be a true leap of faith.