For a second or two we stood inside Bryna’s quarters staring at each other, our chests heaving. The door shook as the guards pounded on it.
“They’ll have to go through administrative channels to get in here, but it won’t take long.” The fight seemed to have sharpened Bryna’s senses.
I turned a full circle. “Where the hell is Van Zant?”
Turning on her heel, she went into the bedroom, and I pulled out the bounty card with my free hand and tightened my grip on Mort.
When she came back out, she was carrying a white box with string tied around it. “Is that his box of eyeliner and cologne, or what?” I peered past her, looking for the vamp.
She held out the box. “This is Van Zant.”
I stared at it and then looked up at her. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
“He’s dead,” she said. “Last night.”
A strange mix of sadness and consternation passed over her face.
The pounding at the door was getting more violent.
I sheathed Mort and then shoved my fingers into my hair and yanked. Why did this shit have to happen to me? With a dead mark, I’d only get ten percent of the bounty.
“So that’s—?”
“His ashes,” she supplied. She thrust the box at me. “A promise is a promise. His remains don’t do me any good, anyway. You can get out through the passage in my closet.”
I shook my head and finally snatched the stupid box from her.
“How in the name of Oberon did this happen?” I had to know, in spite of the seconds ticking by.
She shook her head slowly. “Some kind of strange attack. Little guys with poisonous knives.”
“The servitors? The same small beings that attacked me and Jasper yesterday?” I wouldn’t have guessed that the ninjas’ knives could take down a vamp. There wasn’t much in the world that could do that.
She frowned, clearly not sure what I was talking about.
I waved a hand, brushing off her confusion. “Where did it happen?”
“Spriggan kingdom.”
I filed that away. “Okay, where’s my exit?”
She showed me where a panel slid away at the back of her closet.
“Keep going right and you’ll end up in a hallway next to double doors. Take those and you’ll be outside in front of the palace. You know the way from there.”
Her stance was defeated, her voice low and hoarse. I didn’t know what the nature of her relationship with Van Zant had been, but it seemed to have hit her hard.
I drew Mort and she stepped back, her eyes popping wide.
“I need to dissolve the shadowsteel spell,” I said hurriedly. “Just hold still.”
I whispered the words to reverse the spell, and violet vapor leaked from Bryna’s mouth. It moved in a little stream to the tip of my blade, where it washed over the metal and then disappeared.
“Go, before they get in,” she said.
I nodded, re-sheathed Mort, and squeezed into the compartment in her closet. I swiftly followed her directions. I was just about to get out of the secret passage when someone suddenly came up behind me.
An iron grip wrapped around my upper arm.
I let go of the box and twisted, reaching for Mort at the same time, but the space was too tight to draw my broadsword.
“Keep quiet,” said a voice in my ear.
“Jasper? Were you following me?”
“I forced Bryna to tell me where you were.”
My hand clenched into a fist. That little cheat. How had she slithered out of her promise? Jasper must have had held something over her.
“Petra, we can’t let things escalate between the Stone Order and the Duergar,” he said urgently. “There’s a bigger threat to both of us. All of us.”
For a moment my mission to get Van Zant’s damned ashes back to the Guild faded to the background.
“What?” I asked, confused.
“Those servitors we killed weren’t just assassins. They’re getting into every kingdom, and that’s the point.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I don’t know how, but when they breach a realm, they pick up some kind of magic that allows them to get back in. Someone out there wants access to the stronghold in every kingdom. And with each attack, the servitors are getting more powerful.”
I peered up at his glinting golden eyes in the semi-dark. “How do you know this?”
“Ravens, but that’s not important. My point is, I need your help. We can’t get distracted by conflicts that aren’t going to matter in the end.”
I shook my head. Ravens? Like messenger birds? This was wasting way too much time. “I’m the wrong person to talk to. You should get in touch with Maxen. This stuff is his department.”
“No,” he said vehemently. “It can’t be the officials. They’ll make things worse.”
“But why me?”
“You’re the daughter of Oliver Maguire, Stone Order champion and one of Marisol’s closest advisors,” he said. “That means you’re close enough to the decision makers, but without being a life-long diplomat. And you have no patience for bureaucracy. You can keep focused on what’s important. That’s exactly what’s needed here.”
Surprisingly insightful, and it was nice that someone in Faerie saw my loathing of red tape as a positive trait. But I wasn’t interested in getting mixed up in whatever Jasper’s fight was.
“Look, I appreciate your concern, but I need to get the hell out of here,” I said. “I don’t even live on this side of the hedge. You need someone more plugged into Faerie.”
He let out an exasperated breath. His hand was still on my arm, and he yanked me close. I let him do it, a little fascinated by this different side of him.
“You’re going to be involved whether you want to be or not,” he said. His face was so close to mine, his strange eyes nearly filled my field of vision. “And if things go badly, you’re going to wish the Stone Order had ended up under Duergar rule. Believe me, the alternative will be much worse.”
“Why should I believe you?” I demanded.
His nostrils flared as we locked glares. “The Tuatha Dé Danann have returned. The Dullahan are with them.”
A sharp laugh escaped my lips. “The Tuatha don’t exist anymore, except in a few bloodlines diluted almost down to nothing. And you’re seriously trying to tell me the Dullahan are coming? The Bone Warriors are a myth.”
“Wrong on both counts,” he said harshly.
Suddenly there was a clamoring outside the secret passage’s exit.
“Shit,” I hissed. I’d loitered too long.
“Come with me.” Jasper pulled me away from the door, racing back the way I’d come. He had to turn his shoulders at an angle to move through the narrow space.
Seconds later, I heard the guards breaching the secret passage behind us.
Jasper let go of me and sped up, leading me through a dizzying maze of turns. We ended up at a ladder that rose into a narrow pipe-like vertical tunnel.
“Go ahead of me,” he commanded.