Page 142 of The Witch and The Blood Oath

I ran my fingers over the back of the frame and yelped when a defensive spell stung my fingers. I held my breath and waited for an attack, but nothing happened.

“At least no one saw that,” I muttered.

“That would be embarrassing,” a deep voice murmured from behind me.

I spun, fully prepared to launch the ball of flame in my hand. Holding a torch, a blond man leaned against the wall. His beauty was angelic—ocean blue eyes, broad cheeks, and full lips. Even relaxed, his body was lithe in the fitted black pants and loose white shirt he wore. As if he weren’t in a secret passageway with a fugitive, he picked at something under his nails.

I wanted to run, but I couldn’t leave my back exposed to the stranger. As I decided to throw the flames and bail, he sighed.

“Don’t do that,” he whined. “It would be horribly predictable.”

“Who are you?” I demanded. I didn’t have time to play games with the stranger, but I couldn’t bring myself to attack someone who made no move to harm me.

He smirked. “The better question is, who are you, and why are you breaking into the High Witch’s personal chambers?”

The High Witch’s personal chambers?

“You don’t know my name?” I crossed my arms. “I’m offended.”

“Oh, everybody in this place knows your name, Freya Redfern,” he assured me, “but I asked who you are.”

The High Witch’s emblem blazed on his shirt sleeve, but there was something decidedly different about this man. He hadyet to attack me, which separated him from the rest of Cordelia’s lackeys.

Or he’s stalling me until backup comes.

“What is your game here?” I said. “You’re too cowardly to fight me yourself so you’re waiting for someone else to show up to do it?”

Magic seeped out of him like a beast emerging from a cave. His power thrummed with a different timbre than Walker’s, but it was stronger and wilder than the magic of the masked guards.

Whatever he was, he would die if he got in my way.

He chuckled and gestured behind me. “You’ll need something of hers to unlock that.”

The man sauntered closer. As he approached, every muscle in my body tensed. He was taller than me but not as broad as Walker. It wasn’t his physicality that set me on edge, but the easy, gracefulness of his steps and that strange, simmering magic lurking under his skin. He smelled like rain and fury.

He slipped past me and laid a hand on the frame. Light blazed under his palm, and something clicked.

“Burn me,” he instructed. “We need to make this look like you got the upper hand.”

I hesitated. “Why?”

This had to be a trap. Nothing this pretty and convenient was ever free.

“Because,” he drawled, “I want to see who you are, Freya Redfern.”

I didn’t trust him, but I also didn’t have many options. There was no time to turn back and look for an alternative way through the court—every second that passed allowed the Handmaidens to close in on me and my friends.

“This is going to hurt,” I warned and launched the ball of flames at his chest.

He choked, but I didn’t stop to inspect his wounds. He would survive—I hadn’t wielded enough fire to burn him to death. As he gasped, I crawled through the now-open frame and squinted against the sudden, dazzling light.

As I cast out my magical senses, I spotted a gauzy white curtain and tucked myself behind it. Magical beings roamed the court like dutiful ants, but no Handmaidens crept close by. I had bypassed them through the secret hall. The cloying texture of Cordelia’s magic hung in the air like residue, but that breath-stealing power of her presence was nowhere nearby.

Hesitantly, I ducked my head out of the curtain and surveyed my surroundings. I stood in a wide, sandstone and white hall. Oval-shaped windows lined the walls and through the gaps in the white curtains, a pastel painted sky loomed. Convinced I was hallucinating, I turned back to the window where I had hidden and shoved the curtains aside. Clouds billowed, and dizziness swirled my thoughts.

Wasn’t I just underground?

I shook my head and returned my focus to the High Witch’s chambers. To my left, rose-scented candles burned beside a huge bed. Rich blue and purple tapestries decorated the walls. To my right, double doors led toward Arion, but I hesitated. Power emanated from Cordelia’s bedroom—the kind of power that could fuel a ripple.

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