Page 206 of Bride of the Midnight Prince

“You know the way out of these tunnels?” Oliver asks me. “Is it because you were the . . . whatever they were calling you back there? The Ivy Mask? What even is that? I tried not to panic in there, but I haveno ideawhat is going on!”

I reach a fork in the tunnel and stop, searching either direction. “Mary can tell you later. This way!”

We hurry down the tunnels, getting closer and closer to the exit. For the first time, my breath comes a little clear. We might actually make it. We might—

A door up ahead opens abruptly.

I skid to a halt as a very large, very fae body enters the tunnel, blocking our path. If that is a guard, we are all dead. I turn on my heels. “Back! Back! Back!”

“Kat!” Rahk cries. “It’s me! And Pavi!”

I stop. My knees turn to liquid. “Rahk?”

His arm sweeps around my waist, supporting me before I collapse in relief. “We have a minute or two before Lady Nothril pursues us. We must be gone before then!”

“She killed Papa!” Pavi chokes a little on the words.

“This way gets us out. We’re almost there!” I press forward, my energy renewed. Rahk’s hand does not leave me, shifting from laying on my back to lightly holding my arm. As though he is afraid that, if he stops touching me, we will be separated forever.

“Are these the servants’ tunnels?” Rahk glances around us as we run. He looks down at me again. “How well do you know them?”

“Like the back of my hand.”

I’m so focused that it takes me a moment to realize he is staring down at me incredulously.

“How many times have you raided Nothril?”

I direct us all to veer down a sharp left turn. “This was my twelfth. Here, this door always slows me down because it’s never unlocked. Give me a knife.”

He pulls a knife from his boot and hands it to me, slightly skeptically. I press the tip into the pad of my thumb and press it to the door. It unlatches. I push it open and keep moving.

“What?” I demand, looking up to find Rahk staring at me, his jaw slack.

“You can bypass fae locks with human blood? How did I not know this?” He shakes his head. “I always knew you were clever. I never realized you were a genius.”

His praise floods me with unexpected warmth. “I had to be, to evade you,” I reply cheekily.

At once, we stumble out of the tunnels, spilling into gray foliage of the world adjacent to the Wood. I leap onto the Path. Rahk immediately divides our party into groups so no one accidentally falls off the Path. “Pavi, you take the lead with Becky. Kat, you, Mary, Oliver, and Agatha go next. I will take up the rear in case we are followed.”

Thus grouped, we burst into full sprints. My vision blurs. The edges of the Path move and morph. I blink hard to get it to straighten. I end up following closer to Pavi and relying on her stronger view of the Path to keep from straying off it.

Then, abruptly, the entire Path shudders.

I stop. “What was that?”

Rahk glances in every direction. The Path shudders again. His eyes suddenly widen. “Lady Nothril is destroying the Path!”

“Rahk! The Path!” cries Pavi from the front—

—just before the entire thing vanishes.

Leaving us stranded in the middle of Caphryl Wood.

I whirl in place, looking for any sign of the Path, even though I know it’s gone.

“Kat?” Mary asks uneasily. She still leans on Oliver, his grip tight on her waist. Blood soaks through her dirtied uniform, marking an injury somewhere on her calf.

“What is wrong?” Oliver demands.

---