Page 156 of A Storm in Every Heart
“Nothing,” I mutter, shaking my head. “I just didn’t expect to care.”
“Care about what?”
“This was where I lived. It’s just familiar, that’s all.”
“That’s a good thing if you ask me. If you didn’t know where we were going we’d be fucked. This place is huge.”
I nod and sprint down another white-walled corridor, then another. We reach a winding set of white marble stairs, and run up them, two at a time.
“He doesn’t post a lot of guards,” I comment. “Maybe they’re all posted outside the wedding.”
“There were guards on our way in here,” Jett says, panting a little from all the running. “That woman from before?—”
“Lyra?”
“Yeah. She turned into someone who must have been important, because she just kept telling the guards she was bringing Connell and me down to the dungeon as prisoners and no one looked twice at her.”
My eyes narrow. “What do you mean she turned into someone important.”
“She’s a shapeshifter. Didn’t you know?”
I shake my head, pressing my lips together in a flat line.
Lyra Von Bargen is a doppler, and she just helped save my life—and Odessa’s life too, maybe. Of all the fucking shocking things that have happened today, that might be the most unbelievable.
We barrel down the corridor, sprinting through the castle until the white corridors bleed into each other, and the only marker I have left is the gathering sense of dread—the certainty that every second we spend running in place is another second Magnus is closing in around Odessa.
Lyra said they were keeping Dessa in the tower. There are a dozen fucking towers in this palace, but I have to assume—have to hope—she meant the tallest one. Otherwise, it might take hours to check every single turret, and by then, it might be too late.
I’m not worried about the wedding—not exactly. There’s no legal wedding in Ellender that would supersede a soul-bond, and I’m positive that’s what Dessa and I have. It’s not the wedding, it’s after. It’s what Magnus might do to her, or it’s her believing I’m not coming to rescue her and whatever reckless thing she might do to try and save herself.
“How long was I down there?” I ask Jett as we cross the entrance hall and I lead the way through a door and up more and more stairs.
“I don’t know exactly, why?”
“I remember Magnus coming to tell me he was going to force Dessa to marry him, but I don’t know if that was today or yesterday or if it even happened at all. I hallucinated all sorts of shit.”
Jett’s expression turns dark. “Fuck, man, I’m sorry.”
I blink at him, confused. It’s not his fault Magnus is a sadistic psychopath. He’s the one who came to help me, so why?—
All at once, I get it.
Jett is Daemon’s spymaster. It was an easy role for him to assume when all of us suddenly found ourselves helping to run Vernallis alongside Daemon and Alix. Jett is personable, a good liar, and great at getting out of tough situations…he’s also fairly good at torturing people.
None of us really know what his life was like before Dyaspora. We’ve only ever heard the rose-colored stories, but I’m sure it wasn’t all so wonderful. He was poor to the point of starving in a way that I never understood until these last few days. He was sent to prison for life for stealing a single loaf of bread, and somewhere along the line he clearly learned how to hurt people who hurt him. Now, I get the impression that he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop—for me to realize that what he does for Vernallis is too similar to what Magnus did to me.
“It’s not the same,” I say shortly.
Jett looks confused. “What do you mean?”
“Magnus likes causing pain. It’s different.”
His black eyes widen for a second then his face blanks, which for him means returning to his usual grin. He laughs. “I know that, of course. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll get a chance to take a crack at old Magnus and we can find out who’s got a steadier hand.”
“Mmm,” I mumble, still not entirely sure he believes I don’t blame him for any of this. “So, what day is it? When did Magnus last visit?”
Jett shakes his head as if to clear it. “If he told you about the wedding, then that was earlier today,” he says, as he climbs the stairs behind me. “Lyra said Odessa was going along with it because Magnus told her he would kill you.”
