Page 509 of Shadowblood Souls
Andreas answers for me. “The guardians had set a sort of trap for us and knocked us out. I’m not sure how they moved us out of the facility, but when we woke up, we were in a totally different part of the world.”
He’s tactfully left out Griffin’s role in that trap, which is probably the right call, seeing as the shadowkind haven’t met Jacob’s twin before. I’d rather not sour their first impression of him when we all understand the choices he made and his regrets about them now.
“Did you see anyone coming out at the bottom of the hill?” Zian breaks in with a hint of a growl. “The maniac who had us trapped up there got away from the fire.”
“I could feel him heading down a different path for a while,” Griffin adds. “I’ve lost my sense of him now… I never had a very strong grip on it.”
Rollick shakes his head. “We didn’t see another entrance near this one. But we didn’t look very hard. Some of my people waited at the base of the hill as backup—if anyone they weren’t expecting came barging out, they’ll have caught him.”
Pearl bounds ahead faster. “There’s the door! Phew, I can’t wait to get out of this place.”
She has no idea how much I share that sentiment.
We pour out into cool, fresh air on rocky terrain spotted with straggly grass and hunched shrubs. Most of Rollick’s “backup” shadowkind must remain in the shadows keeping watch, but one familiar figure wavers into view with a smile already springing to his lips. “You found all of them! And one more.”
Billy the faun pauses and blinks at Griffin, tilting his head with its dark waves of hair and spiral horns at a curious angle.
My feet jar to a halt. As I stare, my throat constricts around my voice.
The last time I saw Billy, he was a huddle of broken limbs streaming smoky essence. Because I’d caught him in my shriek, mistaking him for an enemy in the midst of a larger attack.
I can’t see any sign of the injuries I dealt to him. His light brown skin is perfectly smooth, his youthful face still full of eager excitement.
He notices me staring, and his smile turns a little tight, as if he’s afraid of what I’d have to say to him. “I’m glad you’re okay, Riva.”
I can’t help sputtering a ragged laugh. “I’m gladyou’reokay. I—I’m so sorry. What happened before—I wouldn’t have meant to?—”
Rollick interrupts my stumbling apology with a brisk wave of his hand. “We can talk about our past mistakes later. Come on—you should see what we’ve made of your prison.”
He sets off toward a low hill dotted with a few leafless trees. As we hurry after him, Billy shoots me another smile, this one more shy than anything. “I know,” he says quietly, as if those two words can absolve me of every way I screwed up.
I’m not sure I deserve his forgiveness that easily, but now obviously isn’t the time to start flagellating myself.
Rollick stops at the top of the rise and turns to face the towering hill. The rest of us gather around him.
When my gaze lifts to the top of the sheer cliff the villa’s grounds were perched on, my jaw goes slack.
The jutting stone precipice looks like a gigantic candle, the entire plateau at its top ablaze. The flames surge up toward the sky all across the hilltop and even partway along the drawbridge that was lowered as some of Balthazar’s people must have aimed to escape by the road.
I can’t believe anyone still up there could possibly be alive.
Zian lets out an awed whistle, and Jacob gives a crow of delight.
A fresh wave of triumph surges up inside me.Takethat, you fucking psychopath!How the tables have turned.
My satisfaction dims slightly at the thought of Toni. Was she able to make it out?
Wemight not have if it wasn’t for her help.
Then a glowing form materializes right overtop of us with a warble of fire and moving air.
The woman drifts down to the ground across from us, her scarlet hair streaming from its loose ponytail and the massive wings that stretch from her back flapping lazily in the breeze. Every “feather” on those wings is a lick of flame.
As her feet touch the earth, her wings contract and vanish. In the space of a heartbeat, she looks like a mostly normal if striking human being.
She folds her toned arms over her chest and glances back at the hill. “I think I did a pretty thorough job of it. There’s nothing up there but cinders now.”
When she returns her gaze to us, a glint dances in her copper-brown eyes as if they hold their own flames. “And this bunch must be the shadowbloods I’ve been hearing so much about. I guess I’m not so special anymore.”
