Page 78 of A Court of Sugar and Spice
Lir casts me an admiring look, then reigns in his expression with a sorrowful twist of his mouth. My heart twinges at his pain, at the rift between us, but I can’t mend it now. I need to stay focused.
“You’ve done so much already,” the Prince says. “Let me do this. Wait here, and I’ll bring one of the guards back.”
“This might help.” I hand him a noise-muffling orb. “Dash it on the ground and it will mute all sound for a few minutes.”
With a nod, he takes the orb and slinks away, swathed in his cloak. His shape practically melts into the dark. I can barely see him as he slips into the outhouse.
Chewing my nails and shivering, I wait.
Finally a lone rat-soldier descends from the tower and trudges out of the circle of torchlight, across the hardpacked dirt, all the way to the shack. He disappears inside.
With no one around and this much at stake, I’m very tempted to start whispering to myself, out of sheer nervousness. I clamp my hand over my own mouth.
Finally a pair of dark figures emerges from the outhouse, moving immediately into the cover of the bushes. I squeeze my hands together, waiting with bated breath until Lir shuffles into my hiding place, dragging a rat-soldier with him.
“Alive?” I ask. “He needs to be alive.”
“He’s alive. Unconscious, though.”
“Gag him, quickly. We’ll have to do the mimicry spells once he wakes up.”
The rat-soldier begins to stir just as Lir finishes with the gag. I shove my dagger against his throat as an extra incentive for him to be quiet.
“You first,” I whisper to Lir. “It’s the pink and yellow one. Look into his eyes while you’re chewing it.” I jam the dagger tip harder against the soldier’s neck. “Eyes wide, bastard. And stay silent.”
Lir chews the candy, staring at the guard—and then he morphs seamlessly into a perfect replica of the rat-soldier.
“We don’t have long until it wears off,” I warn Lir, holding out my hand. He places another mimicry candy on my palm.
To the rat-soldier I hiss, “Keep your eyes open, stay quiet, and you’ll live.” Staring into his beady black eyes, I chew quickly.
The magic prickles all over me, and when Lir gives me a salute, I know it worked.
Swiftly I slice across the rat-soldier’s throat, careful to step aside, out of the path of the spewing blood.
“You promised he could live,” says Lir under his breath.
“I changed my mind.”
We leave our packs in our hiding spot. The mimicry spell doesn’t disguise them, and they’ll look strange on a pair of rat-soldiers patrolling the bridge. But I keep Fin’s satchel with me. Hopefully no one will think anything of it.
It feels idiotically bold and naked to stride out of the cover of the bushes and walk across open ground. My heart pounds as we approach the tower, as we mount step after step, as I try to move confidently, not too quickly but quickly enough.
We pass a couple of guards descending the steps. Now we’re walking past more guards—they’re muttering in low tones. They smell terrible, like sulfur and copper and bile.
We’re on the bridge. On the bridge—oh god—it’s terribly, shockingly high. Don’t look down, don’t look down—one foot, then the next. Firmly, like a soldier. Purposefully, as if I have orders to fulfill, duties to perform.
Lir is ahead of me, but he doesn’t look like Lir—he’s a greasy-coated, rat-headed soldier with a spiky club.
And I’m his exact image. What if someone notices that the pair of us look a little too similar?
Another step. Another.
The bridge sways, creaking in the cold wind. A suspension bridge, perfectly safe, it has to be perfectly safe—it was built by the Unseelie, and they can’t risk having their soldiers topple into the canyon every day. They must have built it well. It’s safe. I’m safe.
More steps, more steps, and we’re still on the bridge—when will it end? What if I’m not following Lir anymore? What if I somehow got confused and followed a different rat-soldier? They all look so similar—a good thing for us—oh fuck, the wind is coming again—
I grip the rope railing and keep going despite the stomach-dropping sway of the bridge. My teeth clench and grind against my terror.
