Page 211 of Commanding Scythe and Sky

Okay.

So that left me with turning tail or…

Or…

With one last huff, I straightened my spine, lifted my chin, and headed down the hallway at a measured pace. I’d manipulated my way into and out of trouble more times than I could count. Lying was easy when you knew exactly which rope to tug to make someone buy the story.

Short of Moros, few souls here seemed immune to Adrastos’ charm. If anyone confronted me, I could say he’d ordered me to heal one of the prisoners, and most of them wouldn’t have the nerve to question him. Good enough.

Besides, I was certain this opportunity wouldn’t come again, though I was very deliberately not asking who had opened the door in the first place. Adrastos or Bartholomew would never willingly let me roam, but Smith…

Smith had seemed almost… irritated when I told him the door locked from the outside.

Unless I’d imagined the pinch between his brows. The clench of his jaw.

Before I could finish mapping every possible consequence, I was already flying down the narrow spiral staircase Bartholomew had used to lead me to the dungeons for months. Breath hot in my chest, teeth digging into my lower lip, I descended level after level without stopping.

I’d memorized the sentinels’ positions during my first month here and knew only one stood between me and Alvara. The question was whether I should lie and say I’d been sent—or put him to sleep.

At the bottom step, I hesitated, forcing my breathing quieter before peering around the corner—and stopping dead.

He was already sleeping.

Blood roaring in my ears, I shifted my weight and sent my magic dancing forward to check his vitals. Deep sleep.

Goosebumps prickled down my spine because… seriously, what were the odds?

Coincidence seemed far-fetched.

Still, I steeled myself and padded barefoot across the cold stone landing, slipping down the hallway without the guard so much as changing his breathing.

Water whispered through the pipes inside the walls, joined by the slow seesaw of sleeping breaths from the first cells. Ally was always kept at the end, of course—as far from escape as they could manage.

Hushed voices reached me. Then something that sounded like a sob.

My heart climbed into my throat. I broke into a near sprint past the mostly empty cells and rounded the corner⁠—

—straight into a wall of man.

“Christ,” he snarled, one hand snapping around my arm as my gaze flew to rich brown eyes beneath a shock of unruly black hair. Adrastos’ expression hardened the instant he recognized me, his eyes darting over my shoulder before cutting back to my face.

His lip curled back, and then I was whirling—shifting—misting through gray space as panic cinched around my throat. He whisked me back the way I’d come, our bodies stretching wrong through the realm between. We’d barely landed in his room before he slammed me against the wall, caging me between his arms. “What in all seven levels of hell were you doing out of your goddamn room?”

I blinked up at him, dragging in a trembling breath.

This was beyond anger.

This was fury with teeth.

This was the lethal rage he wielded so easily, and for the first time since I’d met him on that sidewalk nearly three years ago, every ounce of it was aimed at me.

“Answer me,” he barked, slamming a hand into the wall as shadows poured from him like smoke.

I shook my head. Every excuse evaporated when the man I’d planned to use as my alibi was the one who caught me.

“I…” My voice died under the look in his eyes. Silence suddenly felt like the safer option.

“Briar!” he barked, his breath hot against my cheek. “Do you think this is a joke?” His eyes searched mine. “Answer me, dammit.”