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I swallowed bile.
I hate the noise it makes.
Not human or Bright. Not a sentient creature with emotions and dreams at all. Just our bare parts and whatever he could use them for.
Mariana’s grin was a wicked, terrible thing. “Oh, I have a plan for that.”
She moved to a small bag that looked a good deal like Constable Cade’s medical kit and began fishing through it. I watched her, my mind racing for options. I could run, but that left Janice to their machinations and that was unconscionable. My efforts at fighting had been predictably fruitless and I cursed myself for never having bothered with self-defense. My runes and my power were supposed to be my defense, but protection runes ran more along the lines of defending against enchantment and had little to do with the physical.
Still, it was worth a try.
I closed my eyes, intent on opening to the aether, still not certain what rune I could possibly use here. Something blinding, perhaps. A disorientation spell. Anything that would grant me cover to grab Janice and run.
I couldn’t carry her far, but there were Constables in these woods. All I needed to do was give them time to find us.
My gut twisted, thinking of Derrick cursed into stillness. Had Cade found him already? Was he free?
Maker help me, I hoped so.
When I opened my eyes to the aether, the cuffs at my wrists turned cold, biting into my skin. I gasped and noted the runes flaring within the cuffs themselves, barring me from my magic almost as securely as the runestone had.
For one flaring moment I was able to see the grove as it truly was, choked by those cursed vines. They were everywhere, climbing the trees, sprawling across the ground and wreathing the circle of boulders at the grove’s center. Thorns twisted into the vines themselves, drawing out a sticky black liquid that made slow trails in the dirt.
Blinking hard, I released the aether and checked my wrists. The cuffs had gone blue and white frost clung to my skin, creeping down my hands. The tips of my fingers were an alarming shade of purple, but the color faded fast.
The pain did not. Each fingertip tingled as though I’d slapped a hard surface with all my might and I bit my lip to keep from making a noise.
“I know,” Mariana said with mock regret as she stepped toward me. “The runestone is far more effective. But we do what we must.”
I scowled at her. She had a scalpel in one hand, and three small vials in the other, which she presented in short order. Behind her, Montgomery had gone back to his book, quite disinterested in whatever Mariana had planned. Delilah, on the hand, was watching, her green gaze trailing Mariana with an almost worshipful intensity. The cuffs could not shut out all my empathy because I could sense the devotion in her. Whatever hold Montgomery might have over her paled in comparison with what she felt for Mariana.
Any hope of turning the girl to my side was extinguished.
“Here’s the deal, little idiot,” Mariana said to me, waving that horrible scalpel in front of my face. Its sharp edge caught the moonlight, and I swallowed bile. “We need a quarter ounce of skin, two fingernails – from the forefingers, if you please, it’s more potent that way. And…” She trailed off to touch my hair, pulling the braid forward and over my shoulder. It was unkempt, fraying from its bindings after so long left unattended, and I realized I hadn’t been able to brush it in two days.
Mariana’s dark eyes met mine and her smirk deepened. “Two inches of hair.”
She lifted the vials. “They’re marked, if you need help.”
Horrified, I stared at her. “You can’t be serious.”
“You’re an empath, Nora. I doubt those cuffs can cut you off from that, so you know quite well that I am serious,” Mariana said. “Now I’m giving you the choice. You can fill these vials with your own bits and pieces, or you can use Janice. I really don’t care. But if you make so much as a peep and disrupt the master while he’s at work, well…”
Her gaze slid to Janice. “You will no longer have the choice.”
“We’re short on time,” Delilah said, and Mariana heaved a sigh.
“Oh, you mortals have so little patience,” Mariana said. “We have all the time we need. The Constables are too busy dealing with Meredith’s corpse. They have all that paperwork they have to get through, and they’ll be scouring the park.”
Meredith was dead?
Maker help me, so that’s what she’d meant. Yes, the Lieutenant and everyone would undoubtedly be distracted by yet another corpse.
“They’ve already found the factory,” Delilah pointed out. “It won’t be long before they uncover the tunnels.”
“Chop-chop, little idiot,” Mariana said, shoving the scalpel and vials at me.
I took them with a shaking hand. My fingers were numb, a residual effect of the cuffs, but I managed not to drop the vials.
