Agatine (Terres book II)

Chapter Thirty Five

The silence in the room deafened them, more effectively than anything ever could. They'd huddled in the corner of the room together so close their wings overlapped. They waited for Seltus to appear, hoping that he'd take one or the other away with him where the job could be finished cleanly. Wren knew it would be her. Phina was too dangerous, too much of an unknown. Too much for Seltus to risk. The blade of the knife burned into her thigh. 

"Are you scared?" Phina asked, though they both knew she already knew the answer. Her hands shook and the air frizzled in out of her lungs like the smoke that left the top of the tents in the caravan and curled into the cloudless sky. She nodded anyway, more to give herself something to do than anything else.

"You need to mean it, before he gets on top of you and takes your blade away." Phina's voice was so dry it made Wren's hands shake harder. The cold of the cellar creeped into her bones like breath on a frosty morning. Phina's presence did little to chase it away. The ghost of a lantern trickled in through the tiny window on the door, barely casting shadows where their legs crisscrossed the floor.

"What if I can't?" Wren asked. She curled her hands around each other and folded her wings up tight against her back. She already had, once, but that had been instinct. The moment came so fast she scarcely had time to think about it. This was different. This time she had enough time to chase the idea away before she fully committed to it.

"You can. I know you can, because I know you don't want to die." Phina's voice cut the darkness like the dagger she'd helped her to hide. She gripped Wren's hand in hers. A shiver traveled up Wren's arm and into her chest. It felt not like strength but like weakness; like something terrible that had not happened yet. Wren cringed but did not move away.

The sound of footsteps bounding up the hall made Wren's back stiffen and the feathers on it rise. Phina let go of her hand, then moved a small distance away. She nodded, faint outline barely visible in the dark light. Wren took it as a sign of encouragement, because anything else made her lungs feel like someone was squeezing them. She huddled her arms around herself and waited for the door to open.

Time passed as if they were moving through quicksand. The door did not open, and more sounds leaked into their tiny chamber. Shouting. The sound of a scream that cut off with an abrupt whine. Something like a sack of turnips hitting the floor. Wren covered her ears while someone rattled the doorknob, as if an explosion waited her on the other side.

"They're in here!" 

Wren opened her eyes. She hadn't realized she'd squeezed them shut. Rannok's wings blocked so much of the light she barely managed to catch his silhouette framed in the doorway. The air rushed out of her chest like a steam pipe. She scrambled to her feet and reached her hand out for Phina, but she'd already risen.

"How did you get down here?" 

Rannok looked behind him, down the hallway, and sighed a sigh of relief. "Whoever they put down here wasn't very good. Armand's outside keeping watch, I managed to kill the one guy." His face sank, like he felt terrible about it. Wren had a sudden reflex to hug him.

"We need to get out of here, we're a fair way from the door and someone probably heard us," Elyn said, head barely peeking through the threshhold. Wren never thought she'd be so relieved to see him. She ducked out the door and into a larger room. It smelled like damp walls and blood. She wrinkled her nose. At the end was a narrow opening that led to another hallway.

They filed out into the thin passage like a ribbon, Wren leading up the back, Phina in front of her, cradling her arm. Everyone stopped moving when the sound of a slamming door cracked through the darkness, and she ran into Phina's back. The sounds of footsteps came down the stairwell like hammers.