Prince of Air and Darkness (The Darkest Court)

“Roark, the garden—”

Smith’s wide-eyed gaze meets mine, holds, and I know we’re both thinking of the guests out there. Of the Unseelie trapped out there. I point to the other door. “I’ll check. You, get out. There’s not much time. Go.”

Without a second look, I step out into the hallway, freezing and shattering vines as I head toward the garden and the Seelie responsible for this attack.

Chapter Eight

Phineas

Roark’s gone before I can yell at him to not be stupid. To run away from the danger, not toward it. But the moment I step into the hallway, I know I could never ask that of him. Not if I can’t ask it of myself.

The party atmosphere has devolved into chaos on every level. Food and drinks and glasses and cups are ground into the thick rugs and hardwood floors. High heels litter the floor as if the girls simply ran out of them as they escaped. Even now, panicked people jostle me while I stretch to my full height and search for anyone who needs help.

Some are so terrified they’ve simply frozen in place, hit and bounced about by others who stampede past them. I wade through the flood to reach them. They cling to my hands, my arms, while I turn them toward an exit and yell at them to get out.

Glass shatters in the distance, from the rooms near the garden, and I shoot a glance over my shoulder. The hall’s too crowded, too badly lit between the stardust and intermittent wall sconces, to see what’s going on down there. But the vines I saw Roark destroying on his way to the garden continue to writhe in the darkness, and every instinct warns me to run.

Faint moaning comes from the ground behind one of the couches. A delicate pixie lies there. One of her wings is crushed and hanging at a painful angle, and splintered glass litters the ground near her.

“Help,” she begs, stretching out her hand to me. Pale yellow blood drips from the cuts extending up into her forearm.

Another crash from behind us. Intermittent screams and sobs from the fleeing mass. The vines hit the walls as they flail from the rapid growth. When they slam back against the floor, their thorns scratch the hardwood with ominous intent.

I kneel beside the pixie and hope she can’t see past me at what’s coming for us. I rip off my tie and wrap it around her hand, apologizing under my breath at her whimpers of pain when I jar some of the glass shards. She’s light as air as I lift her in my arms and carry her toward the door.

An elf, tall and pale and elegant, rushes past us both, knocking into me so hard I nearly drop her. “Hey!” I yell. He spins back, so I lift the pixie a bit. “Get her out of here!”

His face contorts. “Fucking Unseelie,” he spits and abandons us.

I want to lash out at him, punish him for abandoning an injured girl because she isn’t part of his Court. But now isn’t the time. She needs me. Roark needs me.

“It’s fine,” I promise her when she starts to cry. “We’ll get out of here.”

A couple other girls rush out of the room just in front of us and I recognize the hair of the Seelie sprite who invited me days ago. “Eliza?”

She turns, eyes widening. “Finny? Why haven’t you run? Wasn’t Sebastian with you?”

“We got separated. Can you two get her out of here?”

Eliza’s friend turns back and the two of them manage to get the injured pixie supported between them. “Where are you going?” Eliza asks, voice high with fear, when she notices I’m not coming with them.

“Roark ran to the garden. Gotta make sure he’s okay. Get out and call for help, okay?”

I sprint down the hall without waiting for an answer. I do my best to stick to the places where swaths of frozen vines melt into goo on the floor, although sometimes one will lash out at me from the shadows or an odd room. At those moments, I can only rely on a poorly cast conjured blade to keep from getting impaled. It works for the most part. I get a few scratches, but no major injuries.

My pulse kicks up the closer I get to the garden. The dead vines here are larger, stronger, even more barbed than the ones I got past earlier. Over the crowd’s vanishing noise, a rustling, like snake scales slipping over dried grass. Cold sweat breaks out over my forehead and upper lip and my knees wobble.

Move faster.

Aileen cowers near the French doors leading out to the garden, doing what she can to guide frightened partiers to safety through this undiscovered point of egress. She hears me coming and turns, face blank, paler than ever. “We didn’t do this—”

I ignore her. She’s not important.

Over the rustling, a familiar voice, now pealing with authority, cuts through it all. “Fall back!”

I push past Aileen, ignore her cry for me to stop, and slip through the doors.

Vines everywhere. Twisting, turning, slithering vines that reach and grab and cut—