Years of mandatory first aid ricochet around my head. He’s in pain. He’s probably lost blood. Shouldn’t I be worried about shock?
The ley line keeps pressing against his glamour, but Roark doesn’t reach back. If anything, his glamour flickers in and out like static. It’s too weak, a flimsy soap bubble instead of the armor I’m so used to. Even Roark can run out of magick, but if he’s disconnected from Mab and she can’t adjust for that flux of power...
I tighten my grip on his waist. “How many were there?” I ask, hoping it will keep him awake.
His head lolls as I try the door. “Three.”
It’s locked. A moment later, I lift my hand from the molten metal. It gives and I push the door open, wincing when it creaks loudly through the cavernous silence of this building. Outside Roark’s tiny room, the halls are better-lit, industrial construction lights strung so the walkways are easier to navigate.
I pitch my voice lower, my lips brushing his ear as I ask, “How long have they been gone?”
He gives a raspy chuckle. “Not sure.”
“They left you here like this?”
His good eye—the one that isn’t swollen shut—opens and takes me in with dark amusement. “The torture was supposed to last longer than this.”
“They tortured you?”
“Yes.”
Each step becomes a careful shuffle forward, an attempt to stay quiet even as I push the ley line out farther, searching for his kidnappers or an exit or anything that could help us. “Why would they do that?”
He doesn’t answer the question. Instead, his knees go out. I struggle for a moment before giving up and lifting him into my arms. He slumps against me, lips moving, but his words too soft for me to make out.
“What, Roark?”
“Finn... Your oak tree... If there’s room under it...”
I grit my teeth. “I’m not burying you on my family’s farm because you’re not dying.”
He coughs and ashen foam speckles his lips. “I’m the Prince of Air and Darkness. Don’t do well with iron.”
“Then we’ll get you back to the sídhe. Your mom could heal you, right?”
“Sealed.” He hisses when I trip over something and accidentally tighten my arms around him. “No way in.”
“I’ll find a way.”
“Finn—”
“Stop. You don’t get to die until after I chew you out for acting like a pompous ass.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’d better be,” I mutter. “Better start thinking how you can make it up to me.”
He only manages a half laugh before his head drops against my collarbone. If I couldn’t feel the shallow breaths he keeps taking, I’d be too terrified to check whether he was still with me.
Ahead, the scouting ley line flares in warning and retreats back to me. I slow my pace, then stop entirely to wait. When they turn down the hall, I’m ready.
All three of them are there. No ski masks this time. They remind me a little of the slightly monstrous Unseelie, but even rougher, more unrefined, and with far more human features mixed in. They’re a motley assortment, two of them taller, while a third, far shorter, cowers toward the back. Their clothes are worn, threadbare in spots. They all freeze when they catch sight of me.
For a second, I consider giving them a chance to beg for mercy or explain why they did this. For a second, I try to think like Roark and figure out how to keep them alive so Queen Mab can interrogate them and learn who is after her son and how we can better protect him.
But then I see their leather gloves. The blackened iron knuckles they clutch. The delicate lengths of chain coiled at their sides. The meat hooks slid into fabric belts strapped over their chests.
And everything becomes far, far too easy. I smile and before they can even take another breath, I open myself and let the ley line explode down the hallway, directing its course to them alone.