Cassian’s breathing remained uneven. He didn’t relax one muscle until she stepped back into the tunnel hallway. Until his hand was again around hers. He didn’t even bother to look at the Harp, or comment on Briallyn. He only surveyed her for any sign of harm.
It was as intimate as any look he’d ever given her. Even when he was buried deep inside her, moving in her, his gaze had never been so openly raw.
She tucked the Harp into her side and couldn’t stop the hand she lifted to his cheek. “I’m fine.”
He pressed a kiss into the heart of her palm. “I don’t know why I doubted you.” He pulled from her touch. “Let’s get the hell out of here.” Dark promise laced the words—and she knew what they’d be doing as soon as they dumped the Harp off to become Rhysand’s problem.
Her cheeks heated, something like pleasure going through her. That he would pick her, them—that he wanted the reassurance of her body that much.
She interlaced her fingers through his, squeezing as tightly as their hands could be pressed together. He squeezed back, and tugged her down the passageway, away from the site of pain and long-forgotten memory. The sword bounced against her thigh, and she said, breaking the silence, “I named it Ataraxia.”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “That sword? What’s it mean?”
“It’s from the Old Language. I found it in a book the other day in the library. I liked the sound of it.”
“Ataraxia,” he said as though he were trying out the weapon itself. “I like it.”
“I’m so glad you approve.”
“It’s better than Killer or Silver Majesty,” he threw back. His grin was brighter than the glowing Siphon atop his left hand. Her pulse raced. “Ataraxia,” he said again, and Nesta could have sworn the blade hanging from her belt hummed in answer. As if it liked the sound of his voice as much as she did.
They neared the end of the tunnel, but Nesta paused him with a tug on his hand. “What?” he asked, scanning the cavern. But she rose onto her toes and kissed him lightly. He blinked with almost comic shock as she pulled away. “What was that for?”
Nesta shrugged, her cheeks heating. “Gwyn and Emerie are my friends,” she said quietly. She tucked away her horror that Briallyn had eyes on them. “But …” She swallowed. “I think you might be, too, Cassian.”
Cassian’s silence was palpable, and she cursed herself for laying bare that wish, that realization. Wished she could wipe away the words, the stupidity—
“I’ve always been your friend, Nesta,” he said hoarsely. “Always.”
She couldn’t bear to see what was in his eyes. “I know.”
Cassian brushed his mouth over her temple, and they exited the tunnel at last, entering the main path of the Prison, its heavy gloom.
Nesta whispered, finally daring to say it, “And I’ve always—”
Cassian threw her behind him so fast the rest of the words died in her throat.
“Run.” His heartbeat—his pure terror—filled the air. “Nesta, run.”
She whirled toward what he faced, his Illyrian blade gleaming ruby in the light of his Siphon. As if a blade could do anything.
The door to Lanthys’s cell lay open.
CHAPTER
54
Cassian beheld the open door to Lanthys’s cell and knew two things.
The first, and most obvious, was that he was about to die.
The second was that he would do anything in the world to prevent Nesta from meeting the same fate.
The second clarified his mind, cooled and sharpened his fear into another weapon. By the time the voice slithered from the darkness around them, he was ready.
“I wondered when you and I would meet again, Lord of Bastards.”
Cassian had never, not once, forgotten the timbre and iciness of that voice, how it made his very blood bristle with hoarfrost. But Cassian answered, “All these centuries in here and you haven’t invented a more creative name for me?”
Lanthys’s laugh twined around them like a snake. Cassian gripped Nesta’s hand, though his order to run still hung between them. It was too late for running. At least for him. All that remained was buying her enough time to escape.
“You thought yourself so clever with the ash mirror,” Lanthys seethed, voice echoing from all around them. The light of Cassian’s left Siphon revealed only red-washed, misty darkness. “Thought you could best me.” Another laugh. “I am immortal, boy. A true immortal, as you might never hope to be. Two centuries in here is nothing. I knew I’d only need to bide my time before I found a way to escape.”
“You found a way?” Cassian drawled to the mist that was Lanthys. “It seems like someone helped you out.” He clicked his tongue.
He just had to wait—wait until the attack came. Then Nesta could run. She was rigid beside him, utterly frozen. He nudged her with a foot, trying to knock her from her stupor. He needed her primed to run, not rooted to the spot like a deer.
“The door opened of my will alone,” Lanthys purred.
“Liar. Someone opened it for you.”
Lanthys’s mist thickened, rumbling with ire.
Nesta swallowed audibly, and Cassian knew. When she’d ordered the Harp to let her go … The Harp had also released Lanthys. Just open up these wards, she’d instructed it. So it had: the wards on her, and the wards nearby—on Lanthys’s cell. It had said it wanted to play. And here it was: playing with their lives.
What if the Harp had extended its reach beyond Lanthys’s door? If every single cell door here was open …
Fuck.
But Cassian said to the monster he feared above all others, “So you plan to swirl around me like a rain cloud? What of that handsome form I saw in the mirror?”
“Is that what your companion prefers?” Lanthys whispered from too close—far too close. Nesta cringed away. Lanthys inhaled. “What are you?”
“A witch,” she breathed. “From Oorid’s dark heart.”
“There is a name I have not heard in a long while.” Lanthys’s voice sounded mere feet from Nesta. Cassian gritted his teeth. He needed the monster gathered on the other side of her—so the path upward was clear. Had to draw Lanthys over toward him. “But you do not smell of Oorid’s heaviness, its despair.” An inhale, still behind them, blocking the way out. “Your scent …” He sighed. “A pity you’ve marred such a scent with Cassian’s stink. I can barely distinguish anything on you besides his essence.”
That alone, Cassian realized, kept Lanthys from realizing what she was. Being interested, as the Bone Carver had been. But it revealed another dangerous truth: where to strike first.
“What is it you are obscuring behind you?” Lanthys asked, and Nesta turned, as if tracking him, keeping the Harp hidden at her back. Lanthys chuckled, though. “Ah. I see it now. Long have I wondered who would come to claim it. I could hear its music, you know. Its final note, like an echo in the stone. I was surprised to find it down here, hidden beneath the Prison, after all that time.”
The mist swirled and Lanthys drawled, “Such exquisite music it makes. What wonder it spins. Everything pays fealty to that Harp: seasons, kingdoms, the order of time and worlds. These are of no consequence to it. And its last string …” He laughed. “Even Death bows to that string.”