Betrayed by Magic (The Baine Chronicles #5)(45)

“Sunaya?” Annia called back, relief evident in her hoarse voice. “Is that really you?”

“Yes,” I cried, tears springing to my eyes. “We’ve got a whole welcoming committee here. Stand back from the door so we can get you out.”

“Those are the best f*cking words I’ve heard all day.”

A faint shuffle in the room told me Annia was moving backward. Rylan, Noria, and I moved to the side as Elnos stepped forward, raising his hands toward the door. He spoke a few Words, and intense heat began radiating from his hands.

“By Magorah!” Rylan took another few steps back as the heat waves rippled over us. Noria and I followed suit—my skin was close to burning. “Is he summoning the very sun itself?”

“Thankfully, even mages can’t do that,” Noria muttered. I glanced down at her, surprised to see the bitterness in her dark eyes as she watched Elnos literally melt the door. Was she seriously projecting her hatred onto Elnos, after all he’d gone through to rescue her? She should be kissing his feet right now, especially since he was rescuing her sister. I wanted to shake some sense into her and scold her for being so unfair, but this wasn’t the time, so I bit my tongue and waited for Elnos to finish. Paint was melting off the walls as the steel door liquefied. Before the red-hot metal could spread across the floor, Elnos spoke another Word and began shaping it into a pile out in the hall. The heat in his hands turned to bitter cold as he worked, cooling the metal down so that it would maintain its shape.

“Holy shit, did winter come early?” Annia asked as she stepped out into the hall. She wore white cotton pants and a creased shirt, and her left arm was in a cast and sling. Her dark eyes were rimmed with shadows, but they warmed with relief and gratitude as they took us all in.

“Annia!” Noria flung her arms around her sister, careful not to jostle her injured arm. “I’m so glad you’re safe.”

“And I’m glad you’re safe,” Annia said, squeezing her as tight as she could manage with her single arm. Her eyes met mine over Noria’s mop of red curls. “Thank you for coming after me. I thought I was done for.”

“I couldn’t very well leave my best friend behind,” I said with a grin, fighting tears. I wanted to hug the breath out of Annia, but Noria was still clinging to her, and I was loath to break them apart.

“So this is the famous Annia, eh?” Rylan asked, looking her up and down. There was masculine appreciation in his eyes, and I raised an eyebrow.

“Yes.” Annia’s eyes narrowed on Rylan, and her upper lip curled in a sneer as she took in his guard uniform and moustache. “Though I don’t know who the hell you are.”

“It’s my cousin Rylan.” Rolling my eyes, I undid the illusion that still cloaked him. Annia’s eyes widened as Rylan’s true form was revealed. “Iannis had him flown in from Prison Isle. I guess he decided a family reunion was in order.”

“Sunaya?” Iannis’s voice sounded in my head, tense with concern. “Where are you? Did you make it inside the bunker?”

“Yes,” I said, turning to look at the other doors lining the hall as apprehension settled in my gut. “We found Annia, and the location of the captured shifter children. We need you down here if we’re going to get everybody out.”





19





“This is the last one,” Iannis said as he gently laid the shifter child down on a makeshift blanket on the ground. The little girl, with her blonde hair, long lashes, and tanned skin, could have been from my own clan. Laid out next to her in the camp were nine other children—two of them mages, the rest shifters like her.

“You should rest a little.” I placed a hand on Iannis’s shoulder as he crouched next to the child. “You just spent all this time and energy healing these children.” They’d all been infected with various diseases, though apparently in muted form, so as not to kill them off too quickly. Even so, they still could have spread epidemics without Iannis’s intervention. He and Fenris had joined us down in the corridor where the test subjects had been kept. One by one, Iannis had broken into each occupied cell and healed the terrified children. It had been excruciating to wait out in the hall while he attended them, but he wouldn’t let any of us near, fearing we might contract the diseases.

“I would like to rest, but I cannot.” Iannis briefly squeezed my hand, then stood and turned to face me. His alabaster skin was paler than usual in the moonlight, and faint lines of strain were beginning to show on his face. It seemed that Dr. Mitas’s claim about these diseases being resistant to magical healing was true. “There is still so much to do.”

“It’s nearly midnight, Iannis,” Fenris said. He sat near the mage children, his back up against a tree. “Lord Logar and his men aren’t going to get here until morning. The ward you put around the garage will keep the prisoners safely confined there, even if you sleep for a few hours. I will stay up, to make sure of that.” Unlike our raiding party, Iannis and Fenris had taken prisoners, mostly by using short-term immobilization spells. The majority of the scientists were currently huddled in terror in the garage, some of them still frozen as they waited for the spell to wear off.

“It’s cruel, keeping them there,” Noria said in a brittle voice. We turned toward her as one, apprehension sparking in my gut. She sat on one of the logs by the fire pit, staring into the crackling flame—now that we were no longer hiding, there was no reason not to have the fire for warmth. Fenris had found a blanket for her to wrap around her shoulders. Her magically shackled hands rested on her legs, glowing faintly in the darkness. Fenris had brought the shackles with him on the airship, and they would immobilize her if she moved too far away from him.