Havenfall (Havenfall #1)(75)

I try to yell. The gag vibrates between my teeth. And maybe it filters through, because it seems like the conversation upstairs falters for a second. But then something happens to the air in the room. All at once, it seems to vanish, as well as the air in my lungs.

I can’t breathe, and panic spills through me. I yank at my bindings, but only succeed in making the radiator clank. Then the air rushes in. I fall back, stunned and terrified, and I swear I hear a male voice above murmur something about old pipes.

Sura reaches out with the glowing spoon, apparently to catch my attention. She holds my gaze and then lifts her other hand in the air, making a swirling motion like she’s gathering cotton candy from a machine. Soft light seems to stream from her skin, and a slight wind ghosts over my face, a threatening echo of the breath-stealing Byrn magic from a moment ago.

A shiver races through me. What is this?

She tips her hand, seeming to pour the light over the spoon, and it glows brighter for a moment. Suddenly, I remember the note I found in the Solarian wing, the note and the bracelet given to my great-great-grandmother.

Keep this safe; a part of me is bound to it.

Cold sweeps down my spine, and I want to yell at her to stop, but the cloth in my mouth muffles my voice. Sura grips the spoon tight, her knuckles white in the dark. When the glow is gone, she tips back against the wall, her eyes fluttering shut like whatever magic she just performed has drained her. I get the eerie feeling that the light was a part of her, that she’s just given up something important. This magic feels cruel.

Then she opens her eyes and holds my gaze as she tosses the spoon gently in my direction.

Confused, I scoot toward it, because it’s clear that’s what she means me to do. In a weird way, I’m grateful for the puzzle; it keeps the sick terror at bay, letting me forget the fact that I’m tied up in a basement and no one in the world, except for this girl, knows where I am. But now a different, quieter, stranger fear is building, deep in my bones.

I reach out awkwardly with my bound hands and pick up the spoon. It’s hot, almost too hot to touch. It thrums under my fingers in the same way the bangle did—the bangle I’m still wearing—but this time it’s too strong for me to be imagining it. The faintest breeze stirs the fine hairs on my arms. There’s nowhere for it to be coming from, except—

Magic. This girl harnessed our captor’s Byrnisian wind-magic and bound it to this spoon.

Which means …

My body gets the message before my brain does. My head snaps up, and I scramble backward until my bruised shoulders hit the wall, sending pain radiating down my back. My breath comes fast, my heart hammering all over again. Sura watches me steadily, her face unreadable.

They’re shapeshifters. They can look human.

The girl—the Solarian—continues to watch me, and as the moments pass, her face falls and grows sad. Instinctive sympathy twists my insides. But no, she’s not human, maybe not even a child. My mind is spinning as I try to see past her eyes, see what lies beneath.

She doesn’t look like a monster.

Think.

The monster that killed Nate, what did it look like? I only caught glimpses from my hiding place. I try to wind my memory back to what happened before the moment when Mom shoved me in the cupboard and shut the door.

A memory of old terror creeps in. Another time when I had my back pressed against the wall. The front door to our old house, shuddering and bulging as something pounded on the other side. A bitter taste floods my mouth.

The Silver Prince said that Marcus invited the Solarian into our home. Why then would it have had to break in? Whether it looked human or had claws and fangs, I must have seen it. Heard it. Why are my memories so jumbled, so full of shadows?

Sura looks away from me, her jaw tight, and something in the gesture reminds me forcefully of Taya. My chest clamps, and words bubble up in my throat, some apology or explanation. The girl across from me is a Solarian. Yet she’s a captive, too, and a child. There’s something alien about her, but I can’t keep looking at her and remain afraid. She is so small. The feeling presses down on me that I’m missing something crucial, the key that will fit into all these mysteries and pull them together. A tear, then another, snakes down my cheek. I’m on the edge of something, understanding hovering just out of my grasp, but chances are I won’t live long enough to reach it.

Right on cue, the cellar door opens and heavy footsteps descend. My stomach drops. There are no more voices from upstairs; the Heiress must be gone.

I missed my chance, I think distantly as the Byrnisian wind-wielder comes into view, Whit at his heels. The blond man startles when he sees me.

I slip the spoon up my remaining sleeve as the Byrnisian man nods and tells Whit, “Kill her.”

It’s not those words that ignite my fear again, but the idea that I’ll die and then no one will know the Solarian girl, Sura, is here. That she’ll stay a captive in this dark, cold space forever and it’ll be my fault. My fault, my fault, my fault.

I lash out, but maybe I hit my head harder than I thought earlier, because my limbs don’t go where I tell them to. It’s more of a weak flail than a blow. The Byrnisian catches my wrists easily and hauls me upright.

The last thing I see as they drag me from the room is the little girl’s eyes, wide and sad.



I expect to panic, but instead something in me goes numb, leaving my head clear and calm as Mirror Lake.