An Ember in the Ashes (Ember Quartet #1)(80)

Veturius disappears into the gloom of a tunnel just behind us. A few minutes later, we hear what sounds like drunken singing. I peer around the corner to see the guards elbowing each other and grinning. Two leave to investigate. Veturius’s voice is convincingly slurred, and there’s a loud crash followed by a curse and burst of laughter. One of the soldiers who’s gone to investigate calls to the other two. They disappear. I lean forward, preparing to run. Come on. Come on.

Finally, Veturius’s voice drifts down the tunnels:

“—dow’ by the docksh—”

Izzi and I bolt for the ladder, and in seconds, we’ve reached the grate. I’m congratulating myself on our speed when Izzi, perched above me, lets out a strangled cry.

“I can’t get it open!”

I climb past her, grab the grate, and shove it upward. It doesn’t budge.

The guards get closer. I hear another loud crash and then Veturius saying, “The best girls are at Madame Moh’s, they really know how to—”

“Laia!” Izzi looks frantically toward the fast-approaching torchlight. Ten burning hells. With a muffled grunt, I throw my whole body toward the grate, wincing at the pain lancing through my torso. The grate creaks open unwillingly, and I practically shove Izzi through before leaping up myself, shutting it just as the soldiers emerge into the tunnel below.

Izzi takes cover behind a barrel, and I join her. A few seconds later, Veturius climbs out of the grate, giggling drunkenly. Izzi and I exchange another glance, and as preposterous as it is, I find I’m suppressing my laughter.

“Thanksh, boys,” Veturius calls down into the tunnel. He slams the grate shut, spots us, and holds a finger to his lips. The soldiers can still hear us through the slats in the grate.

“Aspirant Veturius,” Izzi whispers. “What will happen to you if the Commandant finds out you’ve helped us?”

“She won’t find out,” Veturius says. “Unless you plan on telling her, which I don’t suggest. Come on, I’ll take you back to your quarters.”

We slip up the cellar stairs and out to Blackcliff’s funereally quiet grounds. I shiver, although the night’s not cold. It’s still dark, but the eastern sky pales, and Veturius speeds his gait. As we hurry across the grass, I stumble, and he is beside me, steadying me, his warmth seeping into my skin.

“All right?” he asks.

My feet ache, my head pounds, and the Commandant’s mark burns like fire. But more powerful is the tingling enveloping my entire body at the Mask’s closeness. Danger! My skin seems to scream. He’s dangerous!

“Fine.” I jerk away from him. “I’m fine.”

As we walk, I sneak glances at him. With his mask on and the walls of Blackcliff rising around him, Veturius is every inch the Martial soldier. Yet I can’t reconcile the image before me with the handsome Tribesman I danced with. All that time, he knew who I was. He knew I was lying about my family. And though it’s ridiculous to care what a Mask thinks, I feel suddenly ashamed of those lies.

We reach the servants’ corridor, and Izzi breaks away from us.

“Thank you,” she says to Veturius. Guilt washes over me. She’ll never forgive me, after what she’s been through.

“Izzi.” I touch her arm. “I’m sorry. If I’d known about the raid, I never—”

“Are you joking?” Izzi says. Her eye darts to Veturius standing behind me, and she smiles, a blaze of white that startles me with its beauty. “I wouldn’t have traded this for anything. Good night, Laia.”

I stare after her, open-mouthed, as she disappears down the hallway and into her room. Veturius clears his throat. He’s watching me with a strange, almost apologetic expression in his eyes.

“I—uh—have something for you.” He pulls a bottle from his pocket. “Sorry I didn’t get it to you earlier. I was . . . indisposed.” I take the bottle, and when our fingers touch, I pull away quickly. It’s the bloodroot serum. I’m surprised he remembered.

“I’ll just—”

“Thank you,” I say at the same time. We both fall silent. Veturius rubs a hand through his hair, but a second later his entire body goes still, a deer that’s heard the hunter.

“What—” I gasp when his arms come around me, sudden and hard. He pushes me to the wall, heat flaring from his hands and tingling across my skin, sending my heart into a feverish beat. My own reaction to him, confusion tumbled with head-spinning want, shocks me into silence. What is wrong with you, Laia? Then his hands tighten on my back, as if in warning, and he dips his head low to my ear, his breath a bare whisper.

“Do what I tell you, when I tell you. Or you’re dead.”

I knew it. How could I have trusted him? Stupid. So stupid.

“Push me away,” he says. “Fight me.”

I shove at him, not needing his encouragement.

“Get away from—”

“Don’t be like that.” His voice is louder now, sleek and menacing and devoid of anything resembling decency. “You didn’t mind before—”

“Leave her, soldier,” a bored, wintery voice says.

My blood goes cold, and I twist away from Veturius. There, detaching from the kitchen door like a wraith, stands the Commandant. How long has she been watching us? Why is she even awake?