Tess looked frantically around the room, trying to think of anything that could get her out of this situation, but she just felt…numb. She had really believed that Callum would be able to protect her, that they would find some way out of all this. But he was gone, and now she was probably about to die—unless the vampires were planning to keep Tess alive to torture her, drinking her blood over and over until Felix found a way to get them off the Isle too.
She could always leap from the terrace outside Isobel’s room. It might be the best available option—the fall was high enough to kill her.
No. She squeezed her eyes shut. She’d fought too hard, clawed her way back from the brink of desperation—she couldn’t give up now. She just needed a way out of this castle.
She thought back to that first night at Bar Between, the tarot card Flora had given her. She certainly felt like she was surrounded by a circle of swords now—but she had the strangest sense she just needed to remove her blindfold and the way forward would become clear. What wasn’t she seeing?
She took the card out of her dress pocket, held it between her palms.
Come on, she thought. There has to be a way.
Suddenly, she felt a shock of heat—she yelped and dropped the card, letting it flutter to the floor. She paused to make sure her yelp hadn’t attracted any attention, but she didn’t hear anyone coming.
Tess knelt down to examine the card more closely, then gasped—the illustration had changed.
The woman from the original card—the one who’d escaped before Tess’s eyes back at the bar—was back in the picture, surrounded by the circle of swords like always, but she wasn’t blindfolded anymore. Instead, she was on one knee beside a bed that was pushed at an angle, driving a sword into the space where one of the bedposts used to be.
“Is this—” Tess frowned. “Am I supposed to do this?!”
She didn’t know who she was asking, or whether she expected a response, but none came. But she certainly didn’t have any better ideas, so she set to pushing Isobel’s bed so it mimicked the same angle she saw on the card. The bed wasn’t too heavy, but it still took a good bit of effort to drag it across the stone flooring—Tess swore under her breath and wished she’d worn a sports bra to this ball instead of a damn gown, but she got the job done.
And there, under the right-hand post at the foot of the bed, was an obvious crack between two of the stones in the floor—a slot exactly the right size for the blade of a sword.
“Okay then.” Tess’s eyes went wide. She grabbed the silver dagger she’d seen earlier and drove it into the space in the floor. She heard a groan as one of the shelves against the wall swung open, revealing a secret doorway.
“Holy fucking shit,” Tess breathed.
She dragged the bed back to its original position, hoping this might prevent any other vampires from figuring out where she’d gone. Then she stepped through the secret doorway into an extremely dark, extremely narrow passageway, and pulled the shelves closed behind her. She took the dagger with her; it seemed like a good idea to have a weapon.
The passageway was dark, cool, and silent. It was sort of like an indoor fire escape, with little landings on each floor and steep stairways-cum-ladders between them. Tess prayed the passage led outside the castle walls, but there was no way to know for sure. It felt like she descended the ladders for hours in the darkness, scraping her body against stone walls, unwieldy in her dress. (Though she was grateful she’d skipped the brocade medieval gown—no way would that have fit through here.) Every so often, she heard shouts and footfalls outside the passageway, and she’d freeze until it was quiet again. Eventually, she made it to the ground floor, where there was a single door—but absolutely no way to tell where it led.
Tess put her ear to the door to try to get any bit of sound, any information at all as to what might lie behind it. But after a few minutes, there was nothing—and it wasn’t like she really had any other choice but to keep going. So Tess gripped the dagger in one hand and turned the door handle with the other, pushing it open the tiniest bit—
She immediately smelled cool night air and evergreen trees, and the noise of the party seemed very far away. She pushed the door open a little farther, then almost cried with relief—it was a pathway that led to the forest. She’d have to be lucky to avoid Felix’s guards, but maybe she could make it to the compound, find Nantale, and try to figure out what the hell to do next.
As quietly as she could, she stepped through the doorway, pulling the door shut behind her. She looked up—guards were stationed along the castle’s battlements, keeping an eye out for possible intruders. She’d just have to try to act as normal as possible and hope she could slip past without notice. She concealed the dagger in the folds of her dress, then cursed herself as she realized she’d left her mask in Isobel’s room. Ah, well. She supposed it was probably better to have a knife. She took a deep breath, then set off down the path in a leisurely manner. She took ten paces, then twenty. So far, so good—she was just a few feet from the forest—
“Hey! You there!”
Fuck. She turned to see a guard waving down at her.
“Me?” she asked as innocently as she could.
“Where are you going?”
“Oh, just feeling a bit peckish,” she lied quickly. “Thought I’d go find a snack. Thanks for checking on me, though! Can’t be too careful!”
She waved goodbye and turned to continue walking, praying that would be the end of it, but in seconds she heard a whoosh of movement, and the guard was right beside her. He was shorter than he’d seemed from high above, and scrawnier too—he was living his immortal life as a pimply teenager, which struck Tess as terribly unfortunate. But he wore the same black robes as Felix’s goons who’d taken Callum away, and Tess knew better than to underestimate him.
“What’s this about?” she snapped, trying to channel Octavia. Clearly, being friendly hadn’t dissuaded him, so maybe this would. “I’m on my way out to hunt, not for idle chitchat with the help.”
“I’m sorry to be a nuisance.” He took a step back—clearly chastened. “But Felix said there might be intruders tonight.”
“If you can use your putrid little brain for just one moment,” Tess said coolly, “you might recall that intruders come in to the castle, not out. So if you’ll step aside and let me be on my way? Or do I need to take this up with Felix? What’s your name? I want to tell him exactly which little brat in robes tried to ruin my night.”
The guard hesitated, clearly terrified of getting in trouble. Tess could almost feel sorry for him, if she weren’t quite sure he would murder her on the spot if he knew she was human.
“I guess it’s okay…”
“Good.” Tess sighed. She set back off toward the forest without waiting for more, but then—
“Hey, is that Isobel’s dagger? Why do you have that?”
Fuck, fuck, fuck!!
Tess turned back toward him, trying to think—
But before she could speak, someone rushed past her, so fast they looked like a shadow—and then the guard was on the ground, sliced open from neck to navel, blood spurting out of him, struggling to breathe.
“Come on.” Nantale took Tess’s arm. “We have to move. Leave the dagger.”
Tess dropped it, and then Nantale scooped her up and sped into the forest—and it wasn’t like when Callum carried her, because Nantale was even stronger, even faster, she moved so smoothly it felt like flying. They streaked through the forest, then the air was open and they were back in front of the compound, where Artie was tethered and waiting.
“Artie!” Tess exclaimed as she caught her breath, and he nickered happily.
“What happened?” Nantale demanded. “Where’s Callum? Did Felix kill him?”
Tess shook her head, not even sure where to start—
“It was a trap, it was all a trap. Felix put the diamond on Callum and used him to open a portal back to New York—Octavia was there with Konstantin, who I guess isn’t dead? Felix went through the portal with Callum along with a dozen of his men, and he said the rest of the clan all knew I was human. I thought for sure I was going to die, except then this tarot card I have—”
“Stop, that’s enough.” Nantale cut her off. “Callum is gone?”
“Yes.” Tess’s eyes welled with tears. “And the diamond is gone too, so I don’t know how any of us can get out of here, especially since someone blew up the crystal bridge—”
“Not ‘someone,’ ” Nantale corrected. “Me.”
“You?” Tess was flummoxed. “Why?!”
“Did you really think I’d put the future of my clan in the hands of a human without monitoring you?” Nantale raised an eyebrow. “As soon as I learned you’d taken a horse, I assumed you were trying to escape, so I went straight to the bridge to head you off. When I saw you approaching, I did what I had to do. I didn’t blame you for wanting to leave, all of us trapped here would do the same. But I am responsible for the safety of my clan, and I knew that your presence here was our best chance to find a way home. So I hope you understand why I couldn’t let you go.”
Even as Tess was flabbergasted by Nantale’s betrayal, she couldn’t help but be impressed by her ruthless loyalty to her clan.
“Except now we’re all trapped here,” Tess fumed. “How am I supposed to help you if I can’t get back to New York?”
“I am still trapped here,” Nantale clarified. “You are not.”
“But—the bridge!” Tess sputtered.
“There is another way across the river, a boat. As far as I know, I am the only vampire who ever discovered it. You will find the boat tied to a dock at the base of the cliffs beneath the bridge. There’s a stairwell you may walk to reach it.”
“So you knew,” Tess marveled. “You knew that destroying the bridge would intensify my motivation to find a way off the island, without actually trapping me here.”
“I never asked to be a leader. But it’s a burden I carry with pride.” Nantale lifted her chin, then nodded toward Artie. “Ride quickly. I need to ready the clan in case Felix plans to attack us tonight—that may be part of his strategy. But you must go. Callum is waiting. Do not fail us, girl.”
Tess nodded, tears in her eyes. Part of her wanted to go back into the compound, to change her clothes, to say goodbye to Sylvie, but she knew there wasn’t time for any of that—she mounted the horse and started riding like hell. Artie was equal to the moment, cantering furiously down the paths they’d trod together weeks ago, before Callum had even been injured, before he’d meant anything more to her than a character in a story. She couldn’t believe how listless she’d felt then, how adrift. Now, wearing the dress Sylvie had made her, the necklace Callum had given her, charged with a mission from Nantale, she’d never felt a stronger sense of purpose in her life.
When they reached the bridge, Tess dismounted and looked for the stairway Nantale described—it was carved into the cliffs, nearly invisible if you didn’t know where to look. And at the bottom, just as Nantale had said, there was a dock and a rowboat—both made of crystal, of course.
Tess took a deep breath. It felt like everything was happening too quickly; Tess’s time on the Isle had transformed her life, and now, in an instant, it would be over.
She stroked Artie’s neck. “Thank you for everything,” she murmured, and he nuzzled his head against hers. “You know how to get home?”
He looked at her, seeming to understand. She gently slapped his haunch, and he took off into the night.
The top of the stairway was drenched in hot sunshine, at least twenty feet out of the darkness so no vampire could reach it. Tess rushed down the stairs and flew down the dock, climbing carefully into the crystal rowboat.
Tess quickly noticed she had a problem, though: The boat had no oars.
“What do I do?” she muttered. “How do I get to Bar Between?”
As soon as she said the words, the boat set into motion, pulling away from the dock and speeding across the river. The short journey was unbelievably beautiful, the lilac water spraying alongside the boat, the sunlight glittering in rainbows as it refracted through the jagged remnants of the crystal bridge overhead. But Tess couldn’t appreciate it—all she could think about was getting back to New York, and to Callum, before it was too late.
The boat docked on the other side, and Tess disembarked and ran through the little forest clearing as fast as she could until she reached the dome made of petrified wood she’d come through what felt like forever ago. She took one moment to turn back and see the Isle—it seemed so small, all the way across the river. Would she ever see it again? It didn’t matter now. She walked up to the dome, pushed the door forward, and walked through, off of the Isle and back to the bar between worlds.