Chapter Forty

The moment Rebel crossed the threshold, she sensed magic ripple.

Passing through the invisible ward felt like stepping through a sticky cloud. But no alarm sounded. No lycanthropes appeared. As silent as moths, they slunk down the stairway, passing bones from dozens of not-so-lucky trespassers. With each step, descending into darkness, Rebel’s nerves tingled up her spine until they reached the bottom of the stairs where the passage curved into a chamber. The same lair she’d escaped from with Anjeline.

Now she was willingly entering it.

The drone of trains seemed so far away. A flicker of light came from the den. Like photographs, nightmarish memories rushed Rebel’s mind, and she wondered if they were about to stumble into a horde of sleeping beasts or something more bloody. Piran signaled for her to wait, peeked his head around the corner, then waved for her.

In another step, they were within the lair.

Rebel released a breath. To her relief, it was empty. No dozing half-human forms sleeping on cushions, no cuddling pups. Still, that scent lingered. Into the velvet-lined chamber they crept. Her pulse twanged under her skin as she imagined the place filled with hairy figures, snapping muzzles, and glinting fangs.

“This way,” Piran said, stepping through the den leading to a hall.

“Where does this lead?” she asked.

“It dead-ends into the Court.” He inched his body along the wall.

Light flittered from the candles set into niches and dangling from the ceiling roots, like in a medieval cavern. Countless crimson doors lined the hallways, the architecture of the place digging deep into London’s earth, like cannibalized remains that had been melted together to create something resembling a court system underground. Rebel’s sixth sense probed the walls of its underbelly, wondering how far away Anjeline was. The journey through it was as if they were waking from a nightmare, struggling to understand where things fit.

The sound of footsteps drew near.

She snapped her hand to her satchel, trying to hide it, and held her breath. But the footfalls trailed off into a chamber. Piran gave a nod and they glided by the doorway, but not before Rebel caught sight of what occupied the chamber. Two men in shimmering red caps held down a doe-eyed boy with small wings. One of the men locked his arm around the boy’s neck, and with his other hand, produced an iron knife. As the man pressed it against the boy’s wing, it sizzled his skin before he sliced the wing.

Rage bubbled in Rebel’s stomach, but Piran yanked her forward, stumbling down the hall as the distant screams echoed. “They won’t kill him,” he whispered. “It’s what they do to those who don’t bow before the Prince.”

Soon, the corridor sloped down through a maze of other halls, where it seemed they might hit the center of the earth. They snuck through an impressive hallway with richly carpeted floors, through a yellow hall carpeted with grass, through a blue hall with no carpet at all, and at last, they turned a corner and stopped. At the far end of the corridor were steel double doors—their destination. Only, there was a problem.

Four problems in fact.

Two creatures as large as lions flanked the entrance, blinking their amber eyes, while two others in human form guarded the front, arguing in hushed growls. One of them happened to be a familiar redhead. Vandal.

Panicking, Rebel pushed Piran back around the corner, out of sight. “Wasn’t counting on that twin to appear,” he whispered.

By his blank look, she realized, “You don’t have a plan B, do you?”

He shook his head. “I’m palpitating. This is bad.”

“Not that bad. I’ve dealt with worse heists.” Though, she noted, those didn’t involve lycanthropes. She tried controlling her breathing, not letting on just how unprepared for this they were. “Fourth rule of thieving: plan two ways in and three ways out,” she said. “There has to be another route to the Court. Think of your father’s maps.”

For a moment, Piran’s glamoured face scrunched up, then a sly grin emerged, revealing a fang. “The kitchen,” he said. “There’s an entry at the far end, leading into the Court’s ballroom.” He turned back around and headed to a different corridor. Through an archway, he led her to a blackened door, where clouds of steam puffed through the cracks.

“Stay close,” he said, and they entered to a clatter of noise and chaos.

The Court’s kitchen was a vast chamber crowded with fire stoves and sizzling caldrons. Vines twined up the walls, and the marble floor was covered in grease and crimson grime. Several gangly feyries carried buckets and bowls of dead things, blackened fruit, and gallons of wine. Others were gathered around a table, popping grasshoppers in their hands, pulling their wings off, and sucking on the insect legs.

Dewdrops of sweat dotted Rebel’s forehead. Bowing her head, she walked behind Piran, staying near the wall, grateful all eyes were focused elsewhere. More of those men wearing red caps wielded heavy cleavers, chopping piles of meat. Rebel turned nauseous, her feet picking up pace as Piran made a beeline toward a door at the far end of the kitchen.

She slipped by a taller feyrie stirring a caldron, and his head tipped up. “Lovely Styria?” he called.

Rebel paused and her gaze trailed to his.

The feyrie grinned at her. No, she reminded herself, he is grinning at Styria. “Have a taste. Plucked them just for you,” he purred and held out a plum, his hand covered in crimson—what she hoped was berry pulp. The corner of his mouth twitched, and she realized there wasn’t a way out of this.

Swallowing down her dread, she took the plum. Farther ahead, tucked behind a corner, Piran was shaking his head at her like mad. The plum was warm to her touch as if hot nectar ran beneath its skin. One bite couldn’t do that much damage.

She took a cautious nibble, and sighed. “Mmm.”

The taste gushed through her veins. A flavor of fiery liqueur. It tasted of yearning, of an ache that couldn’t be filled, needing to have more. She grabbed another plum, shoving it into her mouth. An infectious giddiness washed over her, and she laughed. Then an overwhelming sadness came. A fuzzy haze surfaced in her mind, so she couldn’t tell if she was up or down. Not for humans. Her heart spasmed, and she clutched at her chest.

“What’s wrong, Styria?” the feyrie said to her. “Don’t you like it?”

She shook away the fuzz of plum juice, ready to run. Her eyes caught Piran beginning to come to her, and then he stopped. He jerked back and slipped behind the corner again.

“Breaking more hearts, sis?”

Rebel froze in the act of pulling away. She swirled around, coming face-to-face with her male double. “Tease,” Vandal said. “Father wanted us guarding the door, not tempting the kitchen staff.”

“I…” She blinked a few times, imagining the kitchen doorway filling up with other fanged figures. But the twin was predictable. She could just about cope with him. “I’m not feeling so well—”

“Maybe because you’re not me.”

Rebel’s head snapped up at the voice. From the other end of the kitchen, in all her ginger-haired glory, Styria sauntered toward them, passing the corner where Piran crouched, unnoticed. Her gaze centered on Rebel while Vandal’s eyes glided from his sister to the other figure.

When the real Styria glanced his way, her eyes hardened. “So much for twins, if you can’t even tell when it isn’t me.” The she-wolf shoved her brother aside, grabbing a knife from the butcher’s table, and stepped toward Rebel. “Who are you?”

A figure bolted from the corner.

“Stop!” Piran held up a hand. “We’ve come to see the Prince.”

At the sight of his double, Vandal smiled. “Now this is something.”

Ignoring her rising pulse, Rebel advanced back a step, dipped her hand inside her satchel, and wrapped her fingers around a sphere, feeling it surge. “I’m positive the Prince will want to speak to us, unharmed,” she said calmly, but her voice held authority.

Styria squinted and swayed closer, extending one fingernail. “Oh, I’m sure he’ll want a word with both of you. But who in their right mind would dare enter our lair?”

“Someone who envies our ravishing looks,” Vandal supplied with a wink.

The twins studied them, clueless to Rebel’s true identity. Perhaps their talent for scenting her out had been obscured from the enchantment. Styria smiled devilishly at her doppelganger. “Never had a thing for myself before, but…”

“Get stuffed,” Rebel spat.

“Let’s not snap at the furry murder machines,” Piran whispered.

“Get…stuffed?” Like a switch, dawning emerged in Styria’s eyes. She bit her lip with one fanged tooth. “Be still my heart. If it isn’t the Fingersmith. Come back for your jinni after you made me look a fool?” A growl sprang from her throat.

“This time, I’ll have my taste.” Vandal altered, his shoulders lurching forward, red bristling fur erupting along his arms. Their faces morphed, popping bones into long muzzles.

A soft murmuring ran through the chamber, the sound of whispered laughter. The red-caps were watching now while others moved out of the way of whatever might happen.

Rebel glanced sideways at Piran. “Blue is for shocking?”

He nodded. “Extremely.”

In a flash, she pulled out a sphere, flinging it.

The Shockwave globe glinted as it spun, missing Styria by an inch and smashing into Vandal’s chest. As the sphere cracked—bolts of electric jetted out. For an instant, the room was lit as if by a sapphire sun. Vandal flailed, hitting the floor in convulsions with a thud, then a howl of pain. In a snarling cry, Styria darted toward him. It gave them the instant they needed. Rebel and Piran sprinted in the direction they’d come through.

A mayhem of noises followed after them.

Shouts and meat were hurled into the air. Rebel shouldered her way through a rack of pans, then spun off a feyrie, and Piran turned over the basket full of grasshoppers. Her pulse raged against her chest, her strides long and calculated. Halfway between the door and a caldron, a claw latched onto her leg, slicing her ankle. She gritted her teeth, stumbling and knocking over discarded cutlery. Ignoring her body’s protests, she withdrew another sphere. At her touch, the Inferno globe glowed. She tossed it to Piran. He flung it over his shoulder.

There was a crack.

All the air in the kitchen sucked into a tight core—then detonated. An eruption of red vapor filled the chamber, and a draft of heat flared at Rebel’s back. Fragments of metal, wood, and chow hurtled outward from the explosion. Screams echoed with whirls of movement and flashes of smoke and light.

It was only when they were two steps from the door that Rebel’s vision blurred, altered from the plum juice. Her heart told her to stop. She lunged for the kitchen door just as a meat cleaver embedded into it, inches from her head. In a sudden fluid leap, Styria plunged over the butcher’s table and onto the floor, crouching on all fours, followed by another blood-red lycan. It was too late, of course, but she reached for the doorknob to escape this hell.

Instead, she opened the door to another.

A dozen shapes stood beyond the doorway, low and snarling, their irises glowing amber, and a gray beast took one massive lurch forward. Wulfram.

“This,” said Rebel, “is bad.”