Treachery Queen (The Callistra Chronicles #1)

TWENTY-NINE

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"Wake up, gem."

Pasiphae thought that surely she was dreaming. There was a warmth under her head and a coolness on her face, brushing from her forehead down her chin. All at once she could feel nothing and everything.

She opened her eyes and saw Seth, his face hovering above her, unharmed.

"Hi."

Pasiphae bolted upright. Seth moved back just in time, very narrowly avoiding a head collision.

Her first instinct was to grip the floor with every inch of her palms to make sure that she was really on solid ground. Her hands only made semi-contact. She was—but she wasn't. They were atop a drain covering, it would seem, and below, there was nothing but dark water, lapping quietly.

"What happened?" she demanded. "What— ah." That last exclamation of pain had sounded as she shifted some of her weight onto her left arm. She brought her throbbing limb to her face, where most of the skin was a mess of shredded ribbons.

"I tried to heal you," Seth whispered. "It didn't work as well as I had hoped."

"It'll heal on its own," Pasiphae figured, wincing. It was going to leave a scar. A big scar. "What happened?"

She looked up when Seth didn't respond, his attention on her wrecked arm. A muscle on his face ticked.

"What happened?" Pasiphae prompted again, touching the tense part of his jaw lightly.

Seth lifted his gaze. He was looking at her like she was set to disappear, an apparition born from a wishing well.

Pasiphae quirked up half her mouth. "What?"

Seth shook his head. "Nothing." He gave his leg a jerk, trying to loosen the chain that looped around his ankle on one end and looped around a bar on the other.

Pasiphae's ankle was secured down too. She pulled at it strategically, sliding along the bar until she mirrored Seth's position. They sat shoulder to shoulder, leg to leg, heads lolled back against the cold metal.

On all four sides, iron bars held them in, locking the two within a solitary confinement that was still in the open.

They were caged birds.

Every sound they made echoed tenfold into the hollow space. As the sweat from her sudden awakening started to fade, the cold from the darkness on the other side of the bars crept into her bones.

"I don't know when I blacked out," Pasiphae admitted.

"That's probably for the best," Seth said.

She looked up. A single bulb kept them out of the velveteen ink.

"Is it still the Winter Solstice?" Pasiphae asked quietly.

"You bet," Seth replied, shivering. His coat was back on. His golden wings were out of sight.

They fell into silence.

"You could have died."

Pasiphae turned her head. "What?"

"We saw the video footage," Seth said. "They killed that Unseelie—Kader—because Lauha didn't talk. You could have died. I would have let you die."

"Yet here I am, alive." Pasiphae tried to roll her eyes, but in that moment, she couldn't quite fake the flippancy. "If the queen wanted me dead, I would be dead. It wouldn't have mattered if you talked or not."