myself above jealousy. Never before had I felt envy, and I would not for one moment let myself show it.
Everything about this was mystifying. Alone for a thousand years, I’d stopped feeling anything beyond base desire for souls. Where my heart once beat, I now felt only the need to consume. And then she had showed up, smelling of jasmine and dark chocolate, and it had started to stir up the dormant impulses of my kind. She’d arrived, in danger, bleeding before me, and I started to feel something again. But it was all wrong. I couldn’t love anymore—I could only want things, and break them.
For a creature like me, feeling anything at all was very, very dangerous. At any moment, I could lose control and find that I’d destroyed her. She wasn’t nearly as scared of me as she should be.
No, I wrote calmly. I’m afraid I have no way to do that. Sleep now, and we’ll return to the Citadel at night. Despite my jealousy, it was the truth. Even if I could send ravens with messages into the Shadow Caverns, it would be too risky. Anyone could intercept them.
Her features hardened again. “Fine. Let’s steal the wand of a god, then. It sounds like a fantastic idea.”
Chapter 20
Ali
We stood at the base of the Citadel’s towering white walls. It wasn’t that long ago that we’d escaped from here. And now, like a true pair of idiots, we were about to break back in.
I rubbed my eyes, staring up at the walls. I’d hardly slept at all at Marroc’s house. I never could sleep when shit was hitting the fan, and shit was definitely hitting the fan.
Everything depended on me getting my hands on that ring. If that was truly the prize I was supposed to return to the Shadow Lords, only then would I be able to free my people. The Night Elves had been imprisoned far too long, and I’d do whatever I could to set them free.
At least I had dry boots and warm socks. In fact, I was dressed in my freshly cleaned assassin’s outfit. Back at his mansion, Marroc had shown me a strange pair of devices in his basement he called a washing machine and dryer. Genius things that had left my clothes softer and fluffier than they’d ever been—and best of all, they’d been warm on my body when I first put them on. I’d even thrown my coat in to warm it, although some of the fake fur was a bit melted when I pulled it out.
But now, with the snow rushing around us in whorls, I shivered a little as I looked up at the Citadel.
Still, I had my vergr crystal in my pocket, and Skalei ready if I needed it.
Marroc loomed next to me, wearing a large leather jacket. His magic snaked off him, blending with the shadows.
I took a long sip from the thermos he’d given me. The coffee tasted so delicious that it almost made me forgive him for this whole debacle.
The plan was bonkers, but it was all we had. Scale the wall of the Citadel, sneak over the rooftop, climb into the Well of Wyrd, find my ring. Then we’d travel to whatever world held Levateinn, assuming it existed. Allegedly, Marroc knew where it was, and he’d be able to use the wand to get us home.
Alternately, he was a soulless husk with a mind full of smoke and nonsense, and I was dumb as Helheim for going along with this.
He gently pulled the thermos out of my grasp. He turned, nodding at the Citadel. Seemed it was time to go.
“All right,” I whispered. “Let’s go.”
I stepped behind him, and he crouched down. Climbing onto his enormous back, I wrapped my arms around his neck. As he rose, he drew a pair of daggers. Long and sharp, they glinted in the moonlight, runes shining on their blades.
With me clinging to his back, he leapt into the air. At the top of his jump, he plunged the daggers into the wall of the Citadel. Stone crunched, and gravity jerked us downward, but the daggers held. Then, for what seemed like days, Marroc scaled the wall. Using the daggers like ice picks, he alternated punching them into the stone as he lifted us, hand over hand, up the sheer face of white marble.
The icy wind battered us as he climbed, and I clung tightly to him. Before, his body had felt cold, but now he was