Heart of Vengeance (Alice Worth #6) - Lisa Edmonds Page 0,158

regions that might have been other worlds, or just my brain playing tricks on me. I wasn’t entirely sure if I was actually seeing anything while we were inside the current. I certainly couldn’t see Ronan, though I felt his arms around me holding tight. I might have even dozed a bit, since the journey was so tranquil.

The landing, on the other hand, was another thing altogether.

In Ronan’s defense, I’d made it clear I wanted the vamps to think I’d come out of the mirror, and mirror travelers did not land gracefully or smoothly when they arrived on the other side.

With no warning, and absolutely no control over what my body was doing, I shot out of the peaceful ocean current into familiar-smelling air. I dropped like a rock and landed face-first on what felt like a very expensive rug covering a stone floor. Ow.

With a groan, I rolled to my side. I knew before I opened my eyes that I was home. The ambient magic of my world was unmistakable. Home, home, home. My magic, partially tuned to the Broken World, surged and re-tuned itself. I exhaled in a long sigh and unbuckled my backpack. Sean would sense my return through our bond, I hoped, and know I was alive and home.

The knot of death magic twinged sharply. I wrapped my arms around my stomach, opened my eyes, and stared.

I’d expected to land in the same room I’d departed from in the lower level of Northbourne. Clearly they’d moved the mirror to a room I’d never been in before.

From my vantage point on the floor, I saw stone walls bare except for alcoves where candles burned, a low ceiling, and a tall bed. Over the bed, the ceiling was painted with a mural of two dark-haired women sitting at a table holding cups of wine. An arched doorway to my left led to what looked like a closet filled with dresses and evening gowns. Another led to a bathroom as large as this room, with a small swimming pool in the middle. Or maybe that was the tub.

Other than the elaborate bathroom, the suite was very plain and smelled of a hundred ancient scents I’d recognized instinctively even before my eyes and brain processed the room and its contents. Valas.

They’d moved the mirror to Valas’s rooms. That told me a lot—most especially that she wanted to be waiting if and when I returned with the scroll. I didn’t see or sense Ronan or Esme anywhere, but I had to assume they were here, hidden by some kind of glamour.

A familiar man wearing enforcer black leaned over me. “Ms. Worth?”

I coughed and struggled to sit up. “Matthias.”

He surprised me by offering his hand. I waved him back and staggered to my feet, making no effort to hide how difficult it was for me to rise. I looked like hell, so it should be easy to fool them into thinking I was in bad shape. Okay, worse shape. I might need all the advantages I could get.

As it turned out, I was in far, far better shape than the woman on the bed.

“Oh, shit,” I breathed.

At first, I saw only Valas’s lower torso, legs, and arms, since her shoulders and head were hidden by the woman whose throat she was drinking from. Though she faced away from me, I recognized Niara, another member of the Vampire Court, from her signature brightly colored dress and elaborately styled hair. She was leaning over Valas, almost lying across her upper body, presumably because Valas could not lift her own head from her pillow to drink.

Valas’s body was covered by her dress, but her hands and forearms were visible—or what was left of them. Most of her hands and part of her arms had turned to ash, and the flesh that remained was black. The way the dress lay flat on the bed indicated parts of her legs and torso had crumbled to ash as well. She was dying slowly, an inch at a time. Probably the only reason she’d lasted until I came back was by drinking from the other members of the Court. If we’d taken just a day or two more—or our net time in the Underworld had been longer than two weeks—I would have been too late.

Despite everything Valas had done to me, my stomach contracted. Our relationship had always been difficult. From the moment I’d realized she’d allowed Miraç to kidnap and torture me and use me as his puppet,