thought. I mentally threw it half a peace sign, and I waited.
The door creaked and I tensed, lifting the dagger despite my initial queasiness. It was Bahlin. He again held his finger to his lips and motioned for me to follow him. Heart thundering in my throat, I padded along behind him barefoot. We passed through the bedroom, and he held up a hand for me to stop while he checked the hallway. He was gone for only a few moments before he came back and took my hand, tugging me forward. I was so terrified my bowels felt loose.
Bahlin looked back over his shoulder and, with more breath than voice, said, “There’s a doorway at the end of this hall. Last I checked, it opened into a large foyer with three doors inside it. I’ll go through and check each door until I find the exit. The sithen has been known to move things about to trap the non-fae inside, so wait for my all-clear signal.”
My eyes must have widened perceptibly because Bahlin just shook his head, took my shaking hand and led me forward. As promised, there was a large wooden door banded with metal and sporting a huge metal locking mechanism at the end of the light-suffused hallway. Physically setting me to the side of the door, thus leaving me partially hidden once the door was opened, he peered into the foyer beyond. I breathed in shallow pants, afraid to draw any attention to myself, continuing to grip the dagger in my right hand and fisting my left. I was ready to defend myself as well as I might should trouble find us, and I knew without a doubt that it was actively looking.
Bahlin returned to me in minutes, deftly reaching around the edge of the door and grabbing my wrist above the hand that held the knife. Wise man, er, dragon. I squeaked involuntarily and then mentally flagellated myself for my lack of bravery. Fake it ’til you make it, Niteclif, I chastised myself. Bahlin seemed to hear my thoughts because he rolled his eyes and shook his head, dragging me forward. He stopped in the doorway and looked at me closely. “Take a deep breath.”
My heart jumped. “Why?”
“I can feel your pulse, and it’s making me nervous.”
“Sorry,” I said, and attempted to draw my hand away from his forearm.
“I didn’t ask you to let go of me, only to control your breathing.”
I shifted my hand to grip him with my fingertips, though I still clenched his arm.
“Here,” he said, and took my hand, lacing his fingers through mine. He squeezed my fingers in reassurance. “Better?”
I took a deep breath and nodded. We moved forward.
There was no sign of anyone in the foyer and only one door was open. Darkness shown beyond the doorway like a savior’s beacon and we streaked across the foyer like twin wraiths, emerging into the night like we’d been belched from the earth. The night air felt as if it breathed through the open doorway like it was the nose of a sleeping giant. I could feel the fresh air move past my cheek, back and forth, back and forth.
Once we were outside, the door slammed shut behind us with an echoing bang making us both jump, and then I had both feet on the ground at the same time. My body was suddenly lifted up by an unseen force and thrown backward toward the now grassy hillside, no door in existence. I was slammed down with something as resonant as a sonic boom. My body felt as if the reverberations had dislodged major organs, and my heart hurt for a moment. I lay there, stunned, staring at the night sky and relearning how to breathe.
“What in great glory’s name,” I wheezed, “just happened?”
“So much for stealth,” Bahlin said, grinning. “I forgot to tell you that, as a mortal, you would immediately gather all the time you’d spent inside the sithen. Inside, your lifespan is increased a thousand fold. Outside, well, you catch up with whatever time you lost. Since you’re not aging while you’re the Niteclif, it just hurts like hell. Your body is shocked but not affected.”
I pushed myself to sit with a grunt. “And it never dawned on either of you to tell me this before I left, huh?”
“It’s not like we had a great opportunity, Maddy,” Bahlin said softly. “We were, I was, more worried about keeping you alive.”