said he would give me you and the flute. Do—you—have—it?”
My heart sinks to my stomach. No, it crashes to the depths of the pit. I’ve been a fool. She doesn’t love me. She came for the flute. “No,” I whisper. “They destroyed it.” I almost told her when she first bargained for the flute, despite Bastien’s knife at my throat, but I feared she wouldn’t make the trade just for me. I was right.
Odiva growls in sheer frustration, nothing like herself. “I won’t let you take her, do you hear me?” she yells into the pit.
The rope dips a third time. Our eyes meet. Hers are shining. With anger or sadness, I can’t tell. “I have tried, Ailesse. This is the only way.”
“What do you mean?” Tears scald my cheeks.
She pushes off the wall toward the other side of the chasm. The rope breaks, but she doesn’t fall. She lets go and grips the jagged stones of the opposite wall. With perfect dexterity and remarkable speed, she climbs out of the pit. And leaves me to my death.
I choke out a sob. This can’t be happening. This is cruelty, pure and cold and heartless.
This is the end.
My grip is about to give way when hands close over my hands. Warm. Strong.
I look up. Bastien’s face swims into focus. It isn’t flushed with anger, but pale with fear.
He leans down, precariously dangling from a ledge I’ve been unable to reach. He grasps one of my wrists and holds it fiercely. Chalky dust falls from his hair as he saws my bonds apart with his knife.
I don’t understand, can’t comprehend. He can’t be rescuing me. It’s unfathomable.
He sheathes his knife and opens his hand to me. I hesitate to take it. My mind is black, already sucked into the depths below. How can I return to a world where I mean so little? It would be so easy right now to let go and give my soul to Elara.
“Reach for me!” Bastien says. His eyes are wide and desperate. He’ll die if I die. Now I understand why he’s come for me.
“I can’t.” I curse every tear streaking down my face, every quaking muscle in my body. “My mother abandoned me.”
“But I won’t.” The panic leaves his voice. It’s steady now, sure. It paves a solid foundation beneath me.
I gaze into his eyes. The sea blue is deep, enveloping, beautiful.
Is it possible Bastien isn’t saving me just to save himself?
I can save him, too.
All I have to do is find the strength to reach.
“Ailesse,” he says. “Pull yourself up. Take my hand.”
I imagine myself a warrior, the Ferrier I always wanted to be. I imagine Elara’s Light coursing through my veins. I picture the silver owl, her wings outspread and championing me.
I set my jaw. And I reach.
19
Sabine
I RUSH INTO THE COURTYARD of Château Creux. Sweat slicks my palms as I glance around the moonlit cavern. Odiva and the elders aren’t back yet. The ravine entrance to the catacombs is a little over seven miles away from here, but even in the dark, they should have run that distance in an hour with their graces. It’s been three hours since I left them. Traveling through the catacombs might have slowed them down. Injuries could, too.
So could failing to save Ailesse.
My shoulders fall. Did you really believe anyone else could save her, Sabine? I drop my head and tuck the nighthawk under my arm. He’s unnaturally stiff, and he’s lost his warmth. My stomach squirms.
I did this to him.
“Sabine?” Maurille, a middle-aged Leurress, steps out from another tunnel. Lines of worry cut across the bronze skin of her brow.
I startle and angle away. My bow and quiver thump against my back, and I poke the nighthawk’s feathers out of view.
“Are you all right?” The beads woven through Maurille’s rows of ebony braids clack against each other as she tilts her head. She gave me two of her best beads after my mother died, ones made of red jasper. I later threaded them onto my necklace beside my fire salamander skull. I don’t know why I’m acting so guarded around her. Maurille was my mother’s closest friend. “I haven’t seen you since Ailesse . . .” she starts to say, then shakes her head and sighs. “I hope you know that wasn’t your fault.”
People only say such things when it probably is. “The matrone is rescuing her,” I reply. “She’ll be back with her soon.”