Inside Warrick’s office, drawings of outliers were still covering the walls but everything else had been cleared out. The cabinet that had once contained the reports of Warrick’s subjects, had been emptied, and the drawers were left open as if Warrick had been in a hurry when he’d taken the files with him.
The lab next door looked much the same, though vials of blood still covered the wooden shelves around the room. The stone slab where I’d found Prince Azaren still held the cuffs I’d helped pry open, and blue blood was covering a portion of the floor like the fae prince had tipped over the bucket of his collected blood in his haste to escape.
Asher whistled as he eyed the drawings on the walls. “Well, this ain’t fuckin’ creepy at all.”
Locke moved quickly, rummaging through a selection of vials on one of the lower shelves until he found a few filled with a distinct gray powder. “We’re fucking lucky,” he said as he pocketed them.
“Great,” Asher said, turning from the drawings. “Now that you’ve found what we needed, let’s go get the asshole.”
The rest of us didn’t quite share Asher’s enthusiasm, but we exited the lab and began making our way up the mountain again. Kade heard noises coming from one of the tunnels we were about to travel up, so we ended up taking a detour. The rocky tunnel opened up to a massive cavern with a large pit in the middle of the space.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked, stopping to stare down into the massive black hole.
“The Pit of Reask,” Darian confirmed.
I paled.
“If you’re guessin’ the hole we tossed you down when you first arrived here, you’d be right, sweetheart,” Asher answered, watching my face.
I scowled, though my expression didn’t hold any real menace. “You four really were dicks, you know that, right?”
Darian placed a hand on his chest like he was offended. “In our defense, lovely, I was waiting below to ensure you didn’t all drown.”
I grinned. “I thought that was you in the water.”
“And right you were. We’re not barbarians,” Darian replied with a devilish smirk.
Asher smiled, baring his teeth. “Speak for yourself.”
Looking back down into the black hole, I frowned. “But if that’s the pit, it would mean the portal…” My words trailed off as I spotted the ring of blue fire burning close to the edge of the pit on the opposite side of the cavern. I scurried over and stopped close to the portal, my heart racing. My monsters followed.
“I can’t believe I’m standing here,” I said. There was a time when all I could think about was finding Cara and bringing her to this very spot. But that was before I’d realized how foolish I was being. Before I’d discovered Cara wasn’t even in Katakin City, and that she might not even want to leave.
“I’d thought it would be so simple, saving my sister,” I murmured, staring at the flames. “That by now we’d be back on my island. I was so stupid.”
“No,” Darian said, curling his arm around my waist and placing a kiss on my cheek. “If your sister was in the city, I have no doubt you would have found a way to bring her here.”
I leaned into his touch, and my lips twitched. “So…you’re saying you wouldn’t have stopped me from escaping?”
Asher grinned and gestured to the portal. “If you managed to get through there, nothing could have prevented us from goin’ after you. But I’m sure you would have kicked our asses for it.”
My smile grew wider, but my expression sobered when I noticed a glowing blue handprint close by on the rocky wall.
“What’s this?” I asked, pulling away from Darian and moving to inspect it.
Kade came up beside me. “When Queen Izla cursed this land, her handprint remained from where she infused her power into the rock.”
“This actually used to be part of the old treasury in the palace,” Darian added.
“Wait, her handprint has been here this whole time?” I said, my brows lifting.
“Like the portal, it appears to be indestructible,” Kade replied.
I don’t know what compelled me to do it, but before I could stop myself, I reached up, placing my palm on the glowing handprint.
And that’s when the world disappeared.
CHAPTER 19
