Elowen had caught up to them, emerging from a split farther down the corridor. She’d snatched Finn away from Greer and now struggled to hold him back. She swung her legs forward, scratching at him with curved talons. Her wings snapped forward, striking punishing blows at his head, smothering him in an enveloping embrace.
Their brawl left lingering phantom trails across Greer’s retinas. As she watched Finn’s shape blur, stretched and elongated into impossible forms, a terrifying realization struck her.
I’ve been poisoned.
Something in the Bright-Eyeds’ bite obscured her reason and made clear thoughts impossible. She knew some predators used venom to stun their prey, subduing them to an apathetic death. She tested her reflexes—opening and closing her hands—and felt certain the Bright-Eyeds were behind her indifference.
Greer slapped at her cheeks, trying to rip herself from the fog. She needed to help Finn, but she struggled to understand the fight. A thrown punch, the tear of talons across webbed membranes. Bared fangs and the smash of skulls knocked together. She caught only slivers, and could not stir herself to action.
But then Elowen was down, screaming and clutching at her face as her form sank into the shadows, and Finn was back, his grip an insistent pressure, digging into her shoulder.
“We need to go,” he gasped, fighting for breath. His voice sounded garbled and choked with blood; Greer didn’t know if it was his or Elowen’s.
“Go?” she echoed.
“You can’t face her in this state.”
She lost track of where they were. Tunnels bled together into a labyrinthine nightmare. There were too many turns to follow, too many corridors that looked just like the ones that had come before.
“Where are we going?”
“There’s another way out. A back entrance, from when the cave was first explored. It’s hard to get to. It was never mined.”
“Are we going to see Ellis?”
As the words fell from her, she knew they were not the right ones, knew there was other things that should be asked. They needed to form a new plan, strategize and plot. But the only thing her muddled mind could focus upon with any clarity was Ellis.
Finn didn’t respond.
“Where is he? Does he know…”
She stopped, unsure of what to ask. Did he know what she was? She’d seen the look of understanding cross over his face before he’d thrown the knife at Elowen. Did he know about Ailie, about what her mother’s plan had been? Had Finn explained it? She doubted any version of the story Elowen might have told would have been accurate. Greer barely comprehended it all herself.
Did he know—despite everything that had happened, despite the thing she’d become—that she loved him still?
Greer would never be able to voice that question aloud. Not to Finn. Everything he’d done had been to help her achieve what Ailie had dreamed of. Greer didn’t know if it was his devotion to her mother or an affection for her, but to ask now would be too cruel.
Ahead of them, the tunnel opened up, revealing a large cavern. With what remained of Ailie’s heightened senses, Greer could just make out the larger space; she estimated it was at least a few hundredfeet long. A questionable-looking bridge of ancient ropes and wooden planks spanned it.
They stopped at the end of the tunnel, where the ground fell away, plummeting to depths that even Greer could not see.
“What is this place?” she asked, reaching for Finn. Her head spun from confusion and vertigo. She worried that if she toppled over the edge she’d never stop falling.
“The way out,” Finn said, shifting so he could steady her with human hands. “We’ll find somewhere you can clear your head.” He peered down with such concern, she wondered how wild she must look. “You can’t fight them like this, and I can’t hold off so many on my own.”
Even through her bewildered haze, she noted the deep gash blooming across his chest, reddening his shirt. She opened the collar and caught sight of four deep gouges carved into his chest. “You’re wounded.”
He nodded. “We need blood. There’s nothing in these tunnels.”
“It feels bad here,” she whispered, her lungs tight in her chest. The air around them seemed off, too thick and bristling with unseen barbs.
Finn nodded across the bridge. “The miners had only just begun clearing out this section of the caves when Laird was attacked. There’s still so much iron…” His eyes flickered over the dark rocks on the other side with trepidation.
“Is that why they aren’t following us?” Greer glanced back down the tunnel they’d come from and coughed. “It hurts too much.”
Finn nodded. “And they’re taking stock of their dead, I’d guess. I saw the remains out in the yard.” He offered her a faint smile of praise. “You did well. I think…when the time comes, the court will respect you.”
Greer looked up at him. “I don’t want to lead them,” she admitted. “I don’t want to have anything to do with them, with this place, with any of it.”
