It was almost midnight when Audrey and I at last approached Malcolm’s mansion. Not exactly the best time to attack the home of a shadow mage, but we were running out of time. All we had left was tomorrow. After that, I was supposed to hand over a Binder to Malcolm fucking Griffith. And there was not a chance in hell that I would ever give a weapon like that to someone like him.
I glanced up at the dark sky above. At least in the time it had taken me and Audrey to get back home, change into dry clothes, and throw together a hasty plan, it had thankfully stopped raining. That whole situation while we watched Sienna’s house was another nest of vipers that I didn’t have time to worry about right now. What I had done had only made things worse, I knew that. I should have just let her sit there with her damn chattering teeth in the miserable cold rain. But I…
Shaking my head, I shoved the thoughts aside. This was neither the time nor the place to be worrying about that.
“The odds of us doing this without having to battle Malcolm are incredibly low,” Audrey whispered as we snuck across the darkened grasslands.
“You’ve said that already.”
“Yeah, well, it bears repeating since you’re the least sneaky person I’ve ever met.”
“Again, says the girl who thought she was sneaky but ended up being outsmarted by me.”
She shot me a scorching scowl. “Just do as I say. Keep your attacks unnoticeable and quiet.”
Before I could retort, a dark shape became visible farther out on the grass.
We stopped.
Without bothering to say anything, Audrey touched her hands together and called up a cloud of poison. It gave off a faint green light as she threw it towards the guard ahead.
As if alerted by the unnatural light, he whipped his head in our direction. I had summoned a force lance and was just about to hurl it at him when Audrey’s poison slammed into his face.
He crumpled to the ground instantaneously.
For a few moments, we remained motionless on the grass. The black mansion ahead lay dark and still. When no alarms were raised, we started towards it again.
Keeping the grip on my force lance, I swept my gaze over Malcolm’s grounds while we made our way towards the dead guard. When we passed him, I stopped and rammed my half-translucent lance into his chest.
“What are you doing?” Audrey hissed, annoyance flickering across her face. “I had already killed him.”
“I know.” Meeting her gaze, I raised my eyebrows as if that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard. “But if this doesn’t work, we have to make it seem like I attacked alone, which means that it can’t look like they died of poison. Otherwise, Malcolm will know that we’re working together.”
“That’s…” Trailing off, she scrunched up her eyebrows. “That’s actually pretty smart.”
I shot her a pointed glare. “What’s with the actually?”
She just smirked in reply and then started towards the mansion again. After suppressing the urge to ram a force blade into her back, I blew out an exasperated breath and followed her.
Two more guards appeared out of the gloom. These ones were looking almost in our direction, so I held up a hand to stop Audrey from summoning her magic. The glittering green would draw their attention before the poison could reach them. My force magic, on the other hand, wasn’t nearly as visible in this darkness.
Pressing my palms together, I called up a force arc and threw it at their heads. It spun silently through the night, and after only a few strides, I lost sight of it. The result, however, was clearly visible.
One moment, the guards were standing there alert as they scanned the area slightly to our left. A second later, their heads fell from their bodies. Audrey let out a huff that I couldn’t quite interpret as their bodies collapsed to the ground as well.
Leaves rustled in the strong winds that still whirled across the landscape. We reached Malcolm’s back porch just as thick clouds blew across the moon, blocking out all light. Grabbing Audrey’s arm, I pulled her to a halt before she could step up onto the dark stone floor that separated the back door from the grass. Without the moonlight to illuminate the area, I could barely even see her standing next to me anymore.
“This was far too easy,” I whispered.
“I agree,” she breathed. “Which means that the real security will be inside the mansion.”
“Yeah. So be ca—” I stopped myself before I could say something like that, again, and instead changed it to, “Stay alert.”
The clouds at last blew clear. Silvery light from the moon once more illuminated the world around us. While letting go of Audrey’s arm, I scanned the empty back porch.
It was really just a square-shaped slab of dark stone, or whatever material Malcolm’s mansion was made of, with no other features on it. No railing. Not even furniture. Though to be fair, Malcolm had never struck me as the kind of person who lounged in a chair on a sunlit porch.
Once we had made sure that no guards were approaching from across the grass, we turned to face each other and nodded in unison. Then we stepped onto the porch.
Getting through the door would be difficult. Or rather, it would be difficult to get through it quietly. But I was pretty sure that I had a move that could work. I squinted at the handle and lock while we closed the distance.
A click sounded.
Alarm pulsed through me as dark walls shot up from the ground. Whipping around, I tried to find a way out, but glossy black stone walls had sprung up on all three sides. With the mansion serving as the fourth wall, it created a kill box.
“Callan,” Audrey hissed.
I snapped my head up to find another slab of stone being pushed out from the mansion wall. Cold dread surged inside my chest when I realized that it would create a roof above us as well. Not only would we be completely trapped, it would also leave us in utter darkness. At a shadow mage’s mansion. Shit. I had to get her out.
“Hurry!” I snapped.
Crouching down, I knitted my fingers together and held them before her legs. She immediately stepped into it.
The roof slid closer.
I pushed up from the floor, launching Audrey up into the air. She grabbed the wall and heaved herself up on the edge. It had barely been more than ten seconds since the walls shot up, but the roof already covered three quarters of the box.
Holding on to the edge with one hand, Audrey stretched her other arm down towards me. Surprise swirled up inside me. I had expected her to just leave me there without even trying to help. After all, I already knew that she was plotting to double-cross me at some point. And this would have been the perfect way to do it.
But instead of taking her hand, I shook my head. “If you try to pull me up, you’ll just fall back down here too.” I jerked my chin. “Go.”
We might have been able to figure something out if we’d had more time. The edge of the wall was too far up for me to jump on my own, and Audrey was not physically strong enough to haul my entire body weight up the final distance. Not to mention that the roof was speeding towards the wall.
A tangle of emotions flashed across Audrey’s beautiful face, but in the end, she yanked her hand back up and rolled off the edge of the wall and out of sight. The roof slammed shut above me a few seconds later.
Complete darkness pressed in on me from all sides. I couldn’t even see my hand if I held it up in front of my face. Straining my ears, I tried to make out any sort of sound on the other side of the door. As far as I could tell, there was nothing.
I ran a hand over my jaw. Maybe Malcolm had sent some of his people to Grant’s mansion to help him fight off Sienna. After all, they were supposed to have an alliance in place. If that was the case, I might still have a chance to get out of this.
Raising my hand, I held it out in front of me while I walked towards where the door should be. Cool stone appeared under my palm after a few steps. Since I still couldn’t see anything, I had to feel my way down the door until I found the handle. Unsurprisingly, it was locked.
While keeping the back of my hand brushing against the handle, I touched my palms together and summoned a force blade.
After once again checking where the handle was, I pushed the vibrating blade into the stone next to where the locking mechanism should be. My hand just bounced back. I couldn’t see it happen, of course, but I knew that the force blade hadn’t been able to cut through the stone. Irritation crackled through my veins. What the hell was this damn mansion made of?
Backing up, I decided to go for strength rather than stealth.
A wide force scythe appeared as I slammed my palms together. I hurled it at the wall.
It crashed into it with a wham. Since I had no idea how much damage it had done, I just called up another and threw that one as well. And then another. And another.
Rage roared through me as I continued attacking the wall.
Malcolm fucking Griffith. That damn stunt he pulled by taking Henry had messed up everything. I’d had it all. Henry by my side, Lance in my dungeon, and Audrey in chains. And now everything I had worked for was slipping through my fingers. By all hell, I was going to make that bloody shadow mage surrender to me and then I was going to get everything back to the way it was supposed to be.
My body froze.
I tried to bring my palms together again but it was as if my arms refused to obey me. Then I felt a cool silken tendril slither across my bare throat, and I suddenly understood exactly what had happened.
A stream of light appeared before me as the door was cracked open. It widened until the back door reached the wall on the other side. Light shone from across the threshold, making the figure standing in the middle of the doorway appear like only a dark silhouette.
“That was a lot of noise you were making,” Malcolm Griffith said.
I said nothing. His shadows tightened around my limbs, keeping my body immobile, as he took a step onto the porch. The change in position allowed the light to at last illuminate his face. What I found there wasn’t anger. It was something even worse. Disgust.
“I used to respect you quite a bit, Callan.” He flicked brown eyes full of disdain up and down my body. “But this is just pathetic.”
There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t make me look even more pathetic and weak, so I just stared back at him in silence.
“I told you to come back with the Binder,” Malcolm continued when it became apparent that I wasn’t going to answer. “And yet, here you are. Without him.”
“I can’t find Audrey,” I growled at him.
Malcolm let out a derisive laugh and then raised his eyebrows expectantly. “Well, then I suggest that you spend what precious time you have left locating her instead of launching futile attacks on my mansion. The only way you’re getting your loyal right-hand man back is if you give me the Binder. So find him.”
“Are you fucking deaf? I said I’m trying, but I can’t find them.”
The shadow around my throat tightened in a flash, cutting off my air and my ability to speak. Candlelight from inside the mansion flickered across the side of Malcolm’s face as he advanced on me. I just kept my eyes locked on his.
“I can be a very patient man, Callan.” He stopped a single stride in front of me and cocked his head. “But I am not right now. Get me the Binder, or I will make sure your man dies such a horrible death that you will weep just thinking about the day when you made the immensely ill-advised decision to double-cross me and take Lance for yourself.”
Hatred flared up inside me, but all I could do was stand there and glare at him while his shadows kept me trapped.
“You have tomorrow.” He gave me a cold smile. “If you fail to deliver the Binder to me by first light the day after tomorrow, you will know exactly what it is like to truly wage a war against someone like me. And trust me, that is not something you wish to experience.” He snapped his fingers, making his shadows tighten until pain flickered through my entire body. “So I suggest you hurry.”
For a few moments, he just stood there watching me. His eyes searched my face as if trying to read any pain or fear on my features. I wasn’t afraid of Malcolm Griffith, and I had learned long ago how to hide pain, so I just stared back at him.
In the end, he just huffed out an amused breath and spun on his heel. His shadows remained in place while he strode back across the porch.
My lungs were desperate for air, and my arms and legs ached from how hard his shadows were coiled around them, but there was nothing I could do about that so I just watched as Malcolm walked across the threshold.
When he turned around, he was once more just a dark silhouette against the light inside the room.
He watched me for another couple of seconds. Then he leaned out and grabbed the door before pulling it shut once more.
The light that filled the kill box slowly disappeared as the gap in the door grew smaller. Then it clicked shut.
Oppressive darkness fell around me again.
And the shadows remained.
At that point, my body was screaming for oxygen and I had to blink repeatedly to keep from blacking out. Just when I thought Malcolm was actually going to kill me and go after Audrey on his own, the pressure on my neck and limbs disappeared.
I collapsed to the porch.
While I was sucking in deep breaths to refill my lungs, the roof above me withdrew and the walls sank back into the ground.
I half expected Audrey to be standing there, waiting for me on the grass.
But as I lifted my head and looked out at the landscape around the porch, only dark grasslands stared back at me.
