Page 30 of The Night Prince

My eyes adjust. Cold stale air floods my lungs. A corridor stretches into the distance, lined with doors. I approach one of them, and touch the symbol carved into smooth stone above the lock. It’s a key with two crescent moons in the bow. The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. It’s the same mark that I saw in the chapel.

Something moves behind the door, and I jump back.

Distant footsteps approach, and I turn my head. Someone whistles. The tune is familiar but off-key, and I cannot place it. Fear grips my heart. Every instinct in my body tells me to run.

I edge away from that sound.

I run.

I must be dreaming, but I cannot shake the feeling that if I’m caught, there will be consequences.

“Where are you going, little soul?”A male voice echoes around me, and my blood turns to ice. There is something cold and powerful in his tone, inhuman. “You have found me, when many cannot, and yet you run.”

I turn to the nearest door, and try to push it open. It won’t move. I shove my shoulder against it so hard I think I bruise the skin. I suppress my cry of frustration as laughter resounds all around me. I fight the cold panic that threatens to debilitate me. I hurl myself at the door again.

“Please,”I whisper. “Please open.”

The scent of dark pine crashes into me as someone else throws themself against the door at the same time as me. It crashes open.

An arm hooks around my waist as we hurtle into darkness.

I jolt into my body—only I’m made of stone. I cannot move. I’m a statue in the palace gardens. I’ve been here before. I’m dreaming. I try to scream, but my lungs are stone and my lips are hard and my mouth tastes like old cemeteries.

Courtiers wander around in the moonlight. They comment on the neatly trimmed hedges, and the smell of the roses. Some of them look up at me.

“She almost looks alive,”says a woman,before she and her friend walk away.

Blake saunters into view with his hands in the pockets of his breeches.

“Fascinating,” he says.

Get out!I want to scream.Get out! Get out! Get out!

I’m paralyzed, powerless, trapped in this stone cage.

His eyes glint in the moonlight.

“When are you going to fight?” he asks.

***

I wake in the middle of the night.

I feel a strange pull toward the corridor, as if something I need is outside our chambers. I untangle myself from Callum, slip on a robe, and pad through the shadows. I open the door a crack. I breathe in sharply. Blake stands by the wall, at one with the shadows. His hair is messy, and his shirt is only half buttoned up. His bootlaces are undone, too. He puts a finger on his lips.

He reaches into the pocket of his breeches and pulls out a small pot. “Apply this to your wound.”

The wordMoonfloweris written in elegant calligraphy across the label.

“My wound? The bite you gave me, you mean?”

He shrugs. “With any luck, it will fade the scar.”

Fade,I note.Not get rid of entirely.

I snatch it, then turn and close the door behind me.

***

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