Page 55 of What did you do?

He was closer now, yet somehow his figure seemed unmoved in his black armor. Somehow I could tell that the shadow stared atonlyme.

You’re making this too easy, pet. Run.

His words rang deep and clear in my mind, and I knew then and there that all the times I had thought I was hearing things, it had been his fuckingvoice in my head.

I shoved through the crowd like a madwoman, taking a hard left and ending up in a tight alley between shops, an awningcovering the darkened lane. I let out a string of curses. The dark wasn’t where you hid from a shadow.

How could he still be alive? And in Seelie?

Terror unlike anything I could have ever imagined put its claws into a tender place inside me.

The tie.

I had to keep him away from Eli.

I knew Mendax was going to kill me eventually, but I might be able to drag it out a little longer—he would toy with me. But he would kill Eli the moment he saw him.

My quivering hands pawed along the grimy brick wall until I felt the cold iron hinges of a door. I looked over my shoulder, only catching a glimpse of cobbled street at the other end. Tears prickled the corners of my eyes as I sent a silent prayer that the door would open, then nearly knocking a short old woman down on the other side when it did. Definitely not who I expected to be on the other end of this door, with how rough this part of the market had been.

“How the—?” the old woman shouted gruffly, surprising me even further.

Her appearance wasexactlywhat I would have imagined a perfect grandma would look like, though really, what did I know? I had never had one.

The woman’s puffy, gray curls were cut short, framing her creased face. Her purple sweatshirt had a brown cat with glowing hazel eyes on it that perfectly matched her own.

“Please help me” was all I managed to get free of the panic in my throat.

Wise eyes inspected me for a beat before she grabbed my arm and roughly pulled me deeper into the dimly lit room. Dark wooden racks filled the space, with ornate, antique-looking suitcases and crates overflowing from them throughout, leaving only narrow and crooked aisles to walk through.

“Move, idiot!” her warbling voice reprimanded me. She was unusually nimble for an older woman. Lithesome even. I couldn’t see her ears under her poof of hair, but it didn’t matter—I knew she wasn’t human.

A thousand different smells overpowered me the farther we went. First I recognized pine, then damp, dirty fur—then cinnamon, lavender, something musky, and on and on it continued. Everything was too strong for me. I could taste the fragrances in the air.

The woman paused to look over her shoulder at me, a curious expression on her face. She looked at me so long, I feared she was having second thoughts about helping me.

I took a step toward the door closest to her, ready and willing to hide myselfand herif necessary. For a moment, I thought about going back out the way I had come, but there was something intriguing about this place that made me feel a little safer.

At my advance, she smiled, almost as if she had been waiting to see if I would step toward the door, then she leaned ahead of me and opened it herself. The shadows poured over me as her strong hand pushed me inside.

“If this isn’t some shit,” she said, shaking her head with a small grin. The old woman slammed the door at my back, snuffing out the last streak of light as it closed with a bang.

Moving forward, I shuffled my feet loosely, taking something with them underfoot as I slid farther in. I inhaled deeply, poring over the loose files in my brain until I could pinpoint what the smell was.

Fresh straw.

The sound of movement echoed in the dark chamber, and I froze.

Something else was in here.

Every drop of blood in my body felt as if it had plummeted to the soles of my feet. Again, the thing rustled in the darkness before I was met with a forbidding silence.

Had the old woman sabotaged me?

A few deep snorts, then what I could only guess was the sound of claws scraping lightly against the concrete. My shoulders settled a little. It was an animal in here with me. I had to be in some kind of a makeshift stall or cage. I don’t know how I knew, but whatever was in here was large and friendly. Maybe it was the panic and fear that heightened my senses, but I swear I could even feel its surprise as it sensed me.

I took a step toward the animal, and the scent of straw faded into a woody, spiced fragrance.

The same scent from my room this morning and last night. Come to think of it, it was what I had been smelling since before we even left the human realm…

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