Page 28 of A Court of Bones & Sorrow

My gambit had only bought Samara and her friends a little bit of time. The proposed marriage between Samara and me was real. Currently, my mother thought the Harker Heir could be controlled. If Samara would just agree to marry me, then the queen would be satisfied for a while. It would provide me an opportunity to figure out how to keep her and Kieran safe long-term and make it easier for me to keep track of them, because where Samara went, Kieran would surely follow.

I couldn’t let them go back to that temple or stumble into any other areas where the wraiths frequented. They had no idea just how much the world was falling apart around them, and I couldn’t let them walk into it blindly, but I couldn’t tell them either.

If my mother found out just how much Samara knew . . . she’d make sure Samara met an unfortunate end, likely at the hands of wraiths. She’d also make sure anyone Samara might have told would be killed off as well. The Moroi Queen did not like loose ends.

Carmilla was the wild card in all this. The best I could tell, she was truly just friends with my mother and wasn’t caught up in the plot with Erendriel and the wraiths, but I’d been wrongbefore about people and paid dearly for it. The only two people in the world I trusted were Samara and Kieran, and they both thought I was the villain in all this.

Which I supposed I was. An unwilling one, but a villain all the same.

I started to turn in the direction Samara had headed when the light from the Fae lanterns glinted off something nestled in the blankets of one of the beds. It appeared something had been left behind after all. I strode over to the bed and pulled back the blanket. A perfect glass sphere sat there, a swirl of dark blue and purple with thick white markings that reminded me of clouds cutting through the color.

A Fae memory ball.

Excitement coursed through me, and I picked it up, concentrating on the magic within. But the hope I’d been feeling faded. Empty. Someone had brought it here but had never stashed a memory in it. Looked like whoever had used this safe room before would continue to remain a mystery to us.

I glanced to where Samara was standing at the other end of the room, facing the wall, and hurried after her. There might be another one of those weird portal spells here, and I didn’t want to risk her activating it without me.

“Find something?” I asked when I neared her.

“A book. Poetry.” She held up a slim, leather-bound book, not taking her eyes off the wall. “And another glyph. I don’t know this one.”

My arm brushed against hers as I leaned in closer, but she was so engrossed by her discovery that she didn’t seem to notice. Unlike the glyph in the other room, this one was carved into the stone and easier to spot. It was a triangle with three horizontal lines slashed through it.

“Never seen one like this before.” A mischievous smile curled on my lips as I reached out to touch it.

“Damn it, Drav!” She gripped my wrist and tugged my hand away. “Quit touching shit you don’t understand!”

As soon as Samara realized she was still holding me, she released her fingers almost reluctantly. My grin transformed into a self-satisfied smile. Shelikedtouching me. Despite everything she knew—or thought she knew— about me, Samara wanted me. I needed to use that to my advantage if I was going to convince her to marry me.

“Where did you find the book?”

“Over there.” She pointed towards an empty bookcase tucked into the corner. “I didn’t find anything else. Either they never actually used this space, or they cleared everything out when they . . . left.”

“Trade you.” I tossed her the memory ball, and she snatched it out of the air with one hand. I saw the exact moment disappointment hit her when she realized it contained no memories.

I tugged the book out of her other hand and started flipping through the pages. “Unseelie,” I noted, which made sense because, based on the style of murals I’d seen on some of the walls and ceilings here, this had been an Unseelie stronghold. “Didn’t know you were a fan of poetry.”

Samara’s cheeks darkened, and she hastily took the book back, clutching it to her chest. “I’m intrigued by anything they left behind. You know that. Plus . . . I have a friend who . . . umm . . .” Samara stammered, and I cocked my head at her as she continued to struggle. “They like it when I read Fae poetry to them, and this book has a bunch of poems I’ve never read before.”

I had absolutely no idea what was making Samara blush like crazy, but it was highly amusing.

“Here.” She handed me back the memory ball. “You found it, so it’s yours.”

I took the Fae artifact from her and pondered it for amoment. Perhaps it was reckless of me, but if things went bad—which I strongly suspected they would—I wanted her to have at least one good memory of me. Kieran too. Maybe someday, they could view me as someone other than the villain.

“What are you doing?” Samara asked, tension flooding her voice as I sliced open my thumb on my fang and swiped the blood over the glass orb.

My blood vanished, and I felt the tug on my mind as a copy of the memory I’d chosen slipped into the orb.

“Here.” I held the glass sphere out to her. “A memory just for you. Might I suggest listening to it at night . . . when you’re alone in bed.”

Her gaze narrowed on me, and I let my lips curl into a sinful smile. I was rewarded by her cheeks flushing before she scowled. “It’ll make a beautiful paperweight.”

I laughed before waving a hand at the rest of the room. “Do you want to look around more?” Not that there was much to see. I was curious about what the glyph on the wall did, probably an escape route of some kind, but I could return later and explore.

“No.” Samara shook her head, dark eyes darting back to the glyph. She knew something about it. Something she didn’t want to share with me. Turning her attention away from the wall, she gave me a brilliant smile that caused my heart to skip a beat. The way her eyes laughed at me, I knew that had been her intention. Samara never had any problem wielding her beauty to knock others off their game. “This place is depressing. Let’s go walk on the beach for a bit. I want to feel the sun on my skin.”

“Anything for you, Sam.” I let my voice drop low so it was more of a raspy purr than anything, and Samara’s smile slipped for a fraction of a second, her breath hitching before she rolled her eyes at me and took my arm as I extended it toher. “Hopefully the glyph that got us down here can also get us back up to that room.”

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