I nodded, and then said, “I agree. That stone belongs with you. Can you use it against Marsum?” I took it from my bag and pushed the stone into his hand. “Try. Please.”
“If he feels me using magic, he’ll come looking,” Maks said.
I leaned my head against his. “Maks. I can’t leave you here. I can’t. You’re dying.”
“I know,” he whispered. “It is because . . . well, it doesn’t matter now why.”
“Yes. It does,” I said.
Lila leapt up and landed on his knees. “Tell us what happened. Please.”
Maks took a slow breath and then shook his head. “Marsum left me alone for a great part of my life because I was seen as weak, lesser, because I wasn’t as strong as he wanted. He had other sons, full Jinn far ahead of me. None are left. He killed them. When he sent me to the Stockyards, I was already sick. Ishtar’s necklace she gave me, it stemmed the illness. Victor took the necklace off me.”
“He wants you dead too,” I said. “Is he next after you?”
“He is.” Maks nodded.
I looked at Lila. “Maks, do you remember your mother?”
“Jinn don’t have mothers,” he said. “Or at least they aren’t kept around. As soon as they give birth they are removed. That way the next generation of Jinn are kept separate from any outside influence.”
I frowned. “Okay, look, long story short because we are running out of fucking time. We ran into your brother, a black lion who had been adopted into your caracal family. I know that sounds crazy, but he . . . he remembers you being taken by Marsum. They thought the Jinn had come for him, being a lion, but they’d come for you, Maks.”
His eyelids twitched and I slapped a hand over them.
A tremor went through his body and I felt the change in him as Marsum dropped into him. “Lila, hide,” I whispered.
I leapt off the bed and slid underneath, grabbing my blade as I went. This was not what I’d call the best act of bravery of the day, but we needed to get to the others. I shouldn’t have spent so much time with Maks.
But I knew this was the last chance I’d get. In my gut, every instinct said there would be no more after this, that this was the final goodbye.
He stood and did a slow turn, speaking to himself. Sort of.
“What are you up to, Maks? I thought for sure you and Nell would have gone back to your usual fucking.” He tapped a toe, a move that was not something I’d ever seen Maks do. “You’re hornier than a two-peckered goat. Did she leave you wanting? Nell never was a tease before.”
He strode around the room, and for a heart-stopping moment, I thought he’d open the closet and see our exit. I reached for Lila and drew her to me. Maks did a full turn around the room and then went to the door. “To my chambers, boy. I need to speak with you.”
The door opened, and we watched as Maks left.
I scrambled out and stood, tiny cobwebs drifting off me.
“You think with all that magic they could clean a little more.” Lila let out a sneeze. I looked at the closet and the long cloaks of varying colors. All cloaks worn by Jinn.
“Lila, I have an idea.”
She groaned. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like this?”
I hurried to the closet because I didn’t want to think about losing Maks—again. Inside were a variety of clothes, all made for Maks, far too big for me. I grabbed three shirts and slipped them on, one after another.
“Are you cold?”
“No.” Hell, I was already sweating with the added material. I next went for the pants. Three pairs of pants. Three thick cloaks.
I was weighed down with the clothes as I shifted into my four-legged form. I stumbled forward as my four paws touched the ground. The chain around my neck was much heavier than usual, which wasn’t terribly surprising.
Lila nodded. “Good idea. For once.”
“Shut up, you, and open that door.” This was going to be the tricky part.
We knew roughly where we were going, even without Maks telling us the doorway to the dungeon was near Marsum’s personal quarters. Lila flew to the door and sat on the handle, turning it easily. I grabbed the edge with my claws and pried it open. There was no movement in the hall and a few places we could hide if need be.
“Let’s go,” I whispered and slid out the door. Lila dropped to the ground and jogged along beside me, bouncing a little side to side. Good thing she’d not eaten yet today or her belly would have been dragging the floor.
At the T-intersection at the end of the hall, I again checked for movement before stepping out. We wove our way through the building, deeper and deeper until we were at the final doorway.
I was out of breath, and it wasn’t just the clothes. The tension around us rose with each passing second. Not once had we run into a Jinn. Not even a flicker of movement. Surely, they should have been crawling all over the place.
“The door,” I whispered to Lila and again she hopped up on the handle and it twisted open. Too easy, this was all too easy.
I swallowed hard and slid through the doorway. The interior of the hall was lit by torches set in the walls as they wove down a circular staircase. “Stay against the ceiling,” I said.
Lila shot up and I raced down the stairs, hugging the inner wall of the curve. Still no Jinn.
Three flights down, there was another door and this one had a guard. Before I could even shift, Lila was on him. She swooped down and touched the Jinn on the head, freezing him, then pushed him sideways. His head hit the stone footing and shattered.
An eyeball rolled toward me, chunky like a painted rock.
I shifted onto two legs. The extra clothes were not as much of an issue this deep underground, but the shift was. It left me breathing hard and seeing spots as I searched the guard’s body, found the keys, and pulled them out. I did a quick check of the energy of my pride. All three were in there, far to the north Ford tugged on me, and somewhere above my head was Maks.
I stripped off the extra clothes and piled them on the floor.
“Lila, watch my back,” I said.
I put the key in the lock and twisted, a dull click sounding like a gunshot to my straining ears.
The door moved easily as I pushed it open. The dungeon was not made up of cells, but tiny boxes that my eye and mind couldn’t make sense of, at least not right away.
Inside the box closest to me was the barest shift of movement and a golden eye caught mine. Horror like a wash of cold water rushed over me. “Darcy.” I breathed her name as I ran to the box.
Like ice, the glass box was slick and my hands skimmed it quickly as I searched for a way to get in. Darcy was crunched inside, her head pinned to her knees. Tears streaked her face as I tried to find how, how to get this fucking piece of shit open.
“Incoming!” Lila hollered.
There was no time to be nice about this. I took a step back and grabbed the handle of the flail.
“Darcy, close your eyes.”
Her eyes widened and I stared hard at her. “Trust me and close your eyes.”
They flickered shut and I swung the flail at the corner of the box behind her left shoulder. The twin spiked balls slammed into it and stuck. Just like before. When I’d fought to free myself of Ishtar’s hold on me, the flail had freed me.
Black mist poured out from around where the spiked balls dug in. I didn’t yank it out. “It’s magic, you should be sucking that in, you bad boy.”
The flail shuddered under my hand and a pulse of light shot out around the spikes. I closed my eyes as the box shattered. I turned my head away, catching a shard across my cheek.
I swung back around to see Darcy sprawled out, tiny cuts all over her. I handed her one of my blades. “Clothes by the door. Help Lila defend it.”
Darcy blinked up at me. “What?”
“Now!” I snapped the word, pushing a tiny pulse of my own energy into it and she leapt to her feet. I was already headed toward the next box. Kiara was in this one. I repeated the instructions and she closed her eyes right away.
I tried not to notice the blood in the bottom of her box. And the realization that her extreme fatigue was partially depression.
The flail shattered her cage and she sprawled out as Darcy had. I put a hand on her arm and helped her up.