Her true place was here, beside Josh, for as long as they had.
Which wouldn’t be long.
She squeezed his fingers, interlaced with hers. “Josh, we don’t have a way out.”
“There’s always a way out.”
“Not from the phaedrealii,” she said grimly. “Do you know what Vaile had to do to escape with Imogene?”
“No, but whatever it was, we can do it too.”
From behind them, a dog bayed. In another heartbeat, a multiplicity of eerie howls echoed it. The sound carried up the corridor, lacing the stark walls with curls of crimson that dripped down like blood.
Josh slowed to point the tip of the spear at the warning. The bloody streak curled back, as if pushed by an invisible force but did not disappear.
“The Queen appears to have recovered from her shock.” Adelyn tugged him onward, anywhere farther from the throne room. “And she has set the Hunters’ hounds on our trail.”
“I take it we’re not talking wannabe Wollys.”
“If Wolly had three heads, and all three wanted to dig your bones from your flesh.”
“Ah.” He slanted a glance at her. “You seem every bit as dangerous.”
She blinked. Did she? She’d never thought of herself as dangerous. She touched her hair with her free hand, the one not linked to Josh, and the serpents twined around her fingers. Their tongues flicked her skin with a cool caress.
“Only some of them are venomous,” she said modestly.
“You’ll have to show me which ones. After you show me a way out.”
Her little burst of happiness that he still wanted to know her evaporated. “I told you, there is no way out, not without gate spores, and I gave mine away.”
“Can we get them back?”
“Not soon enough to save ourselves.” She hesitated. “And we’d make escape impossible for anyone else.”