Torn(38)

“Tell that to Kiera,” I said, glancing toward my partner, who I really hoped was only laid out and not dead.

“Paralytic,” Deacon said. “I’m surprised you don’t remember. It’s the same one I used on you.”

“I didn’t pass out,” I countered.

He shrugged. “Combined it with a sleeping agent. She’ll have one hell of a headache, but she’ll be fine.”

“Gee, that was considerate of you. But you shouldn’t have wasted it on her. I’m the one getting the relic. That means I’m the one you need to stop.”

“I intend to,” he said, and this time there was no conversational tone to his voice. No banter between two people who’d been skirting around the edges of a building tension. No small nod to whatever tenuous trust had developed between the two of us. No, this time there was nothing but sharp edges and the promise of danger.

This time, I saw the Deacon under the surface.

I told myself not to be scared. Of all the people in the world, Deacon wouldn’t hurt me. After all, I was at the center of his belief system, wasn’t I? I was the girl who was going to lock the gate to hell with him.

Which meant he wouldn’t do anything to put me truly out of commission.

But knock me out, take me far away, destroy the relic that I needed to save my sister? Any of those options was still highly plausible. Even probable.

“Enough with the talking,” I said, then turned and made a break for it. As I did, I heard him cry out, “No—the water,” and then I felt something hard and fast grab my legs. I barely had time to process the fact that he’d leaped forward and grabbed my ankles, pulling me backward toward him.

I went sprawling forward, smashing the side of my face on the stone floor. My cheekbone felt like it exploded, and white-hot pain radiated out like the sun, filling my face with liquid pain and turning the entire room a sickly red color.

“Acid,” he said, as I climbed to my feet. “The water’s acid.”

“What?”

He pulled a coin from his pocket. He tossed it in the stream, and it immediately dissolved, leaving nothing but a bit of smoke fizzing on the surface of the water. “Holy shit,” I said.

I took another look at the altar and the setup of mirrors. Then I crawled to the edge of the stream and peered down. Sure enough, the jade box was down there, somehow unaffected by the acid. And inside it, I was certain, was my prize. The piece of the relic that was making my arm ache and burn.

“It’s impossible to retrieve,” Deacon said.

“And you know this how?”

He ignored me, turning away, moving to bend down next to Kiera. “Her pulse is steady.”

“Yay,” I said. “Wasn’t really worried. Focus, dammit. Because I’m going to get that thing.”

“No,” he said. “You’re not. It’s down there. In acid. And it’s not coming out.”

“If it’s acid, why isn’t the box burned up?”

He lifted a brow. “It’s magic acid,” he said, his tone dripping with such sarcasm that I had to laugh. Especially since that was clearly the truth. It was magic acid. And if there was one thing that the magic didn’t affect, then I had to assume there was something else as well.

“Jade,” I said. “Maybe there’s more jade in here. We can dam up the acid water around the box, and when it’s dry, we can reach in and get the relic.”

“Brilliant,” he said. “But the jade will disintegrate.” I looked pointedly at the obviously intact box that lay within the flowing water. He shrugged, then nodded toward the murals on the walls. “The gemstones on the swords in the pictures,” he said. “They’re made of jade.”

“You’re helping me?” I asked. But I wasn’t foolish enough to argue about it. Instead, I went to the wall and used my knife to pry out one of the jade pieces. Then I hurried back to the stream and dropped it in.

Seconds later, it had dissolved.

“Like I told you,” Deacon said. “It’s impossible.”

“I don’t believe that.” At the moment, however, I had nothing to back me up. Just a deep sense of righteousness. After all, a fricking map had appeared on my skin. So what was the point of having a map to lead you to something that no one in the entire world could get their hands on? And I wasn’t in the mood to believe it was a cosmic joke. When your arm has been slashed and diced, and your blood smeared and drained as much as mine had, the idea that you did it all so that the cosmos could have a big laugh really didn’t go over well.

Even then, my arm was aching. Deep, steady throbs, like some damned coded message I was too dense to understand, too stupid to get.