Arrogance. Impatience. Pride.
Thinking about Sebastian made a snarl rise in my throat, and I sent out another wave of magic. Piece by piece, crack by crack, bit by bit, I slowly shattered the stone in front of me, boring a tunnel straight through the center of it like a convict digging her way to freedom. Every few seconds, I stopped to listen, but Sebastian didn’t come to investigate.
He thought that I was dead and buried and no longer a threat to him. He should have made sure. Because his mistake was going to cost him his f**king life.
I sent out one final burst of magic, and the last layer of stone crumbled to dust in front of me. I choked on the ashy cloud of marble, but I put my hands on the far edge of the mausoleum and pulled myself through the opening I’d created. I slid forward, then tumbled off the rocks and down onto the dewy grass. I lay there for several minutes, panting and trying to get my breath back. Above my head, the midnight sky twinkled with a thousand stars, while the moon shimmered over the pond a few feet away, as if it was peering down at its own bright, silvery reflection.
When I felt like I could manage it, I rolled over, then slowly got on my hands and knees, before finally staggering up and onto my feet. I wavered back and forth, and the moonlight bounced off a smooth surface, catching my eye. I looked down and realized that it was my silverstone knife. Somehow I’d managed to hang on to the weapon through everything that had happened. My fingers curled around the hilt. Good. I was going to need it to go after the giants hunting Finn and Fletcher.
But the mausoleum hadn’t been as lucky as I’d been. The once-beautiful structure had been reduced to little more than a heap of rough, ragged stones, like a cairn for the dead. That’s certainly what Sebastian had intended it to be for me.
I dragged my gaze away from the mausoleum and looked toward the mansion itself. Golden light spilled out of the library windows on the third floor. The curtains had been drawn back, and a figure moved back and forth behind the glass: Sebastian.
Even from this distance, I still recognized his sinister shadow. He seemed to be holding court with someone, probably Porter, judging by the way he kept throwing his hands up into the air.
I tightened my grip on my knife and took a step forward, but the motion made pain shoot through my body. I might have escaped being crushed by the rocks, but I’d still taken a beating tonight—physically and emotionally—and I was a torn, tired, tattered mess. Cuts, scrapes, and bruises decorated my body from head to toe, my dress was ripped in at least two dozen places, and most of the moonstones had flaked off the jeweled straps and bodice. I’d even lost my shoes somewhere in the mausoleum, just like the Wicked Witch of the East.
Still, despite my injuries, I wanted nothing more than to march back up to the mansion, storm into the library, bury my knife in Sebastian’s heart, and watch him die. For a moment, I seriously considered it. After all, he thought that I was dead, so I’d have the element of surprise on my side.
Then my gaze flicked to the crumbled stone in front of me, and I forced myself to rein in my temper. No matter how much I wanted to kill Sebastian, I wasn’t going to give in to my arrogance, impatience, and pride. Not this time. Not when I was bruised and battered, and he wasn’t. Even more important, his giants were on their way to kill Finn and Fletcher. I needed to move, not stand out here in the dark and brood about my revenge.
I’d be back for Sebastian, though—soon enough.
25
I hiked through the trees on the back side of the estate until I reached the main road. Then I started walking. There was nothing else I could do. The Vaughn estate wasn’t out in the boonies, but it wasn’t exactly close to anything either—except Mab Monroe’s mansion.
I stopped and peered through the gates at the enormous compound that served as the Fire elemental’s home, but there was no way that anyone inside would help me, and I wasn’t going to be dumb enough to try to sneak onto the grounds and steal a vehicle. Mab had dozens of giant guards at her disposal, any one of whom would have been happy to kill a car thief. So I shuffled on past the mansion.
I kept walking down the road, moving as fast as I could. Still, I knew that it would take me hours to get to Finn’s apartment and even longer to make it to Fletcher’s, which would be far too late to save either one of them—
Headlights appeared behind me.
I was so surprised that I stopped dead in my tracks. It was long after midnight now, and I wondered who would be out so late, especially this close to Mab’s mansion. But the lights kept coming and coming, catching me in their hot glare.
I hesitated, then scurried up to the edge of the road and stuck my left thumb out.
Hitchhiking wasn’t something that I normally did, not even when I was living on the streets and wanted to get from one side of Ashland to the other. In this city, you never knew whose car you were getting into, and the nicest Northtown smile could hide the cruelest heart, something you wouldn’t know until the locks had clicked shut, trapping you with whatever evil was behind the wheel. But I was out of options.
I squinted against the oncoming glare and dropped my right hand down by my side, so that my knife would be out of sight against my body. If worse came to worse, I could always stab my way free. The mood I was in, I was more than willing to do that and pretend that I was killing Sebastian all the while.
The car rolled forward, and I fully expected the driver to ram his foot onto the gas and zoom right on past me, especially since I looked like some haint from a horror movie, but the car slowed, then stopped. The passenger-side window rolled down, and I warily approached the vehicle, still clutching my knife.
A guy who was a few years older than me sat in the driver’s seat. His black hair disappeared into the darkness, and the dim blue light from the display cast his face in shadows, although I could still see the crooked tilt of his nose, as though someone had smashed a fist into it once upon a time.
The guy leaned forward so he could get a better look at me through the open window. His eyes flicked over me, taking in my ruined, tattered dress, my dusty bird’s nest of hair, and the gray grime that streaked my arms, chest, and face. The only sound was the steady hum of the engine.
“You look like you could use some help,” he finally said, popping the door locks. “Get in.”
I hesitated again, wondering if this was really a good idea. Nice guys, good guys, didn’t pick up girls who looked like me, especially not this late at night. He probably thought that I was some hooker who’d gotten the shit beat out of her by her pimp and that I would give him a freebie for the ride. But I didn’t have time to be choosy. Not if I wanted to save Finn and Fletcher. So I made sure that my knife was down by my leg out of sight, opened the door, and slid into the car.