Bound

Book 3: The Soulseer Chronicles

by Sue Tingey

Genres: Fantasy Romance; Paranormal

Synopsis

Get lost in the Underlands in this 'gripping and tantalisingly sexy read.' Holdfast Magazine on Marked. Perfect for fans of Deborah Harkness, Laini Taylor and Anne Bishop. Lucky de Salle was dragged into the Underlands against her will, but there she discovered a whole new world - and a whole new life. She always knew she was psychic, but discovering her ghostly best friend was in fact her demon half-sister - and she herself is half-demon - came as a shock. Falling in love with two men wasn't in her game plan either, but that's working out brilliantly. Or it was . . . but now Jinx the Deathbringer has been kidnapped by Lucky's enemies, who intend to use his powers to destroy the worlds above and below. And Jamie has tried to use his own powers to control her, destroying her trust in him. Now Jamie and his fellow Guardians have been ordered to bring Jinx back in - dead or alive - before he can rain destruction down upon the earth. If Lucky is to save him, and forgive Jamie, she is going to have to learn to use her own burgeoning powers - and fast! Bound is the third and final book in the Soulseer Chronicles by Sue Tingey

Release date: November 7, 2017

Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books

Print pages: 400

Sample

I left Jamie cooking supper. Jinx was off somewhere on Bob – getting wine I hoped; we were almost out.

I loved this time of the evening when it was still light enough to walk along the crystal sand beach surrounding our lake. I had about half an hour before sunset, when the two suns would drop from the heavens and sink below the horizon, empurpling the sky before it changed to black.

Pyrites gambolled along beside me chasing the crab-like creatures that scuttled here and there across the sand, sometimes flapping his wings to fly along by my shoulder. He was enjoying this holiday just as much as we were.

Jamie, Jinx and I spent most afternoons making love, and just thinking about that made me shiver.

Of the two, Jamie was the more serious lover – and I would have said the most conventional until a couple of days ago when he’d whisked me up into the sky while Jinx was still sleeping and we’d given the term ‘Mile High Club’ a whole new meaning.

Jinx, on the other hand, was – as in most things – not serious at all. He loved to nip and suck and lick and kiss – he could turn the most ordinary patch of skin into a full-blown erogenous zone. Not a square inch of me was safe. He was my bad boy, and although he hadn’t said as much, if he thought he could get away with tying me up I think he’d be more than happy to give it a go.

I couldn’t help but smile remembering earlier this morning, when I’d woken up to the sound of muffled male laughter and puffs of warm liquorice-breath on my face. As soon as I’d opened my eyes, I’d been rewarded with a swipe of Pyrites’ tongue: my drakon was more than a little excited to see me awake.

‘What is it, boy?’ I’d asked, and he’d scrambled off the bed and waited just inside the door puffing white smoke, clearly impatient for me to get up. After yawning and stretching, I’d wrapped a blanket around me before clambering off the bed and padding barefoot across the marble floor to join him, but as soon as I reached him, he’d shot into the next room and out through the open door onto the beach.

The laughter had become louder as I’d followed him; my men were obviously enjoying themselves and I wondered what they were doing that was making Pyrites so eager for me to go outside.

Jamie and Jinx were in the lake, leaving boots and trousers discarded on the jetty. I strolled across the sand and along the wooden walkway to crouch down at the edge. They were ducking and diving and acting more like little boys than daemons who were thousands of years old. But seeing Jinx and Jamie laughing and playing around and generally enjoying each other’s company made me happier than I could have possibly imagined. Over the weeks we’d spent together they had become friends, and I was hoping it was more than their love for me that bound them to each other.

I sat down next to their clothes and Pyrites took to the air to dive-bomb them as they swam. All of my men being in playful moods had chased away the spectre of Amaliel Cheriour, the disgraced Court Enforcer and Corrector, if only for a short time.

‘Hey!’ Jamie shouted upon seeing me. ‘Come in!’

I leaned forward and dangled my fingers in the water. ‘Brr, too cold,’ I told him.

‘Come on, it’ll be fun.’

I shook my head.

‘We can always warm you up afterwards,’ Jinx said, and gave me an exaggerated wink which made my heart sing – and him hard to refuse.

‘All right,’ I said with a smile, ‘but no peeking.’

They both covered their faces with splayed fingers, their eyes glinting through the gaps, and I laughed and let the blanket slip to the deck, which earned a wolf-whistle from Jinx. I sat down on the jetty’s edge and slid into the water – I’d been right: it was bloody cold!

They swam over to greet me, Jamie with his wings pulled up like a great dorsal fin and Jinx with his tail snaking out behind him, weaving from side to side across the water’s surface and steering him like a rudder. Then I was surrounded, and any thoughts of the cold water vanished, for there was nowhere else I’d rather have been.

We swam and we played while Pyrites sped around us, creating waves for us to ride and puffing steam across the surface, which had the double effect of warming our upper bodies and surrounding us in thick white clouds, through which we had to fight to find each other. This started a rather bizarre game of hide and seek, with the finder demanding a forfeit from the one they’d found. Needless to say, neither of them bothered to find each other but ganged up on me. I didn’t mind – some of the forfeits were more than a little interesting.

It was just one memorable morning out of many, and as I strolled along the sand I wondered what new joys tomorrow would bring.

Then Pyrites and I rounded an outcrop and any happiness I’d been feeling drained away. A tight feeling of foreboding gripped my chest as I saw Bob plodding along the beach towards us – alone. Something was wrong; I’d never seen him without Jinx. He whinnied upon seeing us, a truly pathetic sound coming from such a huge, fearsome creature.

Pyrites stayed beside me, puffing grey smoke; I clearly wasn’t the only one who thought something was amiss. As I began to run towards Bob, panic welled up inside me. Where was Jinx? Why wasn’t he with Bob? When we reached him, Bob snorted and stamped his hooves then hung his head, eyes half closed, his wings pressed back tight against his body.

I laid my palm on his neck, struggling to keep the worry from my voice. ‘What’s the matter, boy?’

He gave another whinny and his flanks quivered; his fear and dejection were almost palpable and I was getting really scared now. Bob was an infernal-eyed powerhouse of a flying machine – I’d always though he looked like he should be ridden by one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. To see him in such a bad way frightened me more than if he’d come storming down the beach with the aforesaid Horsemen in tow.

‘Come on,’ I said, leading him towards the villa. Jamie would know what to do. Jamie always knew what to do.

When we reached the front step I called out, not wanting to leave the despondent horse. I waited a few moments and called again, ‘Jamie!’

I glanced at Bob, and he pushed his snout against my shoulder, a gesture very similar to when Pyrites wanted comfort. My heart was pounding; my fear cranked up another notch. This was so unlike him – he never craved affection; an offhanded pat on the neck or rump from Jinx was about the sum of what he would tolerate.

‘What’s happened, Bob?’ I asked, stroking his silky black forehead. ‘What’s happened to Jinx?’ Because I was pretty sure something had happened – something really bad.

I looked back up at the villa. ‘Jamie!’ I called again – where was he? ‘Jamie—!’

—then a searing pain hit me, like something was skewering my brain with a red-hot iron, and with a groan I collapsed to my knees, clutching my head.

‘Lucky?’ I heard my name, but it sounded like I was being shouted at me through water – no; not water, blood. It felt like my ears were thick with blood.

Then hands were on my shoulders and Jamie was on his knees in front of me. ‘Lucky – are you all right? What’s wrong? Are you hurt?’

‘I . . . I—’ Then the pain hit me again and I screamed.

‘What’s wrong? What’s happening to her?’ I could hear Kayla, but Jamie couldn’t; he couldn’t hear the dead, not like Jinx and me.

They were both talking at once and although they probably weren’t shouting they might as well have been, because each word shot through my head like a bullet.

‘Be quiet,’ I managed to gasp, ‘please – be quiet. Please . . .’

Jamie scooped me up into his arms and carried me inside, and every step sent a spike of pain across the front of my head, making my eyes feel like they were being pressed outwards and it was only my tightly-squeezed eyelids keeping them within their sockets. When he laid me down on the bed it was a blessed relief. I felt the bed shift as Pyrites hopped up beside me and snuggled down, his head against my hip. I tried to lift a hand to stroke him, but it felt so heavy, as though a brick was strapped to my wrist.

‘Lucky,’ Jamie whispered, ‘can you talk? Can you tell me what’s wrong?’

‘Something’s happened to Jinx,’ I mumbled through lips that felt like they belonged to someone else.

Then another spike of pain shot through my right side just below the ribs, as though I’d been stabbed with something burning-hot. I screamed, and I could hear someone else’s screams reverberating inside my skull – Jinx’s.

‘They’re torturing him,’ I sobbed, and then whoever it was did something so incredibly awful that my body couldn’t stand it and everything turned red and then black.

I was only unconscious for a moment or two, but when I woke I could no longer feel Jinx and I guessed he had passed out too. I still had an ache behind my eyes, but the rest of the pain had receded as if it had been washed away, leaving traces like a tidemark throughout my body.

I struggled to sit up.

‘Lucky, are you all right?’ Kayla was sitting on the edge of the bed.

I didn’t dare risk nodding. ‘Better,’ I mumbled.

‘What happened?’ Jamie asked. ‘You said something about Jinx—’

‘Bob was on the beach, alone – he looked so lost; so despondent.’ I flopped back against the pillows, too weak to stay upright. ‘Someone has Jinx and they’re hurting him. Really hurting him.’

Kayla gasped, and Jamie’s brow crinkled into a puzzled frown. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes . . . No . . . I—’ I was finding it hard to think straight. ‘Yes. Yes, I don’t know how I know; I don’t know how I can feel what he’s feeling, but I know he’s in terrible pain.’

Jamie sank down on the bed next to me, making Kayla shift to one side, otherwise he’d have been more or less sitting on her lap. He ran his hand through his blond curls in an agitated swipe.

I looked up at him. ‘Do you think it’s—?’ I couldn’t bear to say his name, let alone believe he might have my Deathbringer in his clutches.

‘Amaliel?’ he said with a grimace. ‘I hope not. I truly hope not.’

‘It doesn’t bear thinking about,’ Kayla added.

‘Could he somehow have trapped Jinx?’ I forced myself to ask.

‘I would have said no,’ Jamie said. ‘Jinx is nigh-on fireproof – but if you’re sure it was Jinx you were feeling . . .’ He looked down at me. ‘Are you sure? I mean, how can it be?’

‘I heard him scream . . .’ The words caught in my throat. ‘It was awful.’

‘I think you need the rest of your guard. I’d better get Shenanigans and Kerfuffle.’

‘And Kubeck,’ I reminded him.

He gave a distracted nod.

‘How will you get a message to them?’ If Jinx had been here he would have sent a raven – the Deathbringer had an affinity with the harbingers of death – but he was gone. If I’d been in my human form I’d have cried at the thought. But I wasn’t, I hadn’t been human for more than two weeks, since the first time the three of us had made love.

‘Maybe tomorrow, if you feel better, we should return to court and we can find them together. We should also go to Baltheza; if Amaliel has truly captured Jinx, then he should know.’

‘Rather you than me,’ Kayla said. ‘He is so not going to be happy about any of this.’

I ignored her. ‘If it is Amaliel . . . but you and Jinx were both so sure he had no real power,’ I said, clutching at straws.

Jamie’s expression was grim. ‘Maybe we were wrong.’

There was nothing we could do until the morning, so we both picked at the dinner Jamie had cooked, the empty seat at the table stealing away any appetite we may have had. Even Pyrites wasn’t interested in eating, and as for poor Bob, he just stood on the beach with his head hanging down, his huge muzzle almost scraping the sand.

We went to bed, though neither of us really slept. Jamie held me in his arms, but that was the sum of it. Making love was the furthest thing from our minds. Without knowing Jinx was safe and well it would have felt wrong.

A couple of times I almost dozed off, but each time I came to with a start and looked about me, hoping I’d find a maroon arm draped about my waist, but I knew in my heart it couldn’t be: Jinx was gone.

*

We set off at first light – Jamie and I were both awake and neither of us could face breakfast. Kayla had been unusually quiet, wafting around from room to room as I collected our things. Jamie had hardly said a word. Although he and Jinx were often at odds with each other – after all, Jinx was the daemon who brought death to my world and Jamie the Guardian who protected it from daemon activity – Jinx’s disappearance had hit my angel harder than I could have ever have imagined. I didn’t know if it was because he loved me and knew how much I was hurting, or because they were now truly friends, but he was definitely as troubled as I was.

Jamie rode Bob – a first for both of them, but we needed him if Shenanigans, Kerfuffle and Kubeck were to join us. Kayla sat behind me on Pyrites, and even though she said very little throughout the journey, just having her close was comforting.

The countryside below us passed in a blur; for the first time I barely noticed the forests of scarlet and burgundy pines and the lush fields of copper and bronze crops. Even the sight of amethyst rivers meandering below us and the ice-capped mountains shining like crystal in the sunshine didn’t fill me with my usual enthusiastic wonder.

And every mile brought us a little closer to the royal palace.

Returning to court was not at the top of my things-to-do list. Officially I was Lord Baltheza’s daughter and Kayla’s sister. The latter was true – Kayla and I shared the same mother – but I was not truly Baltheza’s child, and for this I was eternally grateful. Baltheza was a monster, as far as I was concerned, though his cruel and violent nature hadn’t been helped by Amaliel Cheriour feeding him a poison which had been slowly driving him mad – so mad that Amaliel had been able to turn Baltheza against my mother, the woman he allegedly loved and whose ring I now wore, even going so far as to have her tortured and executed. He was recovering now, but I wasn’t looking forward to spending even a short time in his company.

My heart sank even further when the fortress surrounding the royal palace came into sight. Although I loved the vibrant little town within the fortress walls, I hated the palace and its occupants; the members of the court were every bit as debauched and cruel as their ruler, and that hatred compounded my gloom so that even the bustle of the town below us couldn’t lift my spirits.

It was market day; the streets were packed with carts and brightly coloured stalls and had we been on foot, it would have taken us an age to fight our way through to the palace entrance. We were coming in low enough that I could hear some of the vendors shouting out to potential customers, inviting them to try their wares, and I caught the occasional whiff of musky perfume or the tart aroma of pickled vegetables. A few shoppers looked up as we passed over, but on the whole the daemons crowding the cobblestoned streets paid us no heed, being more interested in procuring bargains.

We carried on over the mêlée and all too soon the grey stone walls and turrets of the gothic castle that was home to Lord Baltheza were right before us.

As much as I hated the palace, it was an impressive sight. Had I been a child I would have thought it a fairytale castle with its ramparts, moat and portcullis; as an adult I knew it was a much darker place, more akin to something out of a horror movie. Only once had I been deep down in the bowels of the castle, to the place where Amaliel Cheriour had plied his trade, and that was one time too many. It was worse than any set someone in Hollywood could have thought up.

We came in to land at the front entrance and Jamie wasted no time in calling over a bored-looking guard – a skinny daemon with a walrus moustache and tusks to match – and sending him to announce our arrival to Baltheza.

Kayla and I climbed down from Pyrites as he began to shrink, and when he was the size of a parrot he alighted on my shoulder so he could enter the palace. Bob was another matter; there was no way we could take him inside the building. Although Baltheza’s court was a perverse and strange place, a depressed, winged horse trudging through its passageways would probably be one strangeness too far.

‘Will he be all right if we leave him here?’ I asked. Usually as soon as Jinx had finished with him he would slap Bob on the rump and the beast would fly off, returning when Jinx called him.

Jamie patted Bob’s neck. ‘He’ll come if we call him,’ Jamie said. ‘He wants to find Jinx as much as we do.’ And with that Bob trotted away, unfurled his wings and launched himself up into the sky.

Baltheza didn’t keep us waiting for long. Two guards the size of grizzly bears, if not nearly so attractive, arrived within ten minutes to take us to their leader. They escorted us through the long, gloomy corridors of the palace, the echo of our footsteps sounding too loud in the confined space, and out into a walled garden; coincidently, the place where Jamie and Jinx had last seen Amaliel.

Baltheza was sitting on the low stone wall surrounding the pond. Unusually, there was no naked slave girl lounging at his feet; apart from two guards standing by the entrance to the garden he was alone.

His back was to us, his beautiful black curls veiling his face as he leaned forward to drop small pieces of bread onto the water’s surface, which were immediately swallowed by brightly coloured fishlike creatures. He turned to look up as he heard us approaching.

His nostrils flared and his thin jade lips pressed together. ‘Why do I feel I’m about to get more bad news?’ he said, looking from me to Jamie. ‘It would be nice if, just for once, you came to visit me for the pleasure of my company.’

‘Same old Daddy,’ Kayla muttered as she dropped down to sit next to him.

Jamie gave a bow and I did the same. ‘Lord Baltheza,’ Jamie said.

‘You’re looking well,’ he said to me, ignoring Jamie.

I couldn’t say the same of him; he was as ugly and frightening as ever. Two thick, disfiguring ridges of puckered skin ran from the bridge of his aristocratically long, narrow nose, across where his eyebrows should be and up into his hairline where they met twisted ram horns. His opalescent white skin shimmered with green and blue, but spots of rose flushed his cheeks: he really wasn’t at all happy. Then he fixed me with his truly terrifying eyes, dark orbs of orange dissected by vertical slits of black.

‘The Deathbringer has gone missing,’ Jamie said without any preamble.

Baltheza froze for a moment. ‘Missing?’

‘He flew off with Bob yesterday afternoon and never came back, though Bob did – alone.’

Baltheza frowned at us both as he took this in. ‘Maybe he was called away on business.’

‘I’d know if he had been,’ Jamie said. ‘When he walks the Overlands I’m made aware of his mission.’

‘Hmm,’ Baltheza tapped a pointed talon against his lips, still looking at me.

‘There’s something else,’ Jamie said.

Baltheza almost had to drag his eyes away from me to pay attention to Jamie. ‘More?’

‘We think . . .’ Jamie glanced my way. ‘We’re pretty sure whoever has him is torturing him.’

Baltheza’s reptilian eyebrows shot up almost into his hairline. ‘Torturing the Deathbringer? Impossible.’ Then his eyes narrowed. ‘How could you know this? And more importantly, why did you come here – to me?’

Kayla gave sniff. ‘Typical of Daddy, it’s always me, me, me.’

‘We came to you because you’re the Lord of the Underlands and we thought this was something you should know,’ Jamie said, clearly as exasperated as Kayla.

Baltheza crossed his arms and glared at Jamie. ‘You can search the palace; he’s not here.’

‘We didn’t expect him to be.’

Baltheza snorted and started to say something, but I didn’t hear him as pain blossomed in my chest and I staggered and fell to one knee. Before I could recover, something punched into my stomach leaving me gasping for breath.

Then I was being picked up and hugged against a hard chest, and it was only when he spoke that I realised it was Baltheza who was holding me.

‘What’s happening to her?’

‘I don’t know how, but Lucky’s feeling what Jinx is feeling; at least that’s what she says.’

Long slender fingers stroked my hair. ‘Attacking Lucinda is as good as attacking me.’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ I heard Kayla mutter in irritation.

‘I don’t think whoever is doing this knows they’re attacking Lucky,’ Jamie said – then another spike of pain hit me in between the eyes, Jinx’s roar of pain, anger and hate bounced around inside my skull, and although I was still conscious and I could hear him and feel his pain, everything else was a blur of shadows.

This time the torment didn’t stop: I’d barely got over one assault when the next hit me. Had I been totally human I’m sure my heart would have given out, but worse than the pain were Jinx’s screams, though he didn’t plead or beg for it to stop; I could feel him fighting whoever was doing this to him.

‘Can’t we give her something?’ I heard a voice say. ‘Something to knock her out?’ Then there was muttering, and the sound of a door opening and closing – then another blast of pain had me whimpering.

‘Here, try this.’

Someone lifted my head and a goblet was pressed to my lips. ‘Try to drink some, darling,’ Kayla said. ‘It’ll make you feel so much better.’

I forced myself to take a sip. The liquid tasted sweet but with a kick, like a liqueur, leaving a trail of warmth that ran across my tongue, down my throat and into my chest. Then my head began to spin, first in slow, lazy circles, then faster and faster until I thought I might just throw up – and then another spike of pain, this one freezing cold, like I’d been stabbed with a shard of ice, shot through my upper body just above my heart.

But before I could open my mouth to scream the drug did its job and I sank into blessed oblivion.

I awoke to arguing male voices. ‘We can’t break the connection if we don’t know what it is and how it works,’ Jamie said.

‘Is she connected to you in the same way? I mean, is it the mark that’s doing it?’

Vaybian? I struggled to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt like they were weighed down with pennies. I felt a moment of panic – had I died?

‘I’ve never heard of someone who’s been marked having this sort of connection,’ Jamie said, ‘and Lucky’s never felt it when either of us were wounded before.’

‘Then why now?’ Yes, it was definitely Vaybian, Kayla’s green-skinned captain and petulant lover.

‘Does it really matter?’ I heard Kerfuffle say. ‘The Deathbringer is in trouble and Mistress Lucky is in pain. We find him and save him, and then we can worry about the whys and wherefores.’

‘I agree,’ Shenanigans said. ‘We have to stop Mistress Lucky’s pain.’ Present tense! Relief washed over me – I was alive.

‘Easier said than done, when we don’t know where Jinx is or who’s taken him,’ Jamie said.

‘I wouldn’t have believed it possible,’ Shenanigans said. ‘How could anyone capture the Deathbringer?’

‘Irrelevant,’ Kerfuffle said in his no-nonsense way. ‘We’ll worry about that once we’ve got him back.’

‘Since when have you started caring about the Deathbringer’s wellbeing?’ Vaybian asked.

‘Since my mistress’ welfare depended upon his,’ Kerfuffle said, and I didn’t need to have my eyes open to know my smallest guard would be standing with his hands on his hips, his oversized marshmallow head tilted back so he could glare up at Kayla’s lover.

I forced my eyelids apart, squinting against the light, and tried to drag myself into a sitting position. I had a dull ache behind my eyes again, but thankfully all the other pains had faded away, leaving only a memory.

‘Mistress,’ Shenanigans said, hurrying over to my bedside. He was the biggest of my guards at over seven feet tall, and looked like a two-legged, emerald-green rhinoceros. One ivory tusk sprouted from the centre of his forehead and another from the top of his snout above cavernous flared nostrils, and large ivory fangs protruded between thick, rubber-band lips. For all his size, his eyes – currently full of concern – were his smallest feature; tiny buttons mostly hidden within his wrinkly hide. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Not so bad now,’ I said, giving him a shaky smile.

He didn’t look so sure. ‘Maybe you should have another draught to make you sleep.’

‘That won’t help find Jinx.’

Kayla sank down onto the bed next to me. ‘Daddy’s sent his spies out everywhere, but they’ve found no trace of him.’

‘They didn’t find Amaliel either?’

‘No, they didn’t,’ she said, tapping her forefinger against her lips. ‘I’m sure we’re missing something.’

‘Who’s she talking to?’ Vaybian asked, and I winced. In my befuddled state I’d forgotten I’d been hiding the fact that Kayla was still around. He was jealous enough of our relationship without knowing that, even when dead, she was with me and not him.

‘I was talking to Jamie,’ I said.

Jamie raised an eyebrow, but very sensibly kept quiet as he sat down next to me. Vaybian wasn’t so easily deflected. ‘You were talking to someone else – who is it you see?’

‘I think you have to tell him,’ Kayla said.

‘And make him more morose than he already is?’ I murmured to her.

‘Is it Kayla?’ he asked, glancing around the room. ‘Is she here? Is my princess here?’

Jamie took hold of my hand, squeezed my fingers and gave me an encouraging smile. ‘It’s time he knew.’

‘Knew?’ Vaybian asked, his expectant expression enough to tell me what I had to do, even though I really didn’t want to be dealing with this right now.

‘When Kayla died, the last thing she said was that she’d never leave me,’ I told him.

‘She’s here now?’

I gave a small nod then wished I hadn’t as I saw sparkles and felt slightly sick.

Jamie moved closer, hugging me to him. ‘You should rest,’ he said.

‘How can I rest when I know Jinx is out there somewhere all alone?’

‘If he were out there all alone, there wouldn’t be a problem,’ Kerfuffle pointed out.

‘You know what she means,’ Shenanigans told his small friend, giving me an apologetic smile.

‘How is she?’ Vaybian asked, totally focused on what mattered to him and ignoring everything else, as usual. Though I supposed I couldn’t blame him – finding out the love of his life was still around after he thought she was gone for ever would have focused his attention.

Baltheza had asked exactly the same thing when he had realised I could still see my friend even in death and Vaybian repeating the question did nothing to improve Kayla’s temper. She glared at him, even though he couldn’t see it. ‘Why is it people keep asking how I am when it’s pretty bloody obvious? I’m dead, Vaybian.’

‘Oh, you know,’ I said. I wasn’t sure I wanted to say she was pissed off with him for asking something so amazingly stupid. ‘Kayla is Kayla; she hasn’t changed any now she’s dead.’ I looked at her and smiled. ‘Though she has re-grown her hair and snakes,’ I added as an afterthought. Before Amaliel had ruthlessly slit her throat, he’d tortured her by shearing off the vipers and her beautiful scarlet and emerald locks, which was not a good way for Vaybian to remember her.

To my surprise, Vaybian’s expression softened into a gentle smile. ‘Where is she?’

I nodded to where she was sitting and winced. I really had to stop doing that.

‘Tell her I miss her,’ he said.

‘You just did.’

‘I wish I could see her again.’

‘Maybe one day,’ I told him, but didn’t add that it would most likely be the day that he died; he didn’t need to hear that.

Kerfuffle abruptly crossed to the door and was reaching for it even as we heard the first rap of knuckles against wood. He opened the door and to my complete and utter surprise Baltheza swept in. Never before had he come to me; I was always summoned to appear before him.

Jamie got up from the bed and all my guard bowed, but they could have been as invisible as Kayla. He strode past them to me and sat on the edge of the bed, in the spot Jamie had just vacated.

‘I didn’t expect to find you awake. How are you feeling?’

‘A little weak.’

When he peered at my face and gently brushed the hair back from my brow to take a better look at me I had to fight to hide my shudder of revulsion.

‘You look a little better.’ He glanced up at Jamie. ‘Any more attacks?’

‘Lucky’s only just awakened.’

He returned his attention to me. ‘I’ve had my spies combing the Underlands, but wherever Amaliel is, he’s hidden from me.’

‘Any news on Jinx?’ I asked.

He gave a sniff, not hiding his dislike; the mannerism reminded me of Kayla. ‘The Deathbringer was last seen in the small village north of the lake where you were staying, where he bought bread, cheese and three bottles of red wine. The bag containing the items was found less than twenty yards from the shop. It looked as if he’d been pick