He returned not long afterward. When they turned the corner, she saw one of her vampiric escorts propped up against the wall. “Is he—”
“Alive,” Naasir said, and without warning, opened a door. “Inside.”
They ducked inside and he followed them in. Shutting the door, he put his ear to the wood, eyes gleaming liquid silver in the darkness. “Xi has sent people to check on you and Suyin.” Opening the door, he stepped out.
This time, Andromeda followed.
Naasir had already incapacitated one guard, and as she watched, he put his forearm around the neck of another and twisted. Clean and efficient, with no desire to cause unnecessary pain, his actions were honest in a way that spoke to the warrior in her.
Returning to the room, she brought out Suyin, and the three of them moved as fast as possible down the corridor. They had to slide into another room to escape a patrol and while in there, Suyin suddenly said, “I know this room. I built a special entrance to the tunnel in here.”
They both stared at her.
“What tunnel?” Andromeda said, wondering if her instincts had led her wrong after all. “You said there were no other escape routes but the secret gate in the wall.”
Suyin’s delicate face was so sheepish it couldn’t be disbelieved. “I forget things,” she admitted. “The Sleep has that effect, as I’m never awake long enough to truly recover.” Walking to an elegant sofa with curved wooden legs, she said, “I think the trapdoor lies beneath.”
Naasir moved the sofa and pushed the rug aside to expose a smooth, flawless floor. “Where?”
Tucking the knives into the strips of fabric that bound her wing to her body, Suyin went to bend down. Andromeda caught her arm. “Careful,” she whispered. “Don’t bend your back; use your knees.”
Even that made pain lines flare out from the corners of Suyin’s eyes, but her fingers were sure on the wood of the floor as she began to touch what must be pressure points. Andromeda took the opportunity to block the door into this room by propping a chair under the handle. Behind her, the trapdoor opened on a puff of dust.
Waving a hand in front of her face after stifling a sneeze that made her muscles wrench and her eyes tear up, Suyin looked down. “The tunnel goes to the outside. It was built as an escape route of last resort for Lijuan’s people.”
Naasir dropped down into the hole, then pulled himself back out with a lithe strength that made Andromeda want to simply watch him. “We won’t go that way,” he said definitively.
Disappointed, but not that surprised, Andromeda said, “It’s a trap?”
“Yes. It stinks of fresh scat and of reborn.” His lips lifted to reveal his fangs.
“I didn’t know.” Suyin’s throat moved, her fingers trembling as she rubbed them on her thighs. “On my honor.”
“You don’t stink of lies.” Naasir glanced down at the tunnel again. “It’s a trap, but we can turn it on those who set it.” Pulling down the trapdoor, he got up and looked at the rug and sofa they’d pushed aside. “Now we hide.”
Andromeda wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but she’d promised to trust Naasir, so she followed him into the walk-in closet on one side of the room, and there the three of them stood. They didn’t have to wait long. Thudding bangs on the door announced either boots or shoulders hitting it, but the end result was the door breaking open and guards pouring in.
Shouts followed, then came the sound of the trapdoor being thrown back.
Andromeda took Suyin’s hand when she felt the other woman begin to shake. Suyin had to be so scared of what Lijuan would do to her should they be discovered. When she felt Naasir put his arm around the wounded angel, she wasn’t surprised. Naasir might be feral and uncivilized in his true skin, but he was good in a way Xi would never be.
The general’s voice sliced through the air at that instant. “Go after them. Now. Do not allow the reborn to get to the scholar.” Swearing low under his breath, he gave further orders. “Make sure the opposite end of the tunnel is watched, on the low chance they make it out.”
“Sir.”
All went quiet soon after that.
Sliding out only once Naasir confirmed no one remained in the room, the three of them headed toward an exit. This time, they encountered no one in the corridors. Stepping out into the rain-lashed night, Andromeda glimpsed a tongue of hot yellow flame shoot from a window in a distant section of the citadel.
Rain couldn’t put out a fire on the inside. Yes, the spymaster was clever.
When Naasir held out a hand to her, she took it at once. Since her other hand was wrapped around the hilt of the sword, she told Suyin to grip the waist of her pants under the tunic.
The world was an opaque, punishing blackness but Naasir navigated it like he’d been born for it.
When Suyin stumbled, her legs threatening to collapse, Naasir and Andromeda put her between them and wrapped one arm each around her waist, careful not to apply too much pressure. As they helped her to a door in the inner wall, Andromeda saw a flicker of movement to her right. She acted without hesitation, slicing out with the sword to almost decapitate a vampire.
He fell gurgling to the ground.
It was the first time she’d ever truly hurt someone and part of her flinched, bile rising in her throat. That part bore the name of the girl she’d been, the one who’d run from a home where brutality was an everyday affair and kindness considered a laughable weakness. The rest of her understood this wasn’t violence for violence’s sake. It was about survival. Not just her own but Suyin’s and Naasir’s. There would be no mercy should they be caught; these same guards would mete out base torture if so ordered.