Treachery Queen (The Callistra Chronicles #1)

TWENTY-SIX

The moment the first question left her mouth, Pasiphae knew there was a familiarity in the mould on the walls. She looked up, where the beam on Lauha's torch was still lighting the ceiling.

This was where Naeyrs had led her.

"Prees built this place," Lauha said, her footsteps echoing loud as she set off. "There are hidden entrances that lead into the sub-level markets."

Pasiphae almost thought she could hear the rumbling of the stalls through the walls.

"Morgana doesn't know of this?" she asked, gathering her skirts to keep up.

Lauha fell into a strange moment of pause. "No," she finally said. "She almost did."

Pasiphae remembered the surveillance footage: of Lauha secured in a chair and the other faery—Kader. He had been tortured so Lauha would reveal all that she knew about an Unseelie Court infiltration plan.

"You're loyal to the Seelies now," Pasiphae stated. She remembered the boy in the footage. She remembered his golden wings.

She wondered how much she could trust this girl to not be setting a disease on the world.

Lauha brushed her silver wings in a movement that appeared almost unconscious. "That's a hefty claim."

"Well, aren't you?"

"All I am is a faery no longer of the Unseelie," Lauha said. "I suppose if that puts me on the side of the Seelie Court, then the enemy of your enemy is your friend."

"How can you stand it?" The cavern around them dripped continuously with water they couldn't see. "A lifetime without being grounded."

"Half-death isn't so bad," Lauha looked down at her feet, stopping so suddenly that Pasiphae almost walked into her. "This is peculiar."

"What is peculiar?"

Upon the lack of reply, Pasiphae walked up to the banshee. "Lauha, did you release the sylphs?"

Lauha frowned, her eyes still fixed to the puddles on the ground.

"Did anyone?" she replied.

"Will you answer my question?" Pasiphae insisted. She itched for the dagger that once sat in her pocket.

Lauha turned to look at her then, her eyes as dark as void. "I did not, personally. But maybe in another life." She tilted her head. Pasiphae hadn't seen it before in the low light, but it was undeniable now that there was something eerily absent in the other girl's gaze. "Fate did, I suspect."

"Fate?" Pasiphae repeated. "Are you talking about the old world concept or are you referring to a person named Fate?"

Lauha gave a small chortle, her hand pressed against her mouth as if to keep it in, but then she burst into a fit of giggles that Pasiphae felt like she couldn't keep up with.

"Answer me!" Pasiphae demanded.

Lauha pressed a finger to her lips, in the gesture of shushing her. "The Seelies know."

***

"They could have at least told us what we're meant to be doing down here," Circe muttered to herself, running into another dead end.

The moment she realised that they had been dropped into a maze, Circe had reached out her right hand to touch the right wall, maintaining contact to ensure she was only ever taking one path. It was the oldest trick in the book, but before long, the ground was shifting beneath her feet and the sections were shuffling, leaving her circling back to where she had begun if she didn't innovate her methods.