Snow ✓

The Escape

"The control room," Tres said.

They hung another right and tore down another corridor that opened into a massive hall of white with towering columns, tall windows with glass inlays that let in glorious sunlight, more lights in crystalline cylinders that hung in midair, seemingly suspended by some unseen magic, and a red runner with golden thread that ended at an ornate door with golden flowers in bloom etched into cherrywood. Snow slowed to ogle and imagined soldiers gathered, toasting and drinking to the desecration of the faeries.

Not Tres. He made a beeline for the door that, like all the others, had no handle but instead a tiny white box mounted on the wall beside it. He scrutinized the keycard in his hand, like it had told a joke at his expense, before he shoved it into the box. Her heart skipped a beat when nothing happened, then, a faint click as the light flashed green. The door opened to reveal a red room with padded walls and gold stitching. Hurgo eyed the frame as if an angled blade might take his head from his shoulders should he dare step through. Tres all but shoved Snow into the room and hastily stepped in behind her. Reassured, Hurgo strode in third. The door slid shut and they all looked to the only feature in the room: A panel of black buttons inlaid with gold numbers. Tres pressed the number 1 and the button lit up at his touch. Not a single sound or sensation followed. Snow and Hurgo spared him a glance, but Tres didn't seem concerned.

"Stay behind me at all times, unless you know some violent talent of the mortal sort or have any Faen powers to speak of."

They eyed her pointedly and she wondered whether they suspected what the methuselah had already known: that sometimes magic slipped out of her with abandon. She shook her head. Best for them to not rely on her unreliable powers that had yet to culminate into anything more than a convenient way to turn on the lights and enact insecticide. Besides, a girl should keep some of her secrets for herself.

"Hurgo's been a bit spotty with the transformations. Besides, we might need extra thumbs to land this thing," Tres added under his breath.

The hackles on the back of Snow's neck rose as the part of her hoping there was already some semblance of a grander plan in motion died. "So, the escape plan, we're winging it?"

His face wrinkled at the word. "What?"

The door slid open on another room and her question was forgotten. Somehow, they had traveled. The room was semi dark, spacious, cylindrical and blue, the air humid and thick with the smell of nature. Snow saw why as they descended three short steps: trees and exotic-looking plants, the likes of which she had never seen, grew close to the walls, dirt lined the cobbled walkway, and thin roots stuck up from between the cracks.

Again, Tres seemed to know the way as he bolted across the walkway to another door on the opposite wall. Another box. Another swipe of the keycard. Another hall, this one sterile white, that ended in a T at a set of double doors. Another swipe. Another click. She rushed in after Tres with Hurgo close behind, into another cylindrical room, blazing white with windows so pristine that it appeared nothing separated them from open sky, and bowled into the faery as he came to an abrupt stop. Snow gasped. He's hot to the touch, she thought, and peered around him to an audience of slack-jawed faces, ogling eyes and tinier windows that glowed with moving pictures. Her gaze lingered on Rath, who, for the first time in the short span she had known him, exuded an emotion other than mere contempt. He looked like a man bursting to shout surprise!

Beside him stood the most beautiful woman Snow had ever seen. The train of her shimmery gown was pooled before her, like she had come to a sudden stop only for the fabric to keep sliding across the polished floor, its plunging neckline, fastened in the front by a silver pendant, and lined with long, silvery feathers that extended out over her shoulders. Belts with an intimidating number of blades and black thingamajigs that looked like lopsided boomerangs crisscrossed at her waist. She looked like an elegant bird, a predator of the sky, and just older than the painted woman with the crown of white-gold tendrils Snow had seen in Elis' shop.