Chapter Ten: Dark Hallways

"Elena!" Adrian's voice cracked through the dark hallway.

There was no answer.

"Flashlights shined bright." Marcus was already digging one out of his jacket.

"Adrian, everything happening isn't a coincidence," Mira said, sticking close to Adrian's side. "They hit the gate, hit the kitchen, and now Elena's door is open. That's three things happening at once. This obviously was perfectly planned down to this minute."

"I know," Adrian said, already moving toward the stairs.

"Wait." Lena grabbed his arm, and he actually stopped, which surprised Mira. "Adrian, listen to me. If someone's already inside, running down there blind is exactly what got Elena taken the first time."

"So what do you want me to do? Stand here?"

"I want you to think for one second before you run into another trap." Lena's voice was sharp now, all the crying gone out of it. "You're not thinking; you're reacting, and that's how Corin wins wars."

Adrian's jaw ticked. "You know him better than any of us, so tell me what he wants."

"He wants you to be divided," Lena said. "He wants half of you here and half of you chasing something. He wants you tired and scattered before he actually shows up."

"Then he's succeeding," Marcus said grimly, a flashlight beam bouncing off broken glass on the floor. "Because we've got a fire, a breach, and a missing girl, and we're standing here talking."

"Okay…Fine." Adrian looked at Mira and said. "You will be with me."

"No," Helena interrupted, stepping in between them. "Sir, with due respect, Mira stays with me this time. You cannot fight and protect her at the same time, not down there, not in the dark."

"Helena—"

"He killed a guard through the vents last time," Helena said, her voice hard. "You cannot watch your back and hers."

Mira opened her mouth to argue, but she looked at Helena’s face; the reaction in Helena's face stopped her.

"Fine," Mira said quietly. "I'll stay with Helena."

Adrian looked at her for one long second like he wanted to say something else, and then he didn't. "Marcus, come with me. Lena, you're staying too, you know this house better than any of my men; tell Helena everything you know about how Corin's people move."

"I can help you down there," Lena said.

"You can help me more up here," Adrian said. "Please."

Lena's face fell, just slightly, but she nodded in acceptance.

Adrian and Marcus disappeared down the dark stairwell, a flashlight beam swallowed fast by the black.

The silence after they left felt heavier than the smoke.

"He's going to get himself killed," Mira said.

"He usually doesn't," Helena said, though she didn't sound so confident as usual.

Lena crossed her arms, staring at the empty stairwell. "You don't know him like I do; he gets reckless when it's someone he loves. He always has."

"Loved," Mira interrupted and added. "Past tense."

Lena turned to look at her, something almost amused flickering through the exhaustion on her face. "Is that a real question, or are you just fishing?"

"I don't need to fish for anything."

"Good," Lena said. "Because I already told you the truth. Whatever I felt for him, it's not what's standing between you two now."

Helena cut in before Mira could answer. "This isn't the time for all these."

A crash sounded from somewhere below, muffled through the floor, followed by a shout that might have been Marcus.

Mira's whole body went rigid. "That's them."

"Stay here," Helena said while she was moving toward the stairwell door.

Mira was already moving before she finished the sentence. "Miss Voss—"

"If something happens to him, I need to know," Mira said, already halfway down the first flight of stairs. "I can't just sit up here and wait."

Lena, surprisingly, fell into step right behind her. "For once, we agree on something."

"You're supposed to be staying with Helena," Mira said.

"So are you," Lena shot back, and there wasn't much Mira could say to that.

The stairwell opened into the same underground room from before, torches guttering low, throwing long, shaking shadows across the stone walls. Marcus was down on one knee, blood running from a cut above his eyebrow, and Adrian stood over him, breathing hard, claws out, eyes fully gold.

Across the room, near Elena's empty bed, stood a man Mira had never seen. Not the pale-eyed stranger from before, but his one was smaller, quieter, and dressed like he could have walked out of any office in the city, and that made him somehow worse., 

"You're not supposed to be down here," the man said, looking straight at Mira.

"Who are you?" Mira demanded.

"He doesn't matter right now, Mira," Adrian said, voicing a low growl. "What matters is where my sister is."

"Your sister is safe," the man said calmly. "For now Corin only wanted me to deliver a message and, to be fair, deliver a demonstration of exactly how easily we can move through this house whenever we choose."

"Then deliver it and leave," Adrian snapped.

"I already have." The man smiled, thin and cold. "The message is that Elena is gone again, and this time you are not getting her back so easily. This time, it comes with a price."

"What price?" Mira asked, stepping forward despite Adrian's hand shooting out to stop her.

The man's eyes moved slowly to her, lingering in a way that made her skin crawl.

"Not you," he said, almost gently. "Not yet; Corin was very specific about that." He reached into his jacket, and Marcus tensed, ready to move, but the man only pulled out a folded photograph, tossing it onto the floor between them. "He wants the item in this photograph to be delivered to the old warehouse district by sunrise, or Elena doesn't come home at all."

Adrian bent down and picked up the photograph, and whatever color was left in his face drained out completely.

"That's impossible," he said quietly. "That was destroyed years ago."

"Was it?" the man asked, already backing toward the shadows at the edge of the room. "Sunrise, Adrian. Don't be late."

He vanished into the dark before anyone could move, and the torches guttered out one by one behind him, plunging the room into complete black.

"Adrian," Mira said, her voice shaking, reaching for him in the dark. "What's in the photograph?"

There was silence in the room.

Then, from somewhere close in the pitch black, Adrian's voice came out rougher than she had ever heard it.

"My father's grave is empty, Mira. It has been three years, and I never told anyone, not even Elena."