“What’s the last one? What does it mean?” She asked.
The lines around his eyes relaxed, and he swallowed as if he were gathering his courage. “My sister has always been gifted, and … and my mother made sure that she used her gifts to become sadistic. When she was younger, Mother encouraged Elsha to create elaborate ways to tease other children. Somehow, my sister invented a mark that linked other magic together, and she would use it to torment the children of our servants. She would link ticklishness with immobility, then add in incontinence, or some such cruelty. She was made to be heartless, but this … this is something else entirely.”
“I don’t understand,” Gemma said, turning back to look at the corridor. She could see the four shapes along the ceiling, mocking her. Then her gaze fell upon a fifth shape—tiny and well hidden—at the bottom of the door frame, nearly invisible even from here. She couldn’t have seen it had she not been standing so far away from the door.
She pointed at it, but Devery shook his head. “I can’t see them. They must’ve been made especially for you.” He handed her the notebook, and she copied down the new tiny mark.
“That’s the deactivation mark,” he groaned. “If you touch it, the trap will be disarmed.” There was a steely edge to his voice that she didn’t like.
“So I just have to walk up and touch it?” she asked, disbelieving.
He drew in a deep breath through his nose and said, “No. If it isn’t as bright, that means that the last mark will not activate unless you set off the first three. I … goddess-damn her, Gem. I’d do it for you in a heartbeat, but the link mark must be coded for you. I don’t think I can.”
Gemma’s heart pounded in her chest, but she nodded. “It’s all right,” she said softly. “These five, and then we’re in.” She leaned in and kissed the side of his nose, which was wet with tears. “I’m going to need a lift, though.”
Somehow Tollan found himself standing in the center of the Black Corridor with Gemma’s right foot on his shoulder. Wince stood next to him, supporting her other foot. Devery stood in front of them, facing her, his arms outstretched to catch her, while Elam and Isbit took up the spaces behind them in case she fell backward.
“This is the worst prickling idea anyone has ever had,” Wince growled quietly.
“Goddess, Wince. Thank you for pointing that out. Whatever would I do without you to tell me things I couldn’t possibly figure out on my own?” Gemma snipped. Her foot shifted carefully on Tollan’s shoulder.
Wince grunted something unintelligible in the shadows as their lone torch guttered precariously on the stone floor.
“All right,” she said sharply. “I’m going to touch it now.” A wave of tingling mage work rushed over them as Gemma began to curse.
“Mother-prickling mages,” she grumbled as she groped around, her hand planting itself firmly on Tollan’s head. “Dev, I’m going to hop down.”
Devery reached up, touching her hand and giving her something to hold on to as she jumped catlike to the ground.
“Aegos,” she hissed, a rising note of fear in her voice. “Keep talking. It’s blacker than the Void.”
Devery kept up a running commentary of what they were doing as they moved forward to the second mark. When Tollan and Wince were in position, Devery said, “Gem, I’m going to take your blades. All right?”
She hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Yes, I … think you should.”
Tollan watched as the assassin removed the two blades from their sheaths at her waist, then slipped his hands into her sleeves and removed another two blades from her wrists.
“Do you have on your ankle sheaths?” Devery asked her, and she nodded, coloring slightly.
“Yes. And also the other ones.”
A wide grin spread across Devery’s face as he removed two small daggers from beneath the cuffs at her ankles. Then he unlaced her breeches and reached down the front of them as he kissed her deeply before removing two more slender blades.
“Sacred goddess,” Wince murmured.
“It’s a pair of sheaths on my thigh, you prickling pervert,” Gemma chuckled.
Tollan took a deep breath as they lifted Gemma into position. This was the fear mark. Tollan had a difficult time imagining Gemma Antos being truly afraid of anything, ever. He just didn’t think she had it in her.
But the scream that ripped its way out of her spoke otherwise. She scrambled backward, slipping and clawing her way down his back until she was on all fours like an animal. “Get away from me!” She shrieked, crabbing backward. “I know he’s here! I know what he did! Stay away from me, Devery, you murdering shit, or I’ll gut you!” Her voice kept rising, both in pitch and volume, as she tried to dash away from them.
Elam grabbed her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “Shhh,” he whispered. “It’s all right. I’m here. Nothing bad is going to happen.” Tollan could hear the lie in his words, and so, it seemed, could Gemma.
“You’re going to leave me, Elam!” she sobbed, fighting against him. “You’re going to run off with King Tollan the Innocent and never, ever come back! You’re going to leave me with Devery and he’s going to murder me and I’m going to be all alone when he does.”
Tollan watched as Devery moved toward her. His blue eyes were wide with guilt. He motioned to Tollan and Wince, who stepped forward hesitantly. Isbit, Tollan noticed, had backed away, her mouth open but silent.
They manhandled Gemma. There was no other word for it, as the four of them wrestled her forward and thrust her, screaming and sobbing, upward toward the third mark. She flailed, trying to fight against her terror blindly, the sounds of her fear raggedly echoing through the corridor. Then her hand brushed the ceiling and the tenor of her screams changed.
Never had Tollan heard such agony. Even the sounds that Riquin Hawkbeard had made as Isbit had tortured him were dwarfed by the immensity of Gemma’s pain. She writhed, falling forward into Devery’s arms.
No man should have been able to catch a woman her size falling from that height, but the assassin did. Tears streamed down his face as he strode forward, cradling his lover as she screamed, clawing, writhing and tearing at him.
A moan of misery escaped Elam’s lips, though Tollan could barely hear it over the sound of Gemma’s pain. As a group, they moved forward. Isbit carried the torch, her green eyes gone cold.
Devery laid Gemma on the ground and kissed her head. “I love you, Gem,” he said, as he pressed her hand against the spot that Gemma had shown him.
An enormous wave of magic rolled over them, stealing the breath from Tollan’s lungs. Silence fell as Gemma’s head lolled to one side.
This time when Gemma awoke, there was no fog of confusion. She knew exactly where she was and why she was there. She remembered the absolute crushing blackness that had descended as she touched the first mark. She remembered the terror that sunk its claws into her, dragging out every fear that she had. She remembered the things she’d said to Devery and Elam. And she remembered the pain, as if every bone in her body had been pulverized into powder and set aflame. She remembered, and she was furious.
She leaped to her feet. Elam, Tollan, Wince and Isbit shrank back from her, but Devery stepped closer, his hands raised in surrender. “You’re all right. The mark is gone.”
“I know it’s prickling gone,” she growled. “I’m ready to go in. Why are we sitting around here with our thumbs up our asses?”
Devery’s mouth turned up on one side. He passed her knives to her one at a time. “Aegos, Gem. How much of that brew did Lian give you?”
She winked at him, brushing off the question. He was right. Her blood was singing, but it wasn’t the brew. She could taste her revenge. It would all be over very soon. She slid the last of her knives back into its sheath. Then she smiled broadly. “Come here.”
He flowed into her arms.