Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
That was how she found herself back inside Third Floor.
Chapter Forty-Five
Torra hugged herself tightly in the back shadows of Red Velvet when Kierse approached, as promised. “I don’t have a lot of time. Did you find a way out?”
Kierse shook her head, hating that she was bringing bad news. “Not yet. Did you hear anything?”
“I don’t want to raise suspicions, but we had a meeting about an upcoming party and I tried to ask around.” Torra frowned. “They’re all still pretty upset about Orik. I didn’t want them to think I was plotting an escape. People don’t escape this place.”
“You will,” she assured her.
She hadn’t thought that Torra would be able to find a way out. If she had, then she’d already have left this place a year ago. No, Kierse knew she had to find it.
“What about this upcoming party?” Kierse asked.
“It’s King Louis’s winter solstice party. He throws it every year. Last year was . . . a bloodbath,” Torra said with a shudder.
Kierse shivered. Torra was going to be at the same party where Kierse and Graves were planning to steal the spear. She needed to get her out before the party.
“What?” Torra asked.
“Nothing.”
“I know you better than that. Why do I have a feeling you’ll be at that party?”
“I’m running a job there,” she admitted.
“Don’t,” Torra said. “How would you even get in? You’re human. They’ll kill you.”
“I have an invitation.”
Torra grasped her arm, fear crossing her face. “They will kill you.”
“I’m going, Torra, and I’m going to find a way so that you don’t have to go.”
“We should use the party as cover,” Torra said instead. “You find your exit. I can get you safely into that party and give them a reason not to immediately kill you. We can get out together from there.”
She shook her head. “I’m not putting you in danger.”
“I’m already in danger,” she hissed. “I’m trying to think of how we both get out alive.”
“I need the exit first.”
“Then get to work,” Torra admonished fondly. “But think on the party. I don’t know how you got an invitation, but I promise you, I know King Louis. And you do not want to use it to get inside.”
Torra stumbled back toward Red Velvet, leaving Kierse wondering exactly how Graves had gotten the invitation. Torra had been down here long enough to know how these things work. Maybe she was right. Maybe she and Graves needed to go back over the plan.
But first . . . a fucking exit.
She circumvented the brothel and headed back to Blood. Since crisscrossing through the Third Floor entrances didn’t seem to bear any fruit, she’d decided to do the more boring side of recon work: wait, watch, and listen.
Thankfully, it was a different bartender today, and the goblin seemed to care even less that she wasn’t drinking, though she kept a glass in front of her the whole time. She was here to listen for pertinent information. Except that no one mentioned anything relevant in the hour she sat and listened in on conversations. Nothing on ways in or out. Nothing on King Louis. Nothing at all.
Today was a bust. Kierse put some cash on the bar and stood from her chair. Sure, there were plenty of monsters. An incubus leaning against his succubus pair as they stared lasciviously at a goblin enjoying a beer across the bar. A mermaid on two legs with hair the color of seaweed speaking to a sketchy shifter. They all made sense. All allies of the vampires during the Monster War. But the pack of nymphs surprised her. They were closest to humans, along with wolves. More monsters had gone underground than Kierse had even realized.
She’d just pushed through the double doors, ready to do some more traditional reconnaissance, since her wait and watch hadn’t helped anything, when something caught her eye.
A flash of thick, black-rimmed glasses, a distressed superhero T-shirt, and a pair of dirty black Converse. He looked out of place amidst the mayhem of the market, which made him stand out. She knew him instantly from the photograph in Graves’s library.
Walter Rodriguez.
She hastened around the corner of the pub. Her eyes scanned the crowd, and she nearly walked directly into a wraith.
She skittered backward, edging away from the soul-sucker. “Sorry,” she said, pitching her voice low.
Then she saw him. Just a wisp of his curly, dark-brown hair.
There and gone. He’d disappeared down a side alley.
Kierse raced after him. She rounded the corner and found him standing at the back entrance of a restaurant. Sliding into the shadows, she concealed herself in the darkness of the cavern to listen in on the conversation.
“Ah, you’re here again already?” a mer asked Walter with anger scrunching his face.
“Yeah. It’s that time, Ulster,” Walter said.
Ulster huffed. “We have a few in the back. He likes them young, yes?”