Page 225 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

“Hell, you never even make a difference,” she told me. “Not even projection-you is good enough to change anything.”

“Not real,” I breathed aloud, gripping Cyrus’s bicep and tugging him faster through the depths, around the second sarcophagus. He didn’t stop. Didn’t ask to look.

“You can incarnate a million times, and you’ll never be enough to beat me!”

“How uh…how much farther?” Cyrus’s voice was steady, but I heard the edge in it. Same edge I felt in mine.

“That’s the second. We need the fourth.”

“So far, my pants are still intact.”

I laughed. Really laughed, glancing up at him in surprise.

He looked more likely to puke than join me, but his lips twitched.

Conn materialized as we passed through the next archway. I resisted the urge to look back. We were only halfway. No point in measuring distance when I knew how deep this went.

“You only had one job,” he said, eyes like knives. “Saoirse trusted you to look after me.”

“She never wins,” Reagan told past-life August conversationally. “All she knows how to do is sacrifice the people around her. You. Your queen. She’ll do it again, you know?”

“You’ll kill us, Freya,” August said as he appeared beside Conn, the three of them hovering backward, blocking my view of the pathway toward the catacombs. “You’ve always been too fucking selfish to just stay out of trouble.”

Aren came next. “I told you not to open Pandora’s box, Freya. But here you are. Fucking him.”

I flinched before I could slam my eyes shut. “Not real.”

“Not real,” echoed Cyrus.

What personal hell was he walking through right now? The death of his brother? The collapse of his hierarchy? They were surely preying on the fact that I was helping pull it apart at the seams. Picking up on my anchoring game, Cyrus asked, “How the fuck did you find this place the first time?”

“I was hired for a job.”

“A job you failed,” ghost-Reagan hissed. “Kin slayer. Betrayer.”

“Naturally.”

“Sometimes it’s easier to tuck things in plain sight.”

“This is anything but that,” Cyrus muttered.

“Okay,” I laughed. “Sure. But they hired me to steal a Bellpost relic. So why not bury it where the rest of their stories rot?”

We came to a halt at the last chamber—simpler, made of bones. Small braziers flickered down each of the eight spider-leg halls branching from the vast circle.

“Did they bury the architect in here?” Cyrus asked.

“I dunno. Why?”

“So I can resurrect his ass just to send him back myself.”

I huffed a half-hearted laugh and pointed down the correct path. “You’re doing great. Honestly, I’m floored.”

“Sure, talk him up before you get him killed,” August snarled, his eyes flashing red like the Wraith’s had. Cyrus followed my lead, and both our paces quickened.

“You’re incapable of keeping anybody safe.”

“Stay steady. We’re almost there.”