𝒜 𝒞𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓉 𝑜𝒻 𝑅𝑒𝓈𝒾𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝒸𝑒 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒮𝒸𝒶𝓇𝓈 | ᴀᴢʀɪᴇʟ

Chapter 11

Chapter 11

The town house trembled with a blood-curdling scream.

Rhysand startled awake, flinging the silk sheets from his body and tore down the hall as the screaming continued. He could already hear the commotion downstairs and half-expected to find one of them with their arms cut off. He knew who the screams belonged to—but they were distant, almost smothered.

Mor and Cassian were yelling at the other, but it wasn't the sound that awoke him. No, they too had their heads snapping around, searching for its source, arguing between themselves. Just as Rhysand's feet hit the last step, the front door flung open with his spymaster's form dangerously alert.

"Where is she?" Rhysand demanded, reaching the sitting room, capturing Mor and Cassian's attention.

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Cassian growled back, though the frustration wasn't aimed at the High Lord. Azriel burst into the room after him, shadows unsettled and whipping around him. "We can't find her."

"Can't find..." Rhysand trailed off as he listened to his sister's voice. She called his name, then Azriel's, Cassian's, Mor's and even Amren's. She was thumping against something solid. Trapped. Their heads all turned, ears perked for the sound.

"It's happened again," Azriel realised, quickly sending his shadows off on a hunt.

All Arwen saw was blackness. All except a thin slither of light that crossed against something made of stone, the trail thinner than her smallest finger. Her stomach pressed flat against the earth, hard wooden slats against her back. She couldn't breathe properly, couldn't lift herself or move in any direction. But she had fallen into whatever pit it was.

Cassian's head was tilted up, examining where he stood in relation to the upstairs level. Rhysand and Mor swapped between pressing their ears closer to the walls and floor as they scoured through the sitting room and into the small library that made his office. Azriel lingered behind, using his shadows. They had found her, but now he had to find where they both were. "Her bedroom should be right above us," the warrior stated. She had still been asleep not half an hour ago when he opened her door.

Arwen heard their muffled voices. Rhysand had tapped into her mind, soothing words flowing to her. She was trapped underneath the houses, pinched between the earth and the foundations. Somehow fallen right through the house itself but not through the ground.

'You're going to have to winnow out.'

"No," she said aloud. "No—I don't know how to, Rhys!"

Rhysand evened his breaths as he crouched on the floor of his office. He could hear her through the floor, felt her panic in his mind. "You're going to have to. There's no way under the house and we can't winnow into that space. Either that or you find a way to make yourself go through things again."

Arwen felt Azriel's shadows. She couldn't see them. She could barely see anything, but they always felt like a soft tickle. "I don't know how to control it," she spat, willing back failing to keep herself calm. "And not every Fae can winnow, and we both know I can't!"

Rhysand rolled his tongue over his lips, looking to the rest of the Inner Circle for ideas. They couldn't destroy the flooring because they would risk hurting her in the process and there was no way for them to get to her from the outside either. With a resigning shake of his head, he said, "You're going to winnow. I'm the most powerful High Lord in history—"

"I do not care for your bragging right now," her muffled cry interrupted.

"And there is no way that my sister isn't capable of winnowing. There is no way that I have all this power and you don't have any, so you are going to winnow." Rhysand finished his firm words, holding his breath as he awaited her reply. "Arwen?"