Steelhands - Jaida Jones [198]
“Just think of me like one of the boys,” I suggested, not wanting any special treatment for any reason.
“Now, that might be difficult,” Luvander said with a knowing wink.
“Here it is,” Gaeth called in a reckless whisper, having trekked on ahead of us down the tunnel.
He pressed his hand against the wall, and I saw a flash of metal in his palm before the heavy grinding of stone sliding against stone filled my ears.
“Secret tunnel hidden in a secret passageway,” Adamo snorted, low enough so that I was the only one who’d hear him. “What a piece of work. The man has an inflated sense of self-worth.”
“He is th’Esar,” I pointed out. “At least it’s convenient for us since it’ll take us right to him.”
“What’s that in your hand?” Toverre demanded, pulling at Gaeth’s fingers so he could see his palm.
“Dunno what it’s called,” Gaeth admitted. He looked pretty uncomfortable—especially since Toverre hadn’t exactly kept his curiosity quiet, and now everyone was craning around to get a look at what he’d seen. “It’s what keeps me and Cornflower together, that’s all I know. It means she’s supposed to listen to me, even when she doesn’t.”
“I don’t suppose it comes off?” Luvander asked, like he already knew the answer to that.
“No, sir,” Gaeth said, shaking his head. “It’s planted real good into the skin. Only way to take it off is cutting the hand off, and Cornflower wouldn’t like that too much. So I expect they didn’t want anyone else to have control of her—excepting th’Esar maybe, but even I ain’t sure how he does that.”
Far as I could tell, it was a circle of silver metal with a deep red jewel in the center. It looked clean enough, and the skin around it wasn’t angry, but the sight of it still made me wince. I didn’t like to think about how they’d gotten it in there in the first place, or how much it hurt at first. Poor Gaeth. I could just see Toverre doing his best to keep it polished, though, and came near to laughing despite myself.
“Interesting that Nico should take such an exception to the former Ke-Han emperor’s use of blood magic, only to turn to it himself,” Antoinette said, studying the jewel. “Or turn it on himself, as the case may be.” The way she was looking at it reminded me of the way an owl studied a mouse—right before dinnertime.
All at once Gaeth drew in a sharp breath and tugged his hand out of Toverre’s grip.
“What is it?” Toverre asked immediately. “Does it hurt?”
“I’m fine,” Gaeth said, pressing a hand to his head, like he’d got one of them killer aches my da got, right between the eyes. “It’s nothing; well, nothing bad. It’s Cornflower. She knows I’m getting farther away, and it makes her restless.”
“Can you talk to her?” Adamo asked, coming to the foreground. “Might come in handy if we turn out to need a little backup.”
“I can tell her where we’re going,” Gaeth said, nodding after a minute. His whole body relaxed, so that it didn’t look like he was in pain anymore. “Her pen—I mean, the room where they keep them; she doesn’t take much to being cooped up like a barn animal—is right below this one. ’Course, if anything happens to me, she’ll come running, whether or not we want her to.”
“How convenient,” Antoinette said. I knew that light in her eyes—she was busy adding everything up, the way Adamo was, making sure she was keeping each piece of the puzzle in mind before she made her next move.
“We should press on,” Adamo said, casting a glance back through the tunnel. “Hate to be the one to remind everyone, but time isn’t on our side.”
“True enough,” I said, tearing my eyes away from the jewel in the center. Ke-Han blood magic, Antoinette had said; just the sound of it made me feel dirty. That jewel was the same color as the vial of blood Germaine had taken from me. Same color as Gaeth’s blood, too, I’d be willing to wager, since it probably was his blood.
Was this what Germaine’d been planning to do with me? When I thought about how close I’d come to being trapped underground there myself, I felt like my lungs were being crushed.
“I don’t mind going first again,”