He muttered something she couldn’t quite make out. The creatures continued to dance around the edges of the light. Dorran was breathing heavily, trying to share his strength between carrying Clare and wielding the torch. “Hold on. We’re almost there.”
“I can walk.” She wasn’t sure if that was the actual truth, but she hoped she could carry through on the promise. “You can put me down.”
“Not yet.” Dorran sidestepped. Clare noticed a small metal door set into the side of the stone tunnel and braced herself. Using his shoulder, Dorran shoved the door open. Its hinges had springs, and as they stepped through, the door bounced closed with a bang. Dorran shoved his foot into it, and Clare heard a latch click as it caught.
He staggered back a handful of steps, dropped the torch, and very gently lowered Clare to the floor. As he pulled back, she tried to read his expression through the spluttering light. He was ashen grey, and his lips were white. Blood beaded in a scratch across one cheek. Stress clung around his eyes in shadows and harsh lines. “Clare—”
“It’s okay. I’m okay.”
He pressed into her, kissing her lips then her cheek before pulling back just far enough to look into her eyes. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“I’m not that easy to get rid of.” She laughed even though it hurt.
“Stay still a moment.” He pulled back to reach a bench near them. It held a lamp, which he opened and lit half-blind. The space was warmer than the tunnels they had come from. The homemade torch on the ground was burning itself out, but it wasn’t the only source of light. Clare looked behind herself and saw a glow coming from one of the five massive furnaces. Dorran had brought her to the basement.
The lamp came to life. Dorran knelt at Clare’s side. His smile faded as he saw the blood dripping off her shoulder. The tension returned to his movements as his hands roved across Clare’s body, assessing the damage, finding all of the bites and scratches. “Oh, Clare. No. No. I am so sorry. I am so sorry—”
“Not your fault.” She ran one hand over the side of Dorran’s face to pull his attention away from the cuts. Sweat dripped into her eyes, and her fingers shook, but she put conviction into her voice. “Listen to me. You don’t apologise, because none of this is your fault. You didn’t do this.”
His eyes met hers then flicked away as he tugged his jacket off. “I promised to keep you safe. I should have been more careful. I should have gotten to you faster.”
“It was my stupid ass that got grabbed. And you not only found me, but you got me out of there, which is more than a lot of people would have.” She winced as she adjusted her position. “I’m still alive. I’m calling that a win.”
He used a knife to cut his jacket into strips then began wrapping them around the cuts on Clare’s arms and legs. They bled freely and hurt like crazy, but as far as she could tell, there were no missing chunks, just tooth marks. Dorran tied off one of the bandages then applied pressure to another wound. “Try not to move. As long as we can get these to clot—”
“We can’t stay here for long. The monsters—the hollow ones—they’re mindless, and they probably won’t figure out the door. But Madeline will.”
He glanced at her sharply. “Are you certain it’s her?”
“Yeah. Grey hair. Fancy dress. Surrounded by maids. They used to be maids, at least.”
He squeezed his eyes closed and muttered under his breath.
“She…” Clare didn’t know how to say the next part. No matter how much bad blood existed between Dorran and his mother, Madeline was still his closest relative. It was hard to know how much loyalty might live under the surface or how painful the news might be. “She was caught in the quiet zone. It changed her.”
He didn’t look up from his work. “How?”
Clare flinched as he tied off another bandage. “She… she has a surplus of legs.”
“All right.” He was quiet as he examined the bite mark on her shoulder, and Clare tried to read his expression. He kept it carefully guarded. She thought it might be possible he didn’t know how to feel. It was a lot to try to process when there were so many other things to be worried about.
Dorran caught her watching him and glanced aside. “You said she is controlling the others?”
“She is. She said she brought them back here after they changed. They must have been hiding under her orders. They had instructions to stay away from you, which is probably why you never saw them.”
“And she knows the secret passageways, which means she has an advantage.” Dorran looked at the door behind them. A rock façade had been fastened over it. Now that it was closed, it was almost invisible as it blended into the rest of the wall. He sighed. “Oh, Clare. There are tunnels everywhere here. I don’t know how far they go, but I must have travelled through half of the house trying to reach you.”
“So no matter where we go, she’ll have access to us.”
“We can lock ourselves into a room. Perhaps if we can find somewhere secure, we can wait it out and let them starve. They must have been without food for a long time.”
Clare closed her eyes as she struggled to think through the headache and the pain. “They’re cannibalistic. The maids. That’s what they’ve been surviving on—each other.”
He groaned and tied off the final bandage. “Then we cannot wait them out.”
She didn’t know what to say. Fighting an uncoordinated band of creatures in the forest had been one thing. They could be outsmarted. But with someone like Madeline at their helm—clever, ruthless, and motivated—it was hard to believe anywhere was safe.
She ran her hand over Dorran’s cheek, just below the scratch.
He leaned into the touch. “Clare.” He kissed her palm. “You are alive.” He pressed another kiss to her hand, this one featherlight. “And you are with me. For that, I am grateful.”
She tried to smile. “No matter how this ends, I don’t regret anything. I don’t regret being with you. I want you to know that.”
His shoulders shook as he pulled her close. He was careful to only hold her in places she wasn’t hurt, but once he had his arms around her, he held her so desperately that she felt like he might never let go. “Dearest Clare, stay with me a little longer. I will figure this out. Somehow, some way, I will make it right.”
“We’ll make it right together,” she whispered.
Scratching noises echoed from the wall behind them. One of the creatures picked at the door, scrabbling around the edges and clawing at the handle. Clare’s heart dropped, and the hairs rose on the backs of her arms.
“Stay with me,” Dorran murmured, tightening his arms around her. “We will get out of here.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
With Dorran’s help, Clare stood and swayed. Her muscles were stiff, and every motion jarred the cuts on her legs. Dorran moved to lift her, but she shook her head. She couldn’t let him carry her again. It would put him at too much of a disadvantage if he had to fight.
Dorran scooped the torch off the ground. It had burnt out while they talked. He ripped away the old material and wrapped the remainder of his jacket around it. Then he picked up a jug from the shelf and poured fuel over the cloth.
“We’ll aim for our room,” he said as he used the lamp to light the torch. Flames bloomed, sending stark golden light across the space before reducing to a manageable size. “It is a long walk, so we may need to shelter somewhere closer. But if we can reach there, we have supplies to get us through the rest of the day and allow us to regroup.”