Blue Blood (Series of Blood Book 3) by Emma Hamm (books to read this summer .txt) 📕

disappeared, replaced by a short sentence that somehow conveyed a sense of urgency.

Do it.

He was going to kill Pitch the next time he saw him. Whatever the Shadow Man was, Jasper was going to find his weakness, and he was going to kill him.

Teleporting through iron bars was a terrible idea. Iron was deadly to all magical creatures and could not be bypassed by magic. This was why it made an effective prison. Theoretically, he should’ve been able to pass through the gaps and out to the other side. But iron did strange things to magic.

He might not piece himself together correctly. Or worse, he might leave parts of himself behind in the cell. He shuddered. It would be a slow, terrible way to die.

“Bluebell?” he asked.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Yeah me neither. You sure we won’t make it through the iron?”

“I’m not sure about anything. We’ve already tried a few times, and the pain was terrible. It’s unpredictable.”

Jasper nodded. “Great. So you know about as much as I do.”

“No one is stupid enough to teleport through iron. Don’t do it.”

He knew that, but there weren’t a lot of options here. He looked over at Ella and met her wide-eyed gaze. Teleporting was a death wish, he thought Ella might know what would happen if he tried.

But Pitch wouldn’t kill him by teleportation. Pitch was twisted, but that kind of kill wasn’t his style. He was far more bloodthirsty than that.

Time was running out. Jasper had to make up his mind before the guards came back, which he had to assume would be soon. Malachi wouldn’t be so foolish as to wait long when Mercy was around any number of creatures who could be made her master.

So far, he had proven to be an intelligent man.

“You’re not actually considering….” Bluebell was thin and reedy. “Jasper don’t do this. I like living in your mind.”

“You’ll find someone else to inhabit if I don’t make it. Hopefully a female this time.”

With his potential last words a joke, Jasper took a deep breath and focused on the space outside his cell. There was plenty of room between the bars. He could do this in his sleep.

If he wasn’t blocked by iron of course.

Enough stalling, he told himself. The ground was an easy target. He cleared his mind, exhaled, and imagined himself standing just outside the cell.

Pain exploded inside of him as soon as his body dissolved. He was nothing and everything. His body became the ground, the bars, the gentle wind stirring the air. And through all of it, every fiber of what had been his body screamed.

Bluebell’s usually sparkling happy voice shrieked through the roar of the nothing they had become.

Flesh gave way to agony. Bone became ache, and soul became torture. He could not find his way back. He could not bring together all the tormented fragments of his body. They were gone. And he was unravelling like a ball of yarn tumbling down a stairwell.

She was screaming. His tiny, adorable Fairy — who was always happy and kind—  screamed in his head until he could not take it any longer.

With a surge of control, he pulled the pieces of himself back together. They had stretched far from the place he wished to go. He had become a firework, the smoldering explosion of self dispersed on the wind. It was nearly impossible to find all those pieces and force them back together.

He did not know how or what god looked favorably upon him. But Jasper managed.

He materialized on the ground before his cell. His legs were incapable of holding his weight, and he crashed to his knees. It was a long way down. For once, Jasper wished he were not such a large man.

He gasped in air as though he had never breathed before. The relief was short-lived as his back spasmed and burned. He knew before he looked what ailed him.

Jasper glanced over his shoulder to stare at the mangled mess of his wings. They hadn’t survived the teleport as well as his body. One was crunched in half, drooping sadly towards the ground like a broken dragonfly wing. The other… The other looked as though someone had twisted it. It had become a corkscrew, spiraling rather than laying flat.

He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted by pain. The guards may return any second, and he held the skeleton key in his hand. It was their salvation if he could move.

Lurching to his feet, he stumbled to Ella’s cell. His hands shook as he inserted the key into the lock, praying it would open all of them. Shadows curled around the stem of the key and, before his eyes, the tines of the key changed.

“It will work,” Bluebell told him. “I know it will work.”

The key turned easily. “Thank you, Pitch,” he muttered.

The door swung open, and Ella stared at Jasper, stunned.

“I’m free?” she asked.

“We’re not out of the dark yet.” He barely managed to finish the sentence before she threw herself into his arms.

How long had it been since she had touched another person? He curled his arms around her and touched his cheek to the top of her head. Pity nearly made him shake. She was so little in his arms. Delicate, frail, in need of protection.

“I’m afraid to go. But we need to,” Ella whispered against his shoulder. “Do you have any plans?”

“Teleport out of here as far away as we can go.”

“Where is that?”

“I have an idea.” He couldn’t take them back to Haven. Not yet, anyway. Jasper didn’t know what kind of magic Malachi had up his sleeve, but if he had any Trackers, going to Haven would only endanger them all. They needed to run for a few days before they went back home.

Ella pulled back to look over his shoulder. “I don’t know if we should wake her.”

Neither did he. Mercy had all but told them that she couldn’t be trusted. She was volatile and unpredictable, a living weapon, and a