A Drop of Night(76)

He trails off. His eyes fix on mine and my blood runs cold. “Now, Anouk. I think we’ve chatted long enough.” He bows his head respectfully, and the silver spike rises, his fingers wrapped around the nozzle like it’s the head of a snake. “I will ask you one more time: where are your friends?”



Sinking. That’s how I feel. Sinking down-down-down, into an endless, crushing blackness. This is too big for me. Too big for all of us. Lilly, Jules, Will, and I—we’re just tiny, rusty wheels in their huge plan, squeaking desperately. Uselessly. There’s no way on earth I’m getting out of here alive.

“I don’t think you know where they are,” he says. “I think you’re lying.”

“I do. I know where they are.”

“Ah! So tell me. I upheld my end of the bargain.”

He gazes at me expectantly across the tip of the nozzle, his eyes glittering.

I hesitate. Just one second, one flicker of confusion while I sort through possible lies I can tell. Havriel sees it. He smiles.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to find them on our own, then. It was lovely speaking to you, my dear. Lovely.”

Behind him, the man in the red coat strikes something—a sharp, crystalline note against one of the figurines on the mantelpiece. My eyes flick toward the sound––

Havriel lunges. Grips my shoulder and tries to spin me, jamming the nozzle toward my spine. I wriggle out of his grasp, knee him in the stomach. Whirl, looking for somewhere to run. The two men are between me and the door. Havriel’s moving, the nozzle raised. I dive through the bed-curtains. Crawl over the sheets and slip out the other side.

You still think you can escape . . . live happily ever after. No. Not really. But being realistic doesn’t get you anywhere. I guess we keep holding out for something, even if it never comes, even when there’s only the tiniest, tiniest hope.

I hear Havriel coming after me. I’m pleased to note he’s breathless from my kick, a rasp at the back of his throat. He emerges around the bedpost. I try to dash across the bed again. He catches my ankle and yanks me toward him.

“Do not make this more difficult than it has to be, Anouk,” he spits, and I roll over and kick him in the face with my free foot, over and over again, pummeling his cheeks, his nose. He catches that foot, too. But he has to drop the nozzle to do it. I wrench myself upright, grab the nozzle, and stab the sharp silver tip straight at Havriel.

The spike embeds itself in his shoulder.

He lets go of me with a howl. I launch myself back out the other side of the bed, scramble to my feet, and run for the door.

The marquis is right in my path. I slam into him. I expect him to topple over. At least move backward a few inches. Nope. It’s like hitting sack of bricks. I reel back. He shoves me. I stumble into the center of the room.

Havriel is hulking toward me, one hand clutching the small red puncture in his velvet coat.

I try to stand tall, dig my fingers into my palms. The pain in my rib cage is excruciating. It makes me mad. It makes me proud. The chandelier didn’t kill me. The psycho butterfly thing didn’t kill me. Hayden didn’t kill me. You’re going to kill me, but hey, I made it all the way to the end, boss. That’s not too shabby.

Havriel doesn’t even blink. He lashes out with the nozzle. I duck, drop to the floor, and scrabble away on hands and knees––

And now I hear something behind me, coming from the double doors. The click-click of a handle being tried, cautiously.

Havriel kicks me in the shoulder. The pain is unreal, more like a white shower of sparks, like my nerves can’t even really deal with that much anymore. I’m reeling, dragging myself over the floor.

The doors are opening.

I look up.

It’s Lilly.

No way.

But it is.

Lilly, standing in the doorway, her face filthy, her clothes torn and ragged, grimy with sweat and blood. She’s not crying. She’s holding an old-fashioned flintlock pistol. She pulls back the hammer and raises it at Havriel.

Seeing her makes me smile like nobody’s business. “Shoot Havriel!” I shriek from the floor. “I mean Dorf, shoot Dorf!”

The marquis starts toward her from the left. She wheels around, pointing it at him.

I start to crawl for the door. Havriel lets out a low growl and comes after me, fast and liquid like a panther.

Lilly jerks the gun back and forth between them, confused. The marquis is digging something out of his pocket, another glinting bottle––

“Lilly!” I scream. “SHOOT THEM!”

The gun goes off. There’s a bright flash, a dull cracking sound, and a puff of gray smoke.

Havriel freezes, inches away from me.

Who’s been shot?

They’re both still standing. I get myself upright. Hobble toward Lilly.

The bottle falls from the marquis’s grasp. Bursts against the floor. He brings his hand down to his stomach.

“Aide-moi, mon frère . . . ?” the marquis breathes. And he collapses, folding at the knees, the waist, neatly, like a length of fabric.

Lilly points the gun at Havriel. Aims at his leg and pulls the trigger. It clicks. She pulls again.

One shot, Lilly. Flintlocks have one shot.

She throws the gun full force at Havriel’s head, grabs my arm, and we race out of the room.

I glance back. See Havriel kneeling next to the marquis, pressing his hand to the wound. He’ll be up in a second. Maybe the marquis will be, too. Can these people die from bullet wounds?