Gilded Cage (Dark Gifts #1)(88)

Who knew how long it had taken. But as Heir Ravenna’s shoulders slumped, her eyelashes tarred shut by tears and mascara, Abi thought that you’d never know anything had happened to her. She could just have had a few too many drinks and a tumble off her heels.

Abi shook her head, furious with herself for becoming distracted when every second might count.

Where was Luke?

She looked round the ruined ballroom and shivered. It was March, and now that the adrenaline had ebbed from her system the night was damp and chill. Was anyone looking after the injured slaves? Was Mum here?

Yes – there she was. Jackie Hadley was kneeling beside a crumpled figure, barking instructions at a kitchen-slave carrying a green satchel emblazoned with a white cross. The girl was fumbling inside the bag for something, which she passed across to Mum. It looked like a bandage. Mum obviously had no idea about Luke, or she would have been pulling down the rest of Kyneston looking for him.

What on earth had happened here? The last thing Abi remembered was Euterpe Parva screaming. Had Luke done something worse even than shooting Zelston? So much destruction had to have been the work of a bomb.

A crescendo of hysterical sobbing arose from somewhere to Abi’s right. It was a sound that no one could hear and ignore. She hurried across, stepping carefully over shatterfalls of broken glass.

But someone was already there. Incredibly, it was an Equal, a beautiful young woman in a sequinned dress. She looked vaguely familiar. Had Abi seen her picture in a magazine? The Equal’s hand was pressed to the forehead of a slave who lay pinioned across the chest by a heavy iron strut.

‘I can’t feel my legs,’ the man was whimpering. ‘I’m so cold. Please, I’ve got four kids.’

‘Best leave out the grisly details in your next letter to them,’ the girl said in a husky voice, giving him a reassuring smile. ‘Let’s get this off you, shall we?’

The fallen girder was as long as she was and must have been many times heavier. But the girl set her free hand to one end of the length of metal and, exertion plain on her pretty face, lifted it off him. When it was raised to arm’s length she flexed her elbow and shoved, sending it clattering harmlessly away.

‘Still . . . can’t . . .’ the man gasped.

The Equal shushed him gently and moved both hands to his chest, where wetness had spread across his black uniform shirt. She laid her fingers weightlessly upon him.

‘I know a doctor,’ she told the man, her smile softening. ‘He’s better at this than me. I’m afraid he’s busy looking for a friend of ours, but I promise I’m not too terrible. Be brave.’

The Equal girl was so gorgeous Abi wouldn’t be surprised if the man thought he’d died and gone to heaven already. He was gazing trustingly into her angelic face while she worked her Skill. Abi’s first aid plainly wasn’t needed here.

Only one person needed her right now. Where was Luke?

She searched the devastated scene once again for any clue.

Felt her breath stop in her throat as she saw the last person she would have imagined.

Dog, silhouetted against the brightness, walked to and fro across the sheared-off side of the mansion. He wore filthy overalls and a small pack on his back, and was plainly searching for something.

He owed her a favour. And he had more reason than most to hate the Jardines. Perhaps he could help her find Luke. She started to pick her way towards him, lifting the hem of her dress over rubble and ruin.

The shattered house was a disturbing spectacle. With one wall gone, Kyneston’s interior was entirely exposed, like a doll’s house. Equals and slaves were visible, moving around within. If any hand was moving them, Abi didn’t like to think what sort of game it was playing.

‘I think I prefer it like this,’ said a voice right behind her. ‘It’s much easier to see what people are up to, wouldn’t you agree?’

Abi spun, knowing who it was by the shudder that ran through her, even before she saw him.

Silyen Jardine.

‘Dog needs a hand,’ he said, looking over to where Dog had stopped to remove the knapsack. ‘He’s about to run up against the same problem your brother did.’

‘What?’ Abi’s voice was sharp, but she didn’t care. What did Silyen Jardine know about what had happened to Luke?

But the boy was already off, his long legs striding easily over the debris beneath his feet. At one point he stepped right over a whimpering slave, bleeding into the dirt. Abi murmured an inaudible ‘sorry’ and did the same, trying to keep up.

Silyen and the hound were already speaking by the time she reached them.

‘You know the binding won’t let you,’ Silyen was saying.

Dog stared at him. The planes of his face were etched unnaturally sharp beneath the roughly scissored hair that furred his face. His eyes burned. His leash was wrapped tight around one hand, the length of it dangling loose.

Abi glanced past the pair of them and into the ripped-apart house. In the wall-less Great Solar in a high-backed armchair, her face streaked with soot and her eyes closed to the chaos outside, sat Lady Hypatia Vernay.

‘You laid it,’ growled Dog. ‘You can lift it.’

‘Of course I can.’ Silyen Jardine smiled. ‘But she is family. Why would I?’

Dog’s eyes narrowed. Perhaps he was remembering his canine self and considering sinking his teeth into the Young Master. But with visible effort, he controlled himself.