Gilded Cage (Dark Gifts #1)(90)

‘Thank goodness you’re all right.’ His hands cupped her face carefully as if she, too, was made of glass and had only just been glued back together.

Then he kissed her.

And for a moment she was soaring with the stars in the crystalline sphere, dizzyingly high and perfect.

She forgot her brother. Forgot Silyen. Forgot Dog making a garrotte of his leash. Forgot the marshal’s broken body, and Chancellor Zelston in a pool of gore. Nothing existed apart from the urgency of that mouth against hers.

Then she was pushing Jenner away. Because although this was what she wanted – more than anything – it was too late. It was all too late. Luke was a murderer. Lord Jardine was in power. Euterpe Parva had torn open the sky. And Silyen Jardine was rebuilding Kyneston with nothing but Skill.

‘It’s the Great Demonstration,’ she said, filled with awful understanding. She pushed at Jenner even as he tried to enfold her more tightly.

‘What?’

Jenner was uncomprehending. His blackened palm caressed her neck and made her shiver, and she ducked away from his hand. Couldn’t he see it?

‘The Great Demonstration. When Cadmus built the House of Light using nothing but Skill.’

‘He’s just repairing the damage.’

‘Repairing? This isn’t one of your mother’s ornaments, Jenner. This is Kyneston. Look.’

She pointed to the glass walls that soared above them, restored and flawless, exactly as they had been.

But they weren’t exactly the same, were they? Because what she had at first mistaken for smoke, and then thought was simply shadow, was neither.

It was dim, radiant forms moving to and fro beyond the glass. Just as they did at the House of Light.

Fear filled Abi’s heart. The lesson of the Great Demonstration was one that every child in Britain learned. It was the greatest statement there had ever been of the irresistibility of Skill. More powerful even than the killing of the Last King.

Cadmus’s work that day had ended one world and forged another that was wholly different, in which those without Skill were made slaves. It had ushered in Equal rule.

‘What is your brother trying to prove?’ she murmured.

‘And what about yours?’ Jenner said, gently taking Abi by the shoulders and turning her to face him. ‘Father has him in custody. He shot Zelston, Abigail. And father has got it into his head that the bullet was meant for him.’

‘For your father? But how could Luke have missed. They were standing right next to each other.’

‘The binding, Abi. What Silyen does to you all at the gate. None of our slaves can hurt us. If Luke had gone for my father, he would have been compelled to deflect. And as mother and Aunt Euterpe are family too . . .’ Jenner shrugged, at a loss to find any way of softening the blow. ‘Zelston was the only one left.’

Abi shook her head. Could that be true?

Did it even matter? Luke had killed Zelston, whoever his true target had been.

No, only one thing mattered now. Luke was still here at Kyneston. Still rescuable.

But how?





22



Luke



Luke wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting. A cell? Dog’s pen, perhaps.

But not this. Not a huge, sumptuous bed with a crimson silk coverlet pulled up to his chin. Someone had tucked him in like he was a little kid.

He closed his eyes with relief. So they’d realized he hadn’t done it.

Because he didn’t do it, he was certain. Although Lord Jardine and the other man – had it been Crovan? – seemed convinced that he had.

Kyneston’s master had hauled Luke from the destroyed ballroom. Dragged him to the library and tied him to a chair. There, Crovan had dug about in Luke’s skull with what had felt like knives, but was actually Skill. Digging for memories that weren’t there. Memories of murdering Chancellor Zelston.

Luke remembered walking into the East Wing, four champagne bottles on a tray. He remembered the yapping dog; Abi with a clipboard; the Equal girl in the gaping gown. Then . . .

Nothing until an upraised scarlet hand and what had felt like the end of the world.

Then Lord Jardine, bloodied and dirtied and incoherent with rage. A body on the floor, that Luke only belatedly recognized as the Chancellor. Accusations he didn’t understand. Terror. Pain. So much of it that he’d passed out.

But now it was over. He was safe in a soft bed. Luke snuggled beneath the coverlet. The mattress moved under him strangely. Almost rippling. He ducked his head to look.

It was too dim to see much, but he seemed to be lying in a spill of liquid. It was warm. Had a hot-water bottle burst? He snaked a hand down to check. When he drew it back up, his fingers were red.

Blood. He was lying in a pool of blood.

Panicked, he tried to throw back the coverlet to yell for help. Which was when he noticed it wasn’t a coverlet at all. It was a dress. The wide floating skirts of a red dress. Or a dress that had once been some other colour, but was now sopping with blood.

Luke gasped. It didn’t drag nearly enough air into his lungs. Hot, salty liquid trickled down his throat. Blood. Blood everywhere.

Then he was pulled up bodily. Pulled up and out.

A voice roared in his face: ‘Stop it!’

He was struck so viciously he was amazed his head didn’t snap right off its thin stalk of spine.