This Savage Song (Monsters of Verity #1)(67)

August let go, pushed his hands through his hair. “Kate,” he said. “Kate, wake up.”

She made a muffled sound but didn’t stir.

Ilsa slid to her feet, and crossed to the bed. “No, Ilsa, wait.” But it was too late, she was already reaching out, wrapping her fingers around Kate’s shoulder. She must have squeezed it, because Kate gasped and jerked forward, the lighter in her hand transforming into the small, sharp knife, the silver edge pressed to Ilsa’s throat. His sister looked down at the girl, but didn’t move.

“You’re hurt,” said Ilsa simply.

“Who are you?” demanded Kate.

“We have to go,” said August, pulling on his shirt. But Kate was still staring at Ilsa as if entranced. Which made sense; Ilsa was entrancing. “This is my sister, Ilsa. Ilsa, Kate.”

Kate’s eyes went to the stars pouring down Ilsa’s bare arms. “You’re the third one.”

Ilsa cocked her head. “No,” she said sweetly, “I’m the first.”

Kate lowered the knife, her free hand against her injured stomach. August could see the pain etched into her features. “What’s going on?”

“Malchai. Coming. Now.”

Kate pitched to her feet, swaying before Ilsa caught her. Kate stared down at the place where the Sunai’s fingers met her skin.

“Listen for me, Ilsa,” August pulled on his shoes, slung the violin over his shoulder. His sister pressed her ear to the wall. “Tell me if they—”

“They’re here.”

August paled, caught the distant sound of steps, the wet rattle of voices, the scent of rot. She was right. Kate swore, maneuvering her shirt back on. She headed for the door, and August took a step, but turned back when his sister didn’t follow. “Come on.”

“Go, little brother,” she said, her ear still to the wall. “I will stay here until you are gone.”

“It isn’t safe,” he said, holding out his hand.

But Ilsa reached up, and touched his cheek instead. “Safe,” she said with a hollow smile. “That is a pretty word.”

“Come on,” snapped Kate beside the door.

“But—”

“Don’t worry, August. I’m not afraid of the dark.”

Our sister has two sides.

He took his Ilsa’s face in his hands. “Please be careful.”

They do not meet.

“Go,” she said. “Before the cracks catch up.”





Kate had an iron spike out by the time they reached the hall.

The lighter’s hidden knife was well and good for threatening schoolgirls, but it wasn’t long enough to bypass the ribs of a Malchai and hit the heart. She hadn’t had a chance to clean the spike since the attack at Colton, and the edge was still crusted with blackish blood.

August was there at her side, one hand up as if he thought she would fall. As if he planned to catch her. There was an elevator and two stairwells, one on either end of the hall. A one-in-three chance of choosing wrong, but she wasn’t about to get caught in a box. Pain burned across her stomach as she raced for the nearest set of stairs.

August kept looking back toward the room and the other Sunai, with her sad eyes and her skin covered in stars.

“She’ll be fine,” said Kate as they plunged into the stairwell, and it came out sounding hollow even though the girl wasn’t just a girl of course, she was a monster. She’d made the Barren, torn a hole in the world. Surely she could face a few Malchai, if it came to it.

They hit the second floor landing right as a door slammed open below, and the air went cold.

August must have felt the difference, too, because he grabbed her hand, and they burst out onto the second floor, sprinting for the other set of stairs.

Down, down, steps echoing through the concrete chamber as they passed the first floor and kept going. A door thrown open overhead. They hit the basement level just as a shape dropped like a stone over the stairs and landed before them in an elegant crouch.

The fall should have shattered the creature’s body, but the Malchai rose fluidly, red eyes little more than violent cuts in her skull. A gash ran down her cheek, obscuring the H once branded into her skin.

“Foolish little Harker,” she said, her mouth twisting into a rictus grin, “doesn’t know when to die.” The Malchai’s red eyes cut to August, and she let out a wet hiss. “Sunai.”

August started to put himself in front of Kate, but someone was stomping down the stairs. He appeared, a human rippling with muscles, a metal baton clutched in one meaty hand. Just like the Malchai, the man’s face bore her father’s brand, and just like the Malchai, it had been clawed off. Angry red welts ran down his cheek.

The sight of him made Kate’s head spin. A human? The dissenters were gathering steam. And men. But that made no sense; Olivier’s whole point had been—

The man’s baton slashed toward her, and August pulled her out of the way and got his arm up in time to block the blow. When the metal cracked against his forearm, electricity arced and crackled over his skin. August gasped but didn’t buckle.

Kate felt a shudder of movement at her back and spun, slashing at the Malchai with the iron spike, but the creature ducked and dodged, her motions terrifyingly fast and impossibly fluid. Beside Kate, August’s fist connected with the man’s face, and his head cracked sideways, but he didn’t fall. He struck again with the baton, and this time August caught it in one hand, the energy arcing over him and filling the stairwell with static. For an instant, his gray eyes burned blue with the power, and then he tore the weapon from the man’s grip.