Broken Veil (Harbinger #5)(12)

Cettie cleared the edge of the tempest and saw two men standing tall at the helm. She blasted them both with feelings of terror, weakening their strength. Then someone grabbed her from behind. How she hadn’t sensed him, she didn’t know. She heard a zip from the arquebus and felt the ball whir over her head.

It missed.

Rand never missed!

There was no time to focus on why the man was still standing—she needed to ensure he did not do so for long. Cettie shoved her arms forward, then struck her elbow back into the man’s ribs. He groaned but did not go down, so she found one of his fingers and torqued it hard. The man gasped with pain as she gripped his arm and swung him around. He spun and landed face-first on the deck.

The tempest lurched, and she was flung against the sidewall, barely managing to stop herself from going over. She pushed again at the combined will of the mastons, but despite their terror, their minds held firm. She respected that. Unfortunately, it meant they both had to die. She felt an irrational surge of anger toward these mastons who were defying her.

The noise of boots struck the deck of the tempest, and Rand rolled forward. The tempest had risen enough that he’d been able to jump on board from the top of the warehouse. In a low crouch, he aimed his weapon at the two men at the helm and fired twice. Both of his balls struck them, but they did not pierce their clothes. She heard the bullets drop harmlessly to the deck, then roll down the angled wood. She remembered that the arquebuses from the Ministry of War could not harm mastons. The Leerings embedded in the bullets were designed that way.

Rand frowned, undaunted, then threw down the arquebus and drew two pistols from his belt as he marched toward the helm. Cettie turned and saw the third man, the one who had grabbed her from behind, coming at her again.

And she recognized him.

They recognized each other.

Both of them blinked in surprise. It was Caulton Forshee.

Twin gunshots exploded, loud and deafening in comparison to the whir of arquebus bullets. The pilot and the captain were killed instantly, and Cettie felt their resistance vanish. The Control Leering obeyed her now.

Cettie stared at Caulton in shock. She’d not seen him in years. The last time their paths had crossed, he’d warned her, and Rand, of the dangers of the hetaera. She’d given him a kystrel. Oh, how things had changed. There was surprise on his face, a shocked look of recognition—and fear. Yes, he was afraid of her. He knew what she had become, despite his warnings. He could undoubtedly sense the power of her kystrel.

“Cettie,” he breathed out in dread. His hands were poised, defensive. He was ready to wrestle her again, even with an injured hand. She could see the lines of pain around his eyes.

Rand’s feelings came to her in a wash of malevolence from the pilot helm. He was smug, vindicated, even pleased by the mastons’ deaths. He had studied under Caulton Forshee at Billerbeck Abbey, but Cettie had no illusions. Rand would kill him heartlessly now.

Part of her wanted Rand to do just that. The feeling of rage and revenge was hot in her breast . . . but those emotions, the same ones that had thrummed through her off and on all night, were not naturally hers. They came from the Myriad Ones—in particular, the one who’d tormented her since she was a child. The ghost with no eyes. Most of the time she barely acknowledged its presence lingering inside her. Sometimes dormant. Sometimes furious.

Of all the people they could have faced on such a night, had the poisoner school known that Caulton Forshee would be there? Was it coincidence or purposeful? Was it perhaps fate?

If she didn’t act quickly, Rand would reload his pistols and murder Caulton before her eyes. She saw it would happen, knew it down to her bones. And so she kicked Caulton in the stomach. As soon as he bent double, she made the tempest tilt and shoved him overboard. He landed on the cobblestones below, then lifted his head and looked up at her in surprised disbelief.

There was no one left on board to oppose her will, so she commanded the Leering to rise quickly and head east.

Rand threw the bodies of the other two mastons overboard and then came down, the pistols once again holstered in his belt. He walked to the edge of the railing, gazing down at the bodies lying in the courtyard.

He scowled. “We needed to kill that last one,” he said. “We shouldn’t leave him alive.”

She felt the anger throbbing in his heart. It was an intense rage, the kind that was pitiless. He yearned to go back and slit the man’s throat. Something told her it was a boon he had not seen Forshee’s face.

Perhaps she was not so happy to see Rand again at all. Perhaps she had never truly known the man.

She thought once again of that ring.

“The mission,” Cettie reminded him smoothly, keeping her feelings of relief veiled. She’d outwrestled her ghost and Rand. But resisting their emotions had drained her. She quieted her heart, hiding her true feelings deep inside.

She had to keep them hidden. If she didn’t, she knew they’d kill her.





According to the Minister of Wind and the majority of doctors, the source of the cholera morbus is miasma, a term meaning pollution. It is the rank, fetid air of places like the Fells that causes it. They claim it is transmitted by the lungs and that the wealthy who have succumbed to the disease were infected by workers who originally came from the world below. This theory imagines the affliction as an invisible spore that gets breathed in and expelled in a cough or a sneeze.