Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(203)

A glaem near to blinding. Questions that elicit mischievous answers. And a wayward firedrake.

Everything went still.

What should we do? I asked the firedrake.

Her response was to snap her wings, extending them fully. They slid between my ribs, through the flesh, and emerged on either side of my spine. The firedrake stayed where she was, her tail wrapped protectively around my womb. She peeked out from behind my sternum, her silver-and-black eyes bright, and flapped her wings again.

Stay alive, she whispered in reply, her words sending a pall of gray mist into the air around me.

The force of her wings snapped the thick wooden pole at my back, and the barbs on their scalloped edges sliced through the rope that bound my wrists. Something sharp and clawlike cut through the bindings around my ankles, too. I rose twenty feet up into the air as Kit and Louisa entered the firedrake’s disorienting gray cloud. They were moving too quickly to stop or change direction. Their lances crossed, tangled, and the force of the clash sent them both flying from their saddles onto the hard earth below.

I ripped the blindfold from my eyes with my undamaged hand just as Annie appeared at the edge of the tiltyard.

“Mistress!” she cried. But I didn’t want her here, not around Louisa de Clermont.

“Go!” I hissed. My words emerged in fire and smoke as I circled above Kit and Louisa.

Blood trickled from my wrists and feet. Wherever the red beads fell, a black shoot grew. Soon a palisade of slender black trunks surrounded the dazed daemon and vampire. Louisa tried to pull them from the ground, but my magic held.

“Shall I tell you your futures?” I asked harshly. Both stared up at me from their pen with avid, fearful eyes. “You will never get your heart’s desire, Kit, because sometimes what we want most, we cannot have. And you will never fill the hollow places inside you, Louisa—neither with blood nor with anger. And both of you will die, because death comes for all of us sooner or later. But your deaths will not be gentle. I promise you that.”

A whirlwind approached. It stilled, became recognizable as Hancock.

“Davy!” Louisa’s pearly fingers gripped the black stakes that surrounded her. “Help us. The witch used her magic to bring us down. Take her eyes and you will take her power, too. There is a bow and arrow behind you.”

“Matthew is already on his way, Louisa,” Hancock answered. “You are safer in that stockade under Diana’s protection than you would be running from his anger.”

“None of us is safe. She will fulfill the ancient prophecy, the one that Gerbert shared with Maman all those years ago. She will bring down the de Clermonts!”

“There’s no truth in it,” Hancock said with pity.

“There is!” Louisa insisted. “‘Beware the witch with the blood of the lion and the wolf, for with it she shall destroy the children of night.’ This is the witch of the prophecy! Don’t you see?”

“You’re not well, Louisa. I can see that plainly.”

Louisa drew herself up, indignant. “I am a manjasang and in perfect health, Hancock.”

Henry and Jack arrived next, their sides heaving with exertion. Henry scanned the tiltyard.

“Where is she?” he shouted at Hancock, spinning around.

“Up there,” Hancock said, jerking his thumb in the air. “Just like Annie said.”

“Diana.” Henry sighed with relief.

A dark cyclone of gray and black whipped across the tiltyard and came to rest at a broken stake that marked the spot where I had been bound. Matthew needed no one to tell him where I was now. His eyes unerringly found me.

Walter and Pierre were the last to arrive. Pierre was carrying Annie piggyback, her thin arms wrapped tight around his neck. When he stopped, she slid from his back.

“Walter!” Kit cried, joining Louisa at the barrier. “She must be stopped. Let us out. I know what to do now. I spoke with a witch in Newgate, and—”

An arm punched through the black railings, and long, white fingers grabbed Kit around the throat. Marlowe gurgled to silence.

“Not. One. Word.” Matthew’s eyes swept over Louisa.

“Matthieu.” Blood and drugs further slurred Louisa’s French pronunciation of his name. “Thank God you are here. I am glad to see you.”

“You shouldn’t be.” Matthew flung Kit away.

I lowered down behind him, the newly sprouted wings withdrawing back inside my ribs. My firedrake remained alert, however, her tail tightly coiled. Matthew sensed me there and hooked me into his arm, though he never took his eyes off my captives. His fingers brushed against the spot where the lance had gone through bodice, corset, and skin only to be stopped by the bony cage of my ribs. It was damp where the blood had soaked through.

Matthew spun me around and fell to his knees, tearing the fabric from the wound. He swore. One hand settled on my abdomen, and his eyes searched mine.

“I’m fine. We’re fine,” I assured him.

He stood, his eyes black and the vein in his temple throbbing.

“Master Roydon?” Jack sidled closer to Matthew. His chin was trembling. Matthew’s hand shot out and grabbed him by the collar, stopping him before he could get too close to me. Jack didn’t flinch. “Are you having a nightmare?”

Matthew’s hand dropped, releasing the boy.. “Yes, Jack. A terrible nightmare.”