The Book Eaters(113)

Hester laughed with an agonized wheeze. “Can’t believe I had to get shot just to get you to touch me!”

“All you ever had to do was ask.” Devon was surprised to discover the words came easily enough. “I liked you from the start. If we’d met any other way … well, never mind. We didn’t.”

Hester stared up at her, startled. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“Why didn’t you?” Devon countered.

Several gunshots echoed from Traquair House; the Ravenscars, fighting back. Followed by a smattering of screams.

“Good, I’m not the only one who’s armed,” Hester said. “They’ll give the knights a proper fight.”

Devon quickened her pace, torn between taking the steps four at a time and being careful with her friend’s shoulder.

“Not that I’m complaining,” she said, pausing to readjust the other woman’s weight, “but how’d you get a new gun so quickly?”

“Picked it up from the gun cupboard on my way to see you,” Hester said. “Thought I’d need one, if we were leaving.”

They reached the foot of the external stairs. The maze lay directly ahead, surrounded by green fields on either side. At the edge of the fields were woods, where Hester’s shooting range was located, and beyond that was the lone observation tower.

They could take the long route, going around the maze to reach the woods, and then the tower, as Cai and Mani had likely done. But that meant crossing a flat stretch of green lawn that would leave them exposed to anyone with ranged weapons, as the knights carried.

“Hes! Mani! Anybody!” Killock Ravenscar staggered out of the house from the same kitchen door they’d just come through, lanky silhouette framed by moonlight. His clothes were a wreck, the long red hair hung free. “Where is everyone?”

The words had barely left his mouth when Ramsey came striding out through the living room’s French doors, flanked by two more knights and a trio of snarling dragons.

“Devon!” Ramsey called out, breaking that momentary spell. From his pocket he pulled out his signal transmitter. “Wherever you’ve hidden your son, you cannot protect him from this!”

He stabbed the button, and despite all her preparation, Devon winced.

Grand, satisfying nothing. No screams, no explosion of any kind within earshot. Killock stood momentarily frozen in confusion; he didn’t and couldn’t understand the layers of this confrontation.

“Good fucking luck with that!” Devon called out, more relieved than she dared show. “You can’t touch Cai anymore!”

“I don’t need Cai, anyway,” Ramsey said, snarling, and pointed at Killock. “I’ve got him. Men, take the Ravenscar!”

“The hells you will!” Killock roared. “Sinners! Enemies! Knights of Satan! God be with me!”

The last Ravenscar patriarch charged with red hair streaming, straight at the knights. One man against three. Committed to his belief in self-divinity, even at the last.

Ramsey pulled out a pistol, the same one Hester had lost a day ago. He fired but missed—lacked practice, probably, and the patriarch was a fast-moving target.

Killock laughed wildly, closing the distance between them. He lunged for Ramsey’s stolen gun and managed to knock it flying, even as hostile knights surged around him.

Hester made a sound in her throat. “Lock—”

Devon didn’t stick around. Melodrama was for heroes, and people who had too much spare time. She picked up a wounded Hester in both arms, taking advantage of Killock’s timely distraction, and ran headlong into the maze.





34

THE KNIGHT AND THE DRAGON





PRESENT DAY


There was a pain now, burning through him. He had won everything, and lost it all, and he was ashamed of himself to be weeping.

—Cynthia Voigt, The Wings of a Falcon

Traquair’s labyrinth had seen better days. The bushes rose seven feet on either side, the pathways only two feet wide and badly overgrown. Left untended too long, for too many years.

A couple twists and turns into that dark, prickly mess of a maze and Devon set down a still-bleeding, still-dazed Hester. “Can you walk?” Her lungs burned from the effort of sprinting, arms aching from carrying another’s weight.

Hester clutched the Chanel bag as she sagged against the foliage. “If I must.” The bolt quivered in her freckled shoulder every time she moved and her blouse had crusted over with drying black blood. “Oh my God. Killock! He—”

“Died defending his home and his sister,” Devon said, as gently as she could manage while still panting and sweating from her sprint. “Which is better than continuing as a monster.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Me too,” Devon said, then took hold of the bolt in Hester’s shoulder. “I need to snap this, or you’ll catch it badly on something. Are you ready?”

The Ravenscar woman grimaced and made a gesture that Devon took for acquiescence. She broke the shaft off, as quick as she could make it.

Hester yelped, stifling the cry with her sleeve.

“Done now,” Devon said apologetically. She tossed the broken haft aside.

“Can you help me up?”

“Always.” Devon assisted her to stand straight and, once Hester was steady, they set off again, as quickly as the injury would allow.