The Book Eaters(114)
“That knight,” Hester said through teeth gritted from persistent pain. “The one who called your name. Was he known to you?”
“Ramsey? Aye, he’s my brother.”
“I thought so. I remember you mentioning that feud in the library, and then I forgot to ever chase it up.”
“Ramsey Fairweather,” Devon said, tasting the syllables grimly. “You’d have liked him when we were kids. Him and Killock might have been mates.”
Hester’s laugh was tortured in every sense. “Does anyone have family that grows up functional? At all, anywhere?”
“In books, sometimes. A few rare cases.” Impatient with the winding pathways, Devon muscled through the hedge wall to their right. Thorns caught at their clothes as they struggled to squeeze through the knotty foliage. Branches whipped bare skin and snagged tears in fabric, tangling in hair. They stumbled into a different portion of the maze, both gasping.
In the distance, a faint roar of flames; the house was on fire. Devon could just about glimpse smoke rising from unexpected places in Traquair House. Either the knights were torching the place, or the Ravenscar brothers had enacted some kind of bizarre self-destruct. Both options were equally ridiculous, and equally plausible.
She turned round to say Not far now but the words died at the sight of her companion’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Please tell me,” Hester said raggedly, eyes on the spreading fire, “that I’m doing the right thing. I feel like I’ve committed the worst crime in the world, and all the reasons I thought could justify it seem so far away right now.”
Devon put an arm around her shoulder and kissed her.
Hester tasted the way she smelled: sweet and bitter, vanilla and tobacco, clean skin and a film of cheap lip gloss. Far better than any stuffy old husband. And why not, why shouldn’t they have this moment, so perfectly disastrous? The night was looking increasingly uncertain with every passing second. If she did die, it’d be one less regret to take to her grave.
Hester broke away first, hand pressed to her belly and head buried against Devon’s shoulder. But she stayed close and didn’t pull away.
Devon said, speaking into her hair, “Don’t look back, Hes. Never look back. We make our choices and we keep going. Do you hear me?”
“I hear you,” Hester said, low.
Another crossbow bolt punched through the foliage, skewing past them and shattering the moment.
“Shit.” Devon scooped her up and launched into another stumbling run.
“Devon!” Ramsey shouted from somewhere in the maze behind them. No more singsong nicknames, he was too angry for that. “No bloody chance are you leaving this place alive!”
She didn’t answer, too busy seeking ways to put layers of hedge between her and the knights. Branches snapped, feet scuffed. Even book eaters couldn’t run silent here.
“I need line of sight, and then I can knock out a couple of them,” Hester said against her ear. “How many are following?”
“No idea!” She darted through another archway and down a tunnel of briars that seemed no different than the one she’d just left. She thought it was the correct direction.
Hester dug out the revolver. “I think I can see one. I’m going to take a shot.”
“Wait!” Devon was conscious of the gun resting on her shoulder, practically next to her ear. “Don’t waste bullets—”
“No time to argue!” Hester twisted in Devon’s arms, an action that must have cost her in pain, and fired.
The noise thronged inside Devon’s skull, accompanied by the pop of her eardrum bursting. She swore and could barely hear herself swearing. All other sounds came back weak and soft, smothered by a ringing echo.
Someone yelled in outrage. Incredibly, Hester’s shot had struck a body.
There was no returning shot, either. Ramsey must not have had time to search for the pistol that Killock had punted away. Small mercy, that.
“Stay back!” Hester called out, but she was already slumping. “Or you’ll get a bullet between your eyes next time!”
Devon tightened her grip around her friend’s huddled body and hustled faster. She caught a glimpse of woodland on the other side of the briars; the land beyond. No time to waste seeking the exit gate. She simply shoved through one final wall of hedge, branches raking her lips and eyes, Hester squashed tight against her chest, and burst out of the sodding labyrinth at last.
The observation tower was fifty meters farther into Traquair’s little woods, nestled amid the ancient trees. It was small and made of limestone, encircled by an external spiral walkway. No more than ten or twelve feet high, with a low wall around the platform at the top. It’d been built for stargazing and birdwatching, though it looked like a toy castle for children.
And peering from that toy castle was a tangle-headed boy of five.
“We can’t—” Hester began.
“—outrun the knights, I know. We’ll have to stop there and fight.” She fled through the woodland, arms aching from strain and mouth dry. Her clothes, which had been clean and newish not an hour ago, were near ruined with sweat, rips, and blood, mostly Hester’s. The shouts of knights and dragons stuck in the maze receded some as she drew to the tower’s base, surging up the spiral walkway with her remaining energy.