The Book Eaters(34)

“You don’t understand. It’s her birthday and I said I’d be right back!” She looked pleadingly at her brother. “Won’t you take me back? Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Don’t be so dramatic.” Ramsey sounded … annoyed.

“Your child is weaned and three years of age.” Uncle Aike wiped ink-stained fingers on a napkin, transferring his now-empty plate to a side table. “The contract is over, princess. Do you understand?”

Something in her was cracking, little spiderweb fractures that spread and spread. If she breathed too deeply, she’d fall to pieces. Oddly, the thing she couldn’t stop thinking about was Gailey’s pitying looks and incessant yet subdued anger. Not directed at her, but for her. How unkind she had been to the other woman.

Devon the Deceived, she thought inanely. A stupid girl who was easily tricked.

“Princess,” Uncle Aike said again, recalling her attention.

“I want to see Salem, just one more time,” she said, knowing it was ridiculous to voice such a desire. “The least you can bloody do is let me say good-bye!”

“That tongue of yours, eh?” Uncle Aike dabbed his lips. “Lower your tone, please.”

Devon bit the inside of her cheek, marveling how someone she had once loved so much could become someone she hated so unreservedly. It struck her as a terrible, petrifying irony that the book eaters thought of themselves as Families and yet did not value family at all. Daughters were commodities; sons, totally expendable.

And children—

She had to get out of here. She had to rescue Salem.

Devon launched out of bed, almost tripping over the chiffon dress she’d put on this morning for Salem’s sake, everything for Salem, she would run back to Salem and fuck everything else.

“Dev, stop!” Ramsey sprinted after.

Devon wrenched the door open and stormed down the hallway, crashing into startled uncles and nearly running into an eight-year-old child. Faerdre’s little boy, left here by his mother, and Devon couldn’t remember his name after four sodding years in Winterfield Manor. She charged past him in a haze of fury.

Floor-to-ceiling shelves were looming, dusty guardians, the books gleaming like endless rows of teeth in wooden mouths. Instead of going down the main stairs she whirled through the first-floor drawing room, knocking over tables and chairs as she went, in a bid to make the chase difficult. Ramsey, not far behind her, tripped on something and swore. No one told him off for using bad words.

There was another passage down through the back stairwell and it’d be easier to lose her brother on that route. When had the house become such a cramped, twisting maze? Such a fearful and gloomy place?

“Stop, for fuck’s sake!” Ramsey caught up to her at last as they both tore out into the front hallway, his fingers catching a fistful of tulle fabric. “What are you doing?”

“Going back to Winterfield!” She yanked her sleeve out of his grip, spun round, and crashed straight into Uncle Aike, who had taken the other set of stairs while she had detoured through the house, until he’d come out in front of her.

Devon backed away, hemmed in between the two men. “Get out of my way!” She was alarmed to see Family members gathering in the shadows, watchful and sad. One of the aunts shook her head mournfully.

Uncle Aike held up his hands. “Princess—”

She spat; he recoiled. “I’m not your princess. Princesses are bullshit. Your fairy tales are bullshit. Stop treating me like a child and use my name!”

“Devon,” Uncle Aike said warningly, in that do-not-argue-with-me tone that no longer frightened her, because the only thing that frightened her anymore was losing her daughter.

“Piss on the manor,” she said. “I hate this shitting house and I hate these books and the wedding you made me have and I’m just trapped here with a bunch of—”

“Devon—”

“—bloody fucking monsters!”

Uncle Aike uncurled from his habitual stoop, drawing up to his full height. “Young lady—”

She snatched up a vase from a side table and threw it at his head. He ducked sideways, astonished, stumbling against Ramsey, who staggered back from the unexpected weight. Ceramic shattered against the wall behind them.

She darted around both men and through the foyer and out of the house and across the driveway. Heading south toward the woods, toward Birmingham, where Salem waited to be rescued, shouts and cries ringing out behind her.

Devon ran.





11

RAMSEY AT THE CHARGE!





PRESENT DAY


When the game is going against you, stay calm—and cheat.

—George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman at the Charge

Ramsey looked at Ealand, the latter frozen with indecision. “Get the dragon and get out of here, both of you!” He shot to his feet.

The center of the train station had become a swirling maelstrom of ink-sodden paper, courtesy of the corpses Devon’s “friend” had left behind. Passersby were screaming and security—or the police, or both—would be here any moment.

“Wait!” Ealand sounded panicked. “What about Kingsey’s orders—”

“Fuck Kingsey, get out before the humans arrest you!” Ramsey called over one shoulder, sprinting after his sister’s fast-disappearing form. “I’ll be in touch!”