The Edge of Everything (The Edge of Everything #1)(95)

The words struck X hard. He knew there was truth in them.

“Release the boy,” he said, “and I will follow you home.”

No word had ever tasted more sour on his tongue than the word “home” did now.

“I will NOT release the boy, and you will come regardless,” said Dervish. “If you tarry even an instant, we will return for your plaything, Zoe. How much blood will you see spilled before you simply do as you are commanded? I am curious to find out. Now, please, I am weary of words. Let us watch this house die together, shall we? If you do not misbehave, I will let you pick the boy’s bones from the ruins and make a gift of them to his mother.”

Dervish turned away, twirling his cloak like a dancer. The house began shuddering. Spidery cracks spread through the ice. Wood buckled. Windows burst. Neither X nor Ripper had the power to undo what the lords had done. They stood there watching as the roof split apart like a burst seam. The noise ricocheted down the mountain and echoed back endlessly, growing softer and softer but never quite disappearing.

The lords stared menacingly at X and Ripper, still hoping they’d be foolish enough to fight.

“Are you ready?” said Ripper, jolting X out of his shocked silence.

He gazed at her desperately.

“Do we really stand a chance against a hundred lords?” he said.

“Heavens no,” she said, smiling the fearless smile that made so many in the Lowlands believe she was insane.

With that, Ripper raced forward. She struck a lord square in the face, then leaped over him—she was a golden blur in the moonlight—and landed on the roof of Zoe’s house. Almost immediately, her boots gave way on the ice. She tumbled halfway down the shingles before regaining her footing. X watched as she crawled back up—her useless fingernails struggling to hold on—then lowered herself into the crevice in the roof.

“Jonah! Are you there?” she shouted. “My name is Olivia Leah Popplewell-Heath, and I once had a boy just like you!”

The lords stood stunned, their heads craned upward. Finally, two of them sprang into the air, alighted on the roof, and stalked after Ripper.

“They will cripple her in an instant,” Dervish told X with a sneer. “But at least she is enterprising—unlike yourself, you quivering lamb.”

X nodded, almost respectfully.

And then he punched Dervish in the throat.

The lord fell backward.

A clutch of lords rushed at X. He lashed out in every direction, but even the slightest of them was many times more powerful than he was. For every lord he struck, another five seemed to materialize from nowhere, as if reinforcements were pouring in from the Lowlands. X was kicked and buffeted and pushed to the ground. Someone had his hand over his face—it was impossible to breathe. X’s chest heaved. Regent stood motionless just a few feet away, still glaring at the snow.

X tore the hand from his face, bending the fingers back till the bones popped and their owner cursed. He gulped in air. But more lords kept coming. He couldn’t stand. The weight on top of him grew greater and greater. He felt as if he was not just being held down but actually pushed into the earth.

Behind him, he could hear the house screeching, bursting, imploding. He could hear Ripper—she was still shouting for Jonah. Hadn’t she found him yet? How long could he last? Through the tangle of limbs above him, X could see shards of the moon. It was like a cold eye staring down—reminding him that he had failed. He heard the lords cursing at him in a dozen languages.

But he also heard a new sound now: a sort of dark purring. It rose up from the base of the mountain. It grew louder, grew closer. In the craziness of the moment, it took X a long time to realize what it was.



The car came up the drive like a bullet.

X was still pinned to the ground, his body so broken that some of the lords had grown bored with beating him and drifted away. He managed to turn his head. He saw Zoe’s mother drive toward them. At the sight of her, he felt a wave of shame that eclipsed even the pain. She had told him to stay away from her family. Then he felt a second wave—a wave of fear for her. The lords would not scatter now simply because a mortal had appeared. The tragedy was in motion. It could not be halted.

X knew what would happen next: Zoe’s mother would stop the car. She’d come rushing out of it. She would scream at the lords. When that failed, she would plead. The lords would descend on her. They’d push her back and forth, spin her around. They’d laugh at her uselessness. If they were feeling merciful, they would kill her quickly. If they weren’t, they’d sit her next to X and Ripper, and make the three of them watch Jonah die. Either way, the tragedy would swallow everyone it could.

But Zoe’s mother didn’t stop the car. She didn’t even slow down. She came roaring toward the lords. Some of them had never seen a car before—and all of them were startled by the woman’s audacity—so for a moment she had the advantage.

X watched as she slammed into one of the lords and flattened him against the house. He watched as she backed up—her tires spinning madly, blackening the snow—and knocked a second down. He listened as the car thump-thumped over the body.

The lords left X where he lay, and swarmed the car. He stood, feeling useless and ashamed. He looked toward the house. The fa?ade had been torn away. It looked like a dollhouse now. He could see furniture, toys, dresses, boots, and picture frames—all of it sliding and crashing into crazy heaps.