Strange and Ever After (Something Strange and Deadly #3)(4)

In a blind scramble, I turned and charged for the distant curtain. Terror and grief coiled together at the nape of my neck, as heavy and inescapable as the Hounds.

I pounded my feet harder. Each step was like a drum, and my knees kicked up higher, higher. I was out of breath before I was halfway down the dock, yet I barely noticed the scorch of air in my throat.

For as the curtain drew closer, the Hounds grew louder.

Then a wet, frozen wind slammed into me, and the baying of the Hounds shattered through my skull. I staggered, listing dangerously to one side—toward dark waves speckled with starlight. But my arms windmilled, and I maintained my course.

The Hounds were so close now. Inescapable . . . except that the curtain was close too. Its golden light shimmered brighter with each slam of my heels.

I would reach it. I had to reach it. . . .

Then the glow bathed over me. The snarling Hounds faded . . . faded. . . .

I glanced back once, to lock eyes with the jackal’s. He loped behind me and paused just before the curtain, unperturbed and almost . . . smug. Yes, that was what that lolling tongue meant.

“Tell her good-bye,” I said to him. “Please, if you are truly a messenger, then tell her good-bye.”

If he can, the jackal will.

Then I stepped completely through the curtain and into the earthly realm once more.

CHAPTER TWO

My eyelids snapped wide-open. I stood in the middle of my cabin on the airship. My chest quaked. My pulse shrieked in my ears, and with each gasp for air, the echoing howl of the Hounds vanished. . . .

A dull throb pricked at my senses. I glanced down . . . and blinked. My hands bled. Splinters poked out from my knuckles, yet I barely felt them. Elation and surprise hummed through me, dominating every other sensation.

I had just crossed into the spirit realm by my own power—something Oliver had sworn to me was impossible—and I had come out alive.

Though . . . I might not have escaped if not for the jackal.

Jackal.

I frowned. I hadn’t seen him when I’d crossed to the dock before, yanked there by Marcus’s magic. Was the jackal truly a messenger? And if so, to whom could he relay messages? Of course, in order to give a message, I would have to return to the dock again. . . .

As my mind ran through possibilities—of how I could ask Elijah about necromancy, how I could beg for Clarence’s forgiveness, how I could tell Mama I loved her—a scratch began to sound at my cabin door.

I ignored it, focusing instead on all the things I could ask the jackal to share with my family.

Splat. I looked down. A fat droplet of blood had hit the wood and now sank into the grain. My forehead knit. The engines on this airship were so quiet I could actually hear my own blood fall. I glanced to the porthole—the view outside was one of wispy clouds and green, patchwork farmland. We could have been anywhere in France right now. Presumably, though, we were south and east of Paris.

And, good God, we were flying. I shuffled two steps closer to the porthole, but the lush, pale green only served to confuse me. To distance me further from the moment. For seeing the land so far below and streaming by so fast . . . it did not feel real.

The scratching sound came again at my door, and this time there was a loud click. I whirled around just as the door banged open.

Daniel stood in the doorway, face flushed and lock pick in hand. Beside him, with his yellow eyes wide, was Oliver.

At the sight of them, anger sparked in my shoulders. “What the blazes,” I began, “are you two doing—”

“You’re hurt,” Daniel interrupted. He strode forward, and I didn’t miss the leather wallet of lock picks he slid into his pocket. He reached for me. “What the hell happened?”

I skittered back. “You broke into my room.”

“We were worried,” Oliver snarled. He stalked through the doorway. “You didn’t answer our shouts, and then I heard . . . something.” He did not elaborate, but the sudden flash of gold around his eyes told me he knew exactly where I had been.

Inwardly, I swore.

Our souls were bound—it was the magic of a demon and a master. So Oliver must have sensed my absence. Or perhaps he had even heard the Hell Hounds since he always knew when the guardians of the spirit realm were near. His existence depended on making sure they never found him.

“We need to tend these wounds.” Daniel’s voice cut into my thoughts. He gripped my wrists and flipped my palms upward. “This is bad. Your hands are destroyed.” He pushed me toward the porthole, toward daylight. Then his grassy-green eyes bored into my face. “What did you do?”

“Nothing,” I murmured.

His jaw clenched. “This ain’t nothing, Empress. Talk to me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Oliver declared. Yet there was a forced nonchalance to his tone. “I will heal her.”

Daniel eyes clouded with resentment. He did not like my magic. He did not like that I was bound to a demon. Yet I could see in the twitching of his lips that he was trying to keep his hatred separate from this moment.

“How about,” he said slowly, “I just get you some bandages instead. I’ll heal you the old-fashioned way.”

“It’s fine.” I wriggled from his grasp. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“Of course it does,” he argued. “And it won’t take me but a second—”