Cerise reached into her skirt and withdrew a slender blade.
The veekings pondered her for a moment—she looked absurd in her beautiful beige gown—and resumed their assault.
Cerise leaned forward. The pointed shoe on her right foot rubbed the ground.
“Help her!” Francis gripped William’s arm. “If you don’t, at least let me!”
A spark of white light slid along the edge of the blade.
The first veeking was a mere five feet away.
Cerise struck.
She moved so fast, she blurred. Cut, cut, cut, and Cerise halted, like a dancer in mid-move, her sword dripping blood.
The front four veekings didn’t scream. They just fell. The one on the left lingered. His head slid off the stump of his neck and tumbled to the floor. His body dropped to its knees.
The guards halted. Francis closed his mouth with a click.
“Audrey?” Cerise asked without turning.
“One lock left.”
The remaining veekings charged. Cerise cut, fast, precise, silent.
The bar slid back. Audrey gasped and bent in half, pain blossoming in the pit of her stomach. Too much magic, too fast. By the time she managed to straighten up again, the bodies of the veekings filled the hallway. Cerise wiped her blade on the skirt of her gown.
William yanked the door open, grabbed Francis with one hand and Audrey with the other, and pulled them through. They marched onto the castle ramparts into the sunshine. Cerise walked behind them, her face tranquil and slightly sad, as if she had just spent a day in prayer.
William leaned his head back and howled. The long high-pitched note of his wolf song rolled through the castle, eerie in the daylight.
A door burst open in the tower to the right, and Kaldar, Gaston, and the boys tumbled out into the sunlight onto a small balcony. Jack’s hands and face were bloody, and he was grinning like a maniac. George’s rapier dripped with red, as did Kaldar’s sword. He saw them and saluted, a big grin on his face.
William yanked off his jacket. A harness was strapped around his chest and waist.
“What is this?” Francis finally found his voice. “Who are you people?”
Cerise shrugged off her dress, revealing a tight black suit and the emergency harness she wore underneath. Audrey pulled off her own gown. At the other balcony, Kaldar, Gaston, and the kids shed their clothes.
William pulled his jacket apart, yanking another harness out of the lining, and slapped it on Francis, hooking it to his own with a short rope.
“Audrey, you’re with me.” Cerise motioned to her, attached the short rope to her harness, and checked her buckles and straps.
Shouts came from inside the castle.
Gaston jumped off the balcony. Twin streams of blue unfolded from his harness, snapping into fabric wings. Behind him Jack followed, tethered to Gaston with a short rope. They glided down to the trees.
William kissed Cerise, grasped Francis, hurled him over the parapet, and jumped after him. The young man screamed. The two men plunged down, then their wings opened.
Cerise held out her hand. “Come on. We’ll do it together.”
Kaldar screamed out a warning.
Audrey turned. A huge clawed shape fell at them from the sky. Audrey caught a flash of furry hide, massive claws, a dark cavernous mouth on the serpentine neck, and a single rider on the beast’s back.
Cerise spun, but it was too late. The creature’s claws smashed into Kaldar’s cousin. The impact knocked her off the wall. For a moment, Audrey saw Cerise falling as if in slow motion, her dark hair flaring about her, her mouth open in surprise and anger, and then she vanished behind the parapet. The world snapped back to its normal pace. The rope attaching Audrey to Cerise yanked and pulled Audrey toward the edge after Cerise. Before she could escape, the rider dropped off the beast, severing the rope with a cut of his knife.
Sebastian.
Audrey backed away from the edge. He came toward her, his eyes fixed on her face with predatory glee. Helena emerged from the door leading back into the castle. Blood stained her uniform.
On the other balcony, Kaldar cut the rope between him and George and pushed the boy into the open air.
“Go!” Audrey screamed at him. “Go!”
She sprinted to the edge. Helena and Sebastian dashed to intercept.
The railing loomed before her. Almost safe.
Helena’s kick smashed into her. The impact spun her around, and Audrey crashed to the stone floor. A hand grasped her neck. Sebastian yanked her up.
Her throat closed, blocked by pain.
Suddenly, she couldn’t breathe. Audrey tried to kick, but her feet found only air.
The world swam.
“A trade,” she heard Helena’s cold voice saying. “Your life for hers.”
No, she wanted to yell, but her throat refused to obey.
No, you idiot!
Through the watery haze in her eyes she saw Kaldar a few feet away. His face was so calm.
“A good trade,” he said.
“No!” she yelled, but the word came out as a weak croak.
Kaldar took off his harness, dropped it on the ground, and raised his hands to the back of his head.
“Let her go,” Helena said.
The pressure ground her throat.
“Sebastian! Let her go.”
Sebastian hurled her over the balcony railing. She fell, plummeting downward. The trees rushed at her. Her wings snapped open, but the ground came too fast. Audrey crashed into a tree. The branches snapped under her as she fell from limb to limb, her wings a torn shroud around her, and then the ground punched her, and all was still.
Audrey staggered to her feet. Her knees shook. A piercing, sharp pain fractured her ribs.
Far above, the castle jutted out of the mountain. When they had approached the castle for the first time, their wyvern had landed to the north of it. Judging by the sun, she had landed to the west. Getting to the wyvern was her only hope.
She had to get moving. She had to find the boys and Gaston, and then she had to rescue Kaldar.
Audrey wiped the blood from her face and started walking north.
FIFTEEN
KALDAR sat in a chair. Belts restrained his arms and legs. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t move an inch.
The room was dimly lit, but he could see Helena d’Amry with perfect clarity. She approached him with a syringe in her hand. Cold wet gauze touched his arm, then he felt the prick of the needle and watched the syringe fill with red.
“You lost the diffusers,” he said.
“It stopped being about the diffusers the moment I found out you were involved.” Helena examined the syringe and squirted a little of his blood into a long test tube.
Why?
The question was on the tip of his tongue, but he wouldn’t ask it. She would enjoy it too much.
Helena opened a vial, rolled the top of it along the rim of the test tube, allowing a few granules of pale powder to fall into the blood, and shook the test tube carefully. She turned to the table, set the tube into a wooden holder, and sat by him, leaning her arms on the back of the chair.
“My mother is a fool,” Helena said. “She has no head for business or for service. She doesn’t pursue a science or an art. She simply is, and my father believes the world is better for it. I never liked either of them. But I always looked up to my uncle.”
“Spider,” Kaldar said.
Helena nodded. “He’s a great man. He taught me the meaning of dedication. Discipline. Honor. He didn’t wish me to become a member of the Hand. In fact, he blacklisted me.” She smiled. “He said it was a difficult life. He wanted me to pursue other paths. I tried, but not very hard. Since he wouldn’t let me join the Hand, I crossed the ocean and became a Hound instead.”
“Why bother?”
“Because it’s my calling. A life should be lived to benefit others, not for the selfish pursuit of pleasures granted to one by an accident of birth. Being born into a bloodline carries certain responsibilities. We all have a duty to our name and to our country.”
“Admirable,” Kaldar said. “Do you usually tell this to yourself before or after you slaughter helpless people?”
“I’m a Hound of the Golden Throne. I don’t slaughter the helpless. They are below my pay grade. My opponents are usually highly skilled.”
“Like Alex Callahan, the master of combat, who was so high he could barely recall his own name?”
“A necessary casualty. He was human trash, and, once in a while, the trash has to be taken out. Are you truly in love with his sister?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think she loves you back?”
“Yes.”
“What about your cousin? She loves you too, no?”
He didn’t answer.
“Sadly, she got away. Had I known she was in the castle, things would’ve gone differently.”
“What is it you want?” Kaldar had finally had it.
“My uncle is confined to a wheelchair. I’d like to help him out of it.”
“Your uncle is a fucking bastard who tortures defenseless women and murders children. He deserves everything that he got.”
Helena smiled again. Her voice was pleasant, almost happy. “My uncle is a peer of the realm. And you are a worthless maggot not fit to be crushed under his shoe.”
Kaldar bared his teeth at her. “When I get out of here, I’ll kill him and mail you his head.”
“I’ve read your grandfather’s journal,” Helena said. “I know all about the Box he invented. It’s a wondrous device, isn’t it? So powerful that as long as there is a drop of life left in a body, it will regenerate it.”
“The Box was burned,” he told her, unable to keep the happiness out of his voice. “I was there.” They had burned it to keep Spider away from it forever. He had no regrets over its loss.
“Your grandfather was a very clever man,” Helena said. “We’ve scrutinized his diary. We’ve read every letter. Sadly, we can’t replicate the Box. But while we studied it, we noticed an interesting detail. While he speaks of the pig and the calf and your dear cousin, all of whom he stuffed into the Box as an experiment, he points out that they all had something in common. He made all of them drink a disgusting concoction he called earache tea. You drank it too, didn’t you, Kaldar?”
“No.” He remembered that vile brew like it was yesterday. He had hated it, and he’d had to drink it for about two months straight because the adults had made him do it.
She shook her head. “Yes, you did. You must ask yourself why your grandfather would torture you so. After all, the tea had only one purpose—to prepare you for the Box. The diary named several test subjects: a, b, c, d, and e. One could assume that animals were the first few, but you see, your grandfather also lists a certain schedule in his mad ramblings. The schedule has five names: Richard, Kaldar, Marissa, Ellie, and Cerise. Five names. Five test subjects.”
No.
Helena grinned at him. “Now, your cousin received the lion’s share of the dosage, but you did get a trip to the Box, Kaldar. I bet you heal faster than normal. You’re healthier. You probably never broke a bone in your life.”
He hadn’t, but that didn’t prove anything.
“When my uncle consumed your grandfather’s heart, his blood changed,” Helena said. “Oh, wait. You didn’t know that? Yes, Spider killed Vernard. Your grandfather was a complete monster by then, but Spider succeeded in killing him. Spider’s blood is no longer the same. There is a certain new component to it. It helps him heal. Very, very slowly. In time, he believes he might be able to walk again. Sadly, he’ll be an old man by then. Whatever that component is, he needs more of it.”
“There is no more,” Kaldar told her grimly.
Helena reached over to the test tube and lifted it. The blood within it had turned indigo. “There is. You’re carrying it in your blood. Spider’s blood turns pale blue, but yours . . .” She shook the tube. “Look at that. You are full of useful blood.”
The woman was insane. “Why not take me back to Louisiana, then?”
“And risk the Hand taking you away to interrogate you? They may even trade you for one of their agents in the Mirror’s dungeons after they wring everything out of you.” She put the test tube back. “No, I’m going to drain you dry right here. I will harvest your flesh, your skin, your bones. I will convert your body into a tonic that Spider will drink every morning. My uncle will walk again, Kaldar. You won’t enjoy the final hours of your life, but have no fear. Your body will be put to good use. You will support a man far greater than yourself.”
“Fuck you.”
She ignored him, walked to the door, and stuck her head out. “Bring the blood bags.”
KEEP walking, Audrey told herself, climbing down the mountain. Just keep walking.
In her mind, Kaldar dropped his harness to the ground. “A good trade.”
No. No, it was a lousy trade, a sucker’s trade. It was unacceptable.
A bird landed in front of her. It was small and blue. “Finally!” George’s voice sounded strained. “I found you!”
“George!” She almost sobbed. “Helena has Kaldar!”
“I know. We’re not far. Hold on, Jack’s coming to get you!”
Fifteen minutes later, when a lynx bounded through the woods, she dropped to her knees and hugged him.
Thirty minutes later, they walked out into a clearing. Their wyvern sat on one side. A different wyvern rested on the other. Between the two huge beasts, William bandaged Cerise’s shoulder. Francis lay on the ground, tied like a pig.
George saw her and slumped on the grass, closing his eyes. He looked exhausted. The blue bird that rode on her shoulder dropped like a stone.
“Helena has Kaldar.” Audrey strode to Cerise. “I need you to help me.”
“We can’t,” Cerise said.
“What?”
“The Mirror broke our communication ban,” Cerise said. “All agents in the Democracy of California have been ordered back to Adrianglia. The Hand is recalling its people as well.”