But she did feel something; something deep inside her soul. It stretched like a spider’s web, connecting her to the others in a way that words could not quite capture. Was that mind magic?
She rolled onto her side, trying to dispel the thread of unease winding through her. She could dismiss whatever it was she felt bonding her to Michael and the others as her imagination—or even wishful thinking. She could believe in destiny without ascribing what she felt to magic. But a word spoken inside the silence of her own head…
It was nothing, she told herself firmly. One’s mind could play funny tricks just after waking, or so her own mother had told her once when she’d run screaming through the house, sure she’d seen a crazy one-eyed goblin outside her bedroom window. It was best to let it go.
She closed her eyes, tried to relax and focus on the soft sounds of the others as they slumbered, but sleep wouldn’t return. Instead, the image of that damned goblin kept filling her mind each time she drifted toward oblivion, jerking her awake again. Now that she’d thought of it, she couldn’t seem to stop thinking of it.
Another hour slipped away, and in its wake, the dawn inched slowly closer. She wondered where Corbb and the others were right now. Had they found the little boy? Had they even caught up with the Reavers? And what about Haake? She pitied that man. It was clear that he had demons of his own. She hoped he’d find a way to banish them in time.
“Well, now, this is interesting.”
The voice sliced through the silence, and Mona was up and crouched over Miraculum, scanning the room. This time, there was no doubting the reality of the words; their dry rasp spun out into infinity, reverberating between the cold corrugated walls.
Garrett and Michael scrambled to their feet as well, reaching clumsily for the weapons they’d left beside them as they slept. Only the wizard moved slowly, seemingly untroubled.
And then she saw it.
The Wraith—at least, she thought it was Paige’s wraith and not one of the countless others from Hellsgate—hovered in the shadows, surveying them from the dark depths of its hood.
“Paige knew you would return sooner or later, tails between your legs, like pups slinking back to their pack.” The Wraith made an exaggerated, rather theatrical show of sweeping his gaze across their little band. “I see that not all of the pack made it back to us. Ah well, such is the way of war, I suppose.”
Michael stepped forward, his sword held protectively before him. Even in the dim light, it seemed the bronze dragon on its hilt gleamed. The wizard reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder, but Michael shrugged it off and took another step forward.
“Did she send you out to meet us?” he asked.
“My, what a pleasant surprise,” the Wraith rasped, mockery dripping from every word. “The idiot boy has found his tongue at last.” He turned to Garrett. “Well done, Master Garrett. Well done.” He slowly brought the empty cuffs of his sleeves together a few times, and though there was no sound, his intention was plain enough.
Garrett rammed his sword back into the loop at his belt with a sound of disgust.
Mona realized she was holding her own daggers—new ones that she, like Garrett, had scavenged as they’d trekked toward Coalhaven. She couldn’t remember having drawn them. Quietly, she sheathed them and, without a word, hefted Miraculum into her arms. She went to stand beside her husband, unsure how she felt about the Wraith’s arrival. Part of her was relieved that their journey was nearly done, but another part—a bigger part—had never really trusted this creature.
“Maybe she just sent you out to hurl cheap jibes,” Garrett remarked, his tone flat, devoid of any feeling.
“Oh, come now, Master Garrett,” the Wraith said, folding its arms across its chest and studying them all in turn. “We have worked together far too long for you to believe such nonsense. Paige has been sending me out nightly since we arrived to scout for her. That included keeping watch for you, of course. The cheap jibes are, as we both know, all mine.”
“Enough of this,” the wizard broke in with a bite of impatience. “Let us gather our things, and you can take us to the safe house.”
“Can I?” the Wraith asked, sounding amused. “I don’t recall having made such an offer.”
“What is it Paige wants, then?” Garrett cut in. “Either she’s sent you to bring us to her or not. Which is it?”
“To be honest, Master Garrett,” the Wraith hissed, its voice losing some of its mirth, “I believe it is only you, yourself, that Paige is really interested in. The others mean very little to her.”
“The others,” Garrett said evenly, putting an arm around Mona’s shoulders, “mean a great deal to me. It is all of us or none.”
“Of course. I didn’t mean to imply you were not all welcome. By all means, gather up your belongings. The house is not far.” The Wraith performed a theatric bow. “I shall meet you all outside. Do not tarry, for the dawn grow’th nigh, and while I am capable of traveling through the daylight hours, I find the experience most…unpleasant…and would prefer to avoid it.” It let out a few barks of the dry chuffing noise that served as laughter. “And given that Marianne has men out looking for you everywhere, I dare say you may find daylight quite as unpleasant as I.”
***
A pink blush crept slowly up the dome of the sky from the eastern horizon as the Wraith turned from the road they’d been following onto a crude, unpaved lane that was virtually invisible between the trees. It was rutted, overgrown, and apparently hadn’t been used regularly in years.
Mona kept her eyes cast down, peering through the dark at the ground as it passed beneath her feet. Miraculum was heavy in her arms, mostly asleep, but he was starting to get too big to carry. She was terrified of stumbling and dropping him. What the hell were they going to do when he did become too heavy? The thought of her son, still a relative infant in his mind, wandering around on his own two feet terrified her.
Garrett had offered to take a turn so that she could rest her aching arms, but she’d refused. She wasn’t even sure why. All she knew was that she couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened a few hours earlier and the single word that had filled her mind, spreading out from its center like a flower opening its petals.
She knew she was being stupid—of course she was—but knowing it did not change how she felt.
The descent steepened as they crunched their way through an ocean of fallen leaves and down into the small valley below. Ahead, she could just make out the shadowy form of the Brood’s new safe house. They were far outside the city proper here, in an abandoned tract of wilderness and widely spaced buildings that were crumbling and decaying, and this dilapidated monstrosity was no exception.
It seemed to have been a grand estate once. Gables reached upward, supporting only the sky in places where the roof had collapsed long ago; here and there, windows were boarded up like patches over empty sockets, while at others, ancient shutters hung askew, banging against the walls in the wind. Paint had peeled away from the porch, leaving jagged splinters and bare, water-stained boards behind.
She wouldn’t have believed there could have been a more lowly safe house than the one they’d left in Hellsgate, but here was proof, right before her eyes, that she’d been sorely mistaken.
She slowed, shifting Miraculum’s weight in her arms. Sensing that she was falling behind, Garrett glanced back over one massive shoulder. She shook her head, gesturing clumsily for him to keep going, and he did, but not before casting one last searching look in her direction.
There was nowhere else they could go. It was here or be taken by Marianne’s guards sooner or later. At least it would be dry inside, and, hopefully, warm as well.
“Wait here,” the Wraith told them, pausing at the foot of the steps that led up to the door. “I must announce your presence.”
He disappeared into the shadows to one side, and their little group was left to stand and wait.
“Can we trust her?” Michael asked the wizard, his vo
ice low and strained. “I don’t like any of this. No one told me she had a wraith working with her.” There was more than a little accusation in his tone.
“I believe she can be trusted, sire, but Master Garrett is, perhaps, better informed to make that judgment. He has known Paige far longer and far better than I.”
Michael turned to face Mona and Garrett.
“What do you say, Garrett?” he asked. His face hung in the darkness—a pale moon, the first light of dawn just beginning to illuminate his features.
Garrett did not respond at once. Mona saw his shoulders hunch and all the muscles tighten across the back of his neck beneath the glistening, blue-green scales. She shifted Miraculum’s weight into the crook of one arm and reached out to touch her husband’s elbow.
Paige had been a sister to Garrett, in many ways. Their relationship had run deep. Once, when they’d all still been stupid teenagers, it had made Mona bitter and jealous; now, it just made her sad. Garrett had nearly died because Paige had been petty and angry. If it hadn’t been for Celine, he would have died. If it hadn’t been for Celine, Mona herself would’ve died. The thought discomforted her; they owed Celine, and by extension Emily, so much. Why were they here instead of with them?
Because Paige was family, of course; because the Brood was as well. Because Michael needed them to try to fix this terrible, broken world.
In any case, what Paige had done was unforgivable. Garrett may have been able to hide it from the others, but he couldn’t hide the pain of the betrayal from her.
She watched her husband struggle with his answer. In so many ways, he was like the other half of her, body and soul, and yet she found that she had no idea what he would say. Would the years of love and friendship between Paige and Garrett triumph over what had happened back in Hellsgate? She found herself waiting as anxiously as Michael seemed to be across from her. Even the wizard was watching with interest, his hands folded inside the sleeves of his robe.
“Yes,” Garrett said, his voice low and tight. “I think we can.”
Mona let her hand fall from his arm, surprised at her own relief to hear the confirmation, but Garrett wasn’t done. He looked hard into Michael’s face, then turned and looked at her. There was torment in his eyes—an anguish that tore at her heart.
“I think we can,” he repeated, “but I don’t know that we can. Do you understand?” He looked back at Michael. “Do any of you?”
There was a long silence as the three of them stared at one another.
The door to the house swung open, and a bright rectangle of light spilled out across the porch and down the steps to pool at their feet. As one, they turned toward it.
Paige stood in the doorway. Her long dark hair was tousled, hanging in tangled snarls on either side of her face. She was dressed in a long, shapeless sleeping gown. Even framed in the light from within, Mona could see the dark circles under her eyes and the lines that had been drawn across her face.
She took a few steps forward, seeming to float toward them, save for the dry rustling sound of her bare feet against the rough and rotting boards. She was, in her white gown and pallor, as much an apparition as the Wraith who trailed behind her—one light, one dark, both ephemeral and insubstantial as vapor.
“Garrett,” she said, looking past Michael and the wizard as if they weren’t there. “You’ve come home.”
Marcom
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Get the bleedin’ hell out of my way!” Marcom roared, but it made no difference. No one was listening. The streets were full of panicked, screaming people, and most couldn’t hear him over the din. Those who could were ignoring him, hell-bent on saving their own skins, and though he couldn’t blame them, it was still infuriating.
He shoved his way through the mob, the thunder of hooves rumbling through the stones beneath his feet. The tide of bodies was heading away from the fortress, and so he was forced to fight for every inch. Coaches and wagons, piled high with far more passengers than they could safely transport, careened through the streets, roaring out of the haze of smoke and ash like ghostly apparitions on a foggy Samhain’s eve. Their horses simply ran down anyone who didn’t get out of their way. This was bad; this was very, very bad.
A man on horseback, part of the nobility by the look of his fine clothes, came hurtling around the next corner, scattering those on foot before him to the four winds. A small flyer girl, her wings not yet strong enough to allow her to take to the air, stumbled in her haste to get out of the way. She fell to her knees in the street, her piercing shrieks slicing through the din like finely honed daggers. Her features shifted from startled frustration and pain to an expression of pure terror as she caught sight of the stallion bearing down upon her.
Without thinking, Marcom dove through the press of bodies, knocking a few bystanders off their feet, and swept the little girl up off the cobbles. He put his arms around her, pressing her back to his chest as her tiny wings beat furiously in abject terror. He spun away from the oncoming horse. The rider’s boot struck him hard on one shoulder, and he stumbled, struggling to keep his footing and not drop the child.
“Son of a bitch!” he shouted after the man. He was one of Drake’s sons, judging by the rich purple doublet he wore. Well, he’d have a talk with Lord High-and-Mighty Drake about his feckless demon spawn when this was over, he would.
The girl in his arms was crying. Her long, bewildered sobs wrenched his heart as much as his bleeding ears. Where in hell were her parents?
He staggered toward the side of the road, carrying her with him and shouting curses at the people who got in his way. It was useless, of course, but it alleviated some of his own fury.
Turning, he put his back against a rough stone wall, only dimly aware that it was part of the pile of rubble that had recently been the Stay Inn. Now, it was little more than a burnt-out husk that no one had had the time or the inclination to haul away.
Frantically, he scanned the crowd that roiled and roared by like a ferocious river, looking for other flyers. There were none he could see, either in the street or in the sky above.
Damn!
Awkwardly, he turned the girl around in his arms and held her a few inches away from his face so she was looking at him, her feet dangling above the ground. She seemed impossibly small and impossibly fragile. It felt as though, if he wasn’t careful, he could crush her between his hands like a butterfly. He tried to loosen his grip on her a little, but it was hard—so damn hard—to focus through the adrenaline and the pounding of his heart.
She grabbed at the chain mail on his shoulders and tried to pull herself closer. The poor thing was half out of her mind with fright.
“Hang on there, love,” he soothed, trying to make his tone sound reassuring despite the fact that he was shouting to be heard over the noise. “Where are your parents? Can you tell me? Your mum? Your dah?”
It was no use. She just went on wailing and tugging at his armor. Tears ran down her cheeks in a steady stream. A long lock of red hair fell into her face, hiding one of her gold-brown eyes, and Marcom brushed it gently away with his free hand.
Double damn.
He didn’t dare put her down in this chaos; she’d be trampled in seconds. He was just going to have to take her with him and try to find a safe place to stash her.
He cradled her to his chest, encircling her waist with one arm and holding her against his shoulder. He felt her own arms slip around his neck and her small, undeveloped wings fold against her back. She pressed her face into his hair, her hot, wet cheek against the mangled remains of his damaged ear. She was still sobbing, but mercifully, he couldn’t hear it over the cacophony.
He began forcing his way through the crowd again, shouting and cursing and dodging oncoming horses and coaches as best he could.
As he neared the final turn onto the road that would take him to Seven Skies, the throng began to thin. Smoke hung over everything, and ash drifted down in a slow and steady stream. The grand and beautiful capi
tal of Marianne’s kingdom looked, at least for the moment, like a terrifying reflection of Hellsgate. It was as if he was seeing an old, beloved friend across the veil of time; the city of Seven Skies cloaked in a shadow of its future self.
As he reached the intersection, he heard shouts and the sounds of pounding hooves and running feet. He slowed, peering through the haze. Most of the chaos was behind him now. To his left, he could see the flickering light of an enormous fire. Something very close to the fortress—surely not the fortress itself?—was burning, sending giant plumes of black smoke billowing up into the sky.
Another horse abruptly appeared out of the haze, bearing down on him, and Marcom had to leap aside to avoid being trampled. Another angry curse had nearly reached his lips before he realized it was one of his own men, the insignia of the broken sword and boulder gleaming from the rider’s armored shoulder. Though Marcom caught only a glimpse of the man’s posture, he thought it must be Jared, a crossbow on his back.
Horse and rider flashed by, several other guards on horseback on their heels. What the devil were they doing? It looked like they were fleeing the fortress, but he couldn’t believe that was true—he just couldn’t believe it.
“Stop!” he shouted after them, but they either didn’t hear or didn’t heed.
Yet another horse came galloping out of the smoke, and with some relief, Marcom saw its rider pull back on the reins, apparently in response to his shouts. The steed slowed and came to a stop a few feet away, pawing at the ground nervously and breathing hard.
“What the devil is going on?” he shouted, shifting the girl’s weight in his arms as he hurried up beside the rider.
The man pushed up the visor on the battle helm he was wearing, and Marcom saw that it wasn’t a man at all; it was the boy, Matthew, only lately promoted from his station in the armory. His round face was an alarming mix of pale gray and splotchy red, and his eyes were wild.
“Sir!” he shouted, fumbling to perform a clumsy salute.
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