“You will wait for the sign,” Jack went on. “You will know it when you see it, I think. A fragment of white cloth, maybe, or some such thing. It will show you the place, Mr. Haake. The place where the boy is sleeping. Do you understand? You will wait, and you will watch. When the sign comes, you will go and take the boy.”
“Take him,” Haake agreed, his eyes still following the coin as it moved back and forth between Jack’s hands. “Take him to the Hichen.”
“Precisely.”
The coin continued to move for another few moments, then it came to rest in the palm of Jack’s left hand. There was another flash of moonlight off its surface, and for a moment, Haake saw the face stamped on it. It wasn’t Marianne’s lovely countenance, as he’d expected. Instead, it was his own.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“I’m growing weary of this debate,” the Wraith hissed, turning its back on Paige and Garrett and gliding soundlessly toward the door. “We three have been talking in circles since the wizard and the boy told their story. If you want my opinion, though I rather think you do not, I’d just as soon see you send the lot of them packing, Paige, but something tells me that isn’t in the cards.”
Paige glared at the back of the Wraith’s shadowy robes. “Fine for you,” she drawled venomously, hardly above a murmur. The words sounded petty—even childish—in her own ears, but she just couldn’t help herself. Her head was pounding again, and she was sick of the Wraith; she was sick of everyone. “Go ahead, walk away,” she went on, her voice rising. “It must be nice to up and leave whenever the discussion doesn’t suit you.”
“You would know all about that, wouldn’t you?” Garrett muttered, his words just a little slurred. “Leaving when things don’t suit you…when they don’t go your way.”
Paige shot him a poisonous glance as well, but he wasn’t looking at her. He just went on staring at the glass in his hand, watching the lamplight dance on its surface.
The Wraith paused beside the door, then turned back with a rustle of empty cloth.
“I thought, perhaps,” it said, carefully emphasizing each word as if it were explaining arithmetic to a small child, “that more progress might be made if you and Master Garrett had a chat without my presence. If you’d prefer I stay…”
Paige waved him off.
“Go. Just go.” She rested her elbows on the desk before her and lowered her head into her hands, rubbing her temples and wondering what she’d done to deserve all this. The Wraith turned away and drifted from the room without another word, leaving her and Garrett alone.
She watched the big man across the expanse of her desk as he took another sip from his glass, and she tried to remember the boy he’d been back when they’d grown up together. It seemed such a long time ago now.
…First we make a ghost…of the man we love the most…
“I never thought it would come to this,” Garrett mused, still not looking at her. She waited for him to go on, but the silence only spun out—a thread weaving slowly into a veil between them.
“Come to what?” she pressed at last, feeling an overwhelming resignation.
Garrett glanced up from his glass and met her gaze. “You and I at odds,” he said, and when she didn’t comment, he went on. “We used to work well together, leading our little chapter of the Brood.” He knocked back the last of his drink, went to set the glass down on the desk, then changed his mind and picked up the bottle to refill it instead.
“We still could be a force to reckon with,” Paige said.
Garrett topped off his glass and set the empty bottle down again with a thud. The click of his claws as they scraped its curved surface seemed too loud in the sleeping house, and outside, the wind spoke of a Samhain fast approaching.
…The children sound and sleeping, and the ravens roused for reaping…
“That’s just it, Paige. We could, but we’re not going to.” He took a long, slow swallow. “You’re not the girl I grew up with…”
“We’re all older, Garrett,” she said, rubbing her eyes.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” he said, but he still wouldn’t look at her. “You’re not the woman I used to know, either. You once were willing to go along with the wizard, trusting him even when there was little reason to, because you recognized that he produced results. You don’t care about the cause anymore; you don’t care about the Brood. Now, more of what he’s said has come to pass than ever, and you’re determined to turn your back on Michael anyway. You’re determined to throw this chance away—our chance—the Brood’s chance.”
“Oh, come on Garrett,” Paige cried in exasperation, throwing her hands up in the air as her antennae twitched madly. “Do you honestly believe all these stories of ancient kings and knights and people coming back from the dead to unite the worlds? It’s ridiculous.” Garrett opened his mouth to retort, but Paige cut him off. “Only the deaders walk after death, and we both know they’re little more than Marianne’s playthings. Not only is it ridiculous, but it doesn’t matter, because even if it is true, you heard what the wizard said as well as I did. Last time around, the boy failed, Garrett. He died, and these supposed worlds were separated because he couldn’t unite them. I don’t see any reason to believe he wouldn’t fail again. He’s just a kid—younger than Corbbmacc. I’m not gambling what’s left of the Dragon’s Brood on the whims of a child. Not when there’s so much at stake.”
“But you’ll gamble it by pitting what’s left against Marianne’s far larger force, which you can’t possibly defeat. You’d rather stay in control and lose than take a chance to win that might jeopardize your place on top of the Dragon’s Brood.” Garrett was on his feet now, his voice loud in the confined space, and Paige noted, with some surprise, that the big man was considerably more drunk than she’d realized. The glass he was holding shattered with a crunch as he balled his hands into fists, and the fragments pattered to the floor in a twinkling cascade. The remains of his whiskey ran between his fingers, glistening wetly on his scales and mixing with the tiny beads of blood across his palms.
She closed her eyes, wincing a little as the pain in her head intensified for a moment. Spots appeared on the backs of her eyelids, dancing and coalescing into a pair of mismatched eyes that blinked at her with mild amusement.
It’s nearly time, Miss Paige.
With an effort, she forced her lids apart and looked at Garrett again. The lamplight drove hot shards of pain into her eyes, lodging in her brain and grasping like fingers at the scattered thoughts that drifted there. It was so hard to think.
“Let’s get some sleep,” she said, and all at once she had no anger left. She was only tired and in pain.
Garrett blinked at her blearily. “What?”
“We’ll continue this tomorrow, when you’re sober,” she said a little more sharply.
Garrett stared at her for another long moment, then raised his uninjured hand to rub his eyes and trace the series of ridges that ran up and over the top of his head.
“No,” he said slowly. “I don’t think we will. I’ll have to talk to the others, but if it’s up to me, we’ll be leaving in the morning.” He took a slow, unsteady breath. “We’ll find other allies. It’s a big world.”
He turned away from her, moving toward the door.
He made it a few steps before the whiskey made its presence known, and he staggered, reaching out to steady himself with the back of the chair he’d been sitting in. For a moment, she thought she saw the dim outline of another man who had sat in that same chair not long before in his dirty and ragged clothes, but when she blinked, the apparition had gone.
Paige got to her feet, needing to lean against her desk for a moment, and a bolt of fresh pain shot through her brain like lightning, making her stomach roll uneasily. She gritted her teeth and moved toward Garrett—toward her friend—the closest thing to a brother she’d ever known.
“Let me help you, Garrett,” she said softly, and she firmly threw one of his arms
across her shoulders, folding her wings close against her back.
He didn’t protest, and she was able to lead him out and across the house to the room he was sharing with his wife and son.
They passed no one. Lamps and a few gaslights burned here and there along the walls, but the house was still and silent. The Brood hadn’t returned the house to its former grandeur, but they had succeeded in making it more comfortable. It was certainly a functional base of operations, but how long would that last? Garrett was right. Marianne’s force was going to be several times larger than theirs. It was a tall order, but she knew they could win; the Brood had been outsmarting Marianne’s men for years. But the only way to do that was if they were united. She needed Garrett’s help; she needed him to stay.
The door to Garrett’s and Mona’s room was partially ajar, and Paige guided Garrett inside, past the window…past the makeshift crib where Miraculum slept…to the bed in the corner where Paige could just make out Mona’s sleeping form in the moonlight filtering in through the window’s dirty glass.
Paige took a few steps back into the shadows as Garrett collapsed into the bed beside his wife, watching him with an ache in her heart that rivaled the one in her head.
…Now the interest has come due, for the angels that he slew…
Mona rolled over in her sleep, nestling herself against Garrett’s side, and he, apparently already nearly asleep himself, automatically wrapped one arm around her. His breaths slowed and evened, and Paige knew he’d sleep like the dead until morning.
She stood there a moment longer, not wanting to stay but unable to bring herself to leave. She thought of all the times when, as teens, she’d half-supported, half-dragged Garrett’s carcass home from one tavern or another. There was no rousing him once he fell into that drunken sleep, she knew. She only hoped that, come morning, he’d see reason and realize she was right. She needed him to stay.
…Down the lane and up the slope, knock on wood and tie the rope…
“It doesn’t have to be this way, Miss Paige,” a voice spoke from the dark, making Paige jump.
Her gaze scanned the room, but she saw no one, nor was there anywhere someone could be hiding. The room’s only other occupants did not seem to have heard. None of them stirred at all.
It was just her imagination, she decided—a combination of the wishful thinking of an exhausted mind and the raging headache. Gods knew she needed some sleep herself. Tomorrow would be an even longer day than today had been. Best that she retire to her own bed now and be ready to face what would come.
And still her feet would not move.
“This is why you have to do it,” the voice went on, unmindful of her thoughts. As it spoke, she felt her unease melting away, replaced with a sort of inevitability, sweetened with relief. “He will leave in the morning otherwise. And you do want him to stay, don’t you? He won’t leave without his wife and child, but if they leave him…” The voice trailed off, letting Paige’s own addled brain complete the thought as it would.
Suddenly, it was as though she was watching herself from outside her own body. She saw herself turn away from the sleeping couple in the bed. She moved across the room, taking slow steps with the stiff gait of a deader…
…Then we trip the fearsome trap, so his neck will crack and snap…
Her fingers fumbled with the latch on the window and slowly—oh, so very slowly—she pushed the narrow pane of glass up and open, letting in the cold night air.
And it was done.
She turned away from the window, toward the door, not noticing that the hem of her tunic caught on an old rusty nail protruding from the sill…not caring as a long ribbon of light cloth tore away, fluttering from that nail like a flag in the autumn wind.
Quietly, Paige left the room, closing the door gently behind her.
***
“Angle your feet, and put them a little further apart,” Mona tells Corbbmacc, kicking at one of his ankles to emphasize the point. A scowl darkens his face—a face far too young to have seen the horrors that it has. He doesn’t protest, though. He simply does as she instructs, adjusting his grip on the short sword he is holding.
Mona circles back around to face him again, taking a few steps back and holding up her own blade.
“Let’s try again,” she says, and Corbbmacc lunges clumsily forward, swinging his sword like a battle axe.
She blocks it easily, and the impact knocks the weapon from her little brother’s hands.
“It’s a sword, Corbb,” she says, not unkindly. “You can’t just wave it around like you’re hacking branches from a tree.”
“Mother…”
Mona freezes.
“Corbb, that isn’t funny.” And it isn’t funny—it isn’t funny at all. Their mother is dead, and all they have left in all the world is the Dragon’s Brood and one another.
But something is not right. He is looking at her with an expression of confusion, and she remembers that this happened years ago, and Corbb never, ever called her…
Mother! Mother!
The words fill the world, but Corbb’s lips do not move, and though the voice is similar to his voice, it isn’t his voice.
Mother! …Mother! …Mother!
***
Mother! …Mother! …Mother!
Mona awoke with the sound of that one word reverberating through her mind, repeating over and over, and there was so much terror in the voice that for the briefest of moments, she was nearly paralyzed.
Heart pounding, she rolled away from Garrett, snatching one of her daggers from beside her pillow and springing from the bed in a single movement. Her feet tangled in the sheet and she staggered, falling to the floor on her knees with a painful jolt.
Still clutching her dagger, she scrambled back to her feet. The roar of blood in her ears was nearly deafening.
“Garrett!” she shouted, even as she dimly registered the sour smell of whiskey rolling off of him in waves.
She flew across the room, barely aware of the cold boards beneath her feet or the nightshirt the servant girl had given her flapping around her knees.
The large crate they’d turned into a sort of crib for Miraculum was empty. Panic seized her.
Mother!
Was the voice in her head growing fainter? Where was her boy? Where was he?
She ran back to her husband, slapping his face.
“Garrett! You need to wake up! Now!”
Garrett’s eyes fluttered open for a moment, and then he snorted and they closed again.
A cold gust of air blew her hair into her face, and she brushed it aside angrily. How had it become so cold in the room, anyway?
Wind?
She spun around toward the window. It was open, and she was absolutely certain it hadn’t been when she’d tucked Miraculum in beside it.
She ran to it and looked out across the expanse of ground that separated the house from the trees and steep incline that led back up to the road.
Mother!
And there, almost to the tree line, was a thin figure, carrying a squirming bundle in his arms and moving with the jerky, twitchy movements she knew all too well.
She didn’t stop to think; there was no time to think, and her reason had fled in any case, swept away by the rising tide of maternal instinct.
She tossed her dagger out the window to the ground below it, then followed it out herself, scraping the skin from her legs on the rough wood and nails of the sill.
She dropped down on the cold, rocky ground, snatched up her knife, and hurtled through the dark after her son.
Marcom
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Marcom paced slowly back and forth, his gaze falling on each of the faces before him in turn. The lines that the demon thing had burned into his flesh ached dully beneath a strip of dark cloth he’d wound around his head to hide the cursed thing. This band, too, was now serving as a patch for his missing eye, and while he suffered no illusions about its inelegance—tied as it was at a croo
ked angle to cover his eye—he’d had no time to find a better solution. He would be damned if he would let his men—let alone these strangers—see their enemy’s mark on him. The humiliation of knowing it was there himself was bad enough.
The men in question—mostly boys, really—sat on the bare wooden benches in ragged groups, staring back at him. Some of those faces were solemn and pale, some were eager, but most were just scared. He knew a few of them—the pathetic remnants of his decimated force. Most of them, sent as commanders of the battalions from the other fiefdoms of Marianne’s kingdom, he did not. There was so little time to get to know them; there was so little time to decide whom he could trust. Matthew’s face rose up before his mind’s eye in the wake of that thought, and he resisted the urge to flinch.
Pain in his flesh…guilt on his shoulders…and still the sting of that damned girl’s betrayal in his heart…a wound that festered, long after it should have closed. The image of her face swam to the forefront of his mind, supplanting Matthew’s with its unremarkable features and inquisitive green eyes. Why should her treachery eat away at him? She was one apprentice—one of many that had come and gone over his years at Seven Skies. He’d hardly known her.
But she’d been so damned convincing. He would have sworn—sworn on all he held dear—that she hadn’t been a Broodswoman.
And he would have been wrong.
He forced his fists to open and his muscles to relax as he pivoted at the far end of the room and began retracing his steps along the line. The slow thud of his boots on the stone floor reverberated in the silence of the mess hall. All the tables had been cleared away, turning the room into a makeshift command center for meetings like this one.
He would not think of his foolishness in the tower; he would not think of his mistake with Matthew; and he would not—would not—think of Emily.
The men just watched him as he passed them, scarcely seeming to breathe. A few of the younger ones fidgeted uncomfortably, but most sat still and composed, whatever feelings their expressions betrayed.
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