CHAPTER FIFTY
LOGAN
Another tracker slams into me, and I struggle to keep my footing on the stage as his sword nicks my side. Ignoring the blood and the pain, I shout, “The tanniyn are surfacing inside the city. Stop fighting and get out!”
The tracker jerks his head toward the square and curses. I shove him out of my way, and then my blood seems to freeze as I take in the scene before me.
James Rowan crawling toward Quinn, the whip in his hands. Quinn stumbling toward Rachel and falling to his knees every few seconds as the ground gives way beneath him.
And Rachel fighting to pull back from the edge of a break that widens faster than she can move.
“Rachel!” I scream even though she can’t hear me, and leap from the stage.
Adam and Willow streak past me, heading for the clock tower to give Captain Burkes the signal. I want to call them back. Tell them to wait. Tell them they can’t flood the city while our people are on the ground, but I can’t. We have to destroy Rowansmark’s power and the tanniyn along with it.
I’ll just have to reach Quinn and Rachel in time.
I race across the cracked cobblestones toward the wide expanse of green that leads up toward the mansion and pass James Rowan first. He’s got the whip and is on his feet, but I don’t stop. Not when Rachel is holding on by her fingertips and Quinn is in danger of falling into one of the cracks every time he reaches for her.
“What have you done? What have you done?” Rowan screams at my back as the ground caves in around me.
The dirt beneath me disappears, and I slam my palms onto the edge of a crack in the cobblestones. Digging my fingers in, I fight for purchase while below me tanniyn bellow in fury.
From the corner of my eye, I see Rowan pull himself onto the grass above the cracks and scramble across solid ground toward Quinn and Rachel. Digging my elbows into the ground, I scramble onto the cobblestones. My boots slip as I try to push away from the crack.
“Got you.” Smithson grabs a fistful of my cloak and hauls me to my feet while behind me, one of the beasts explodes out of the ground.
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CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
LOGAN
The tanniyn pour out of the ground like a nest of monstrous vipers. They writhe, digging clawed limbs into one another as they fight for purchase while more just keep coming. Everywhere I look I see sightless, milky-white eyes, puffs of gray smoke pouring from snouts, and sharp yellow talons crushing the cobblestones.
Smithson and I run toward the grass. Heat blazes along our backs as the beasts roar and strafe the square with fire. Flames rush across the stone, leaving scorch marks and smoke.
I’ve lost sight of Quinn and James Rowan. I’ve lost sight of Frankie and Nola.
I’ve lost sight of Rachel.
Desperation pounds through me, clouding my thoughts with panic, as the tanniyn whip their tails, smashing the cobblestones and flinging debris that slices into us as we race for safety. One beast slams into a gracious, two-story brick building, and the upper balcony rips free of its moorings and crashes to the ground. Fire licks at the building’s porch, and in seconds, the flames are racing inside to consume everything in their path.
At the far end of the square, the clock tower bursts into flame, and my heart feels like it’s hammering against my throat. Adam and Willow have set the signal.
In moments, Captain Burkes will open all of the floodgates on the dam, drowning the tanniyn and anyone else on the ground.
A beast spews fire, sending a streak of flames shooting across our path. Throwing my arm up over my face, I drop to the ground to crawl beneath the heat. Smithson hits the cobblestones beside me, and I slap at his cloak to extinguish an errant flame.
“I’m going after Rachel and Quinn,” I say as we drag ourselves onto the grass. “Find Nola and Frankie.”
He nods, and I claw my way up the grass hillside until I’m free of the cracks and can see the square in its entirety. What I see dries the spit in my mouth.
The beasts have ripped a massive hole into the northern side of the square, starting from where Rachel drove the staff into the ground and spreading to encompass most of the ground beneath a brick building with yellow-and-white bunting fluttering from its balcony. The building tips precariously to the left, dangling over the hole as if a slight breeze would send it sliding down that dark shaft until it was swallowed up by the center of the earth.
Rachel, Quinn, and James Rowan are trapped on the building’s porch, surrounded by a writhing, fire-spewing mass of tanniyn.
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CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
RACHEL
There’s nowhere to hide. I heave in quick pants of the smoky air and try to hold myself steady even though the terror blazing through me makes it impossible to stop shaking.
I’m trapped. Stuck with Quinn and Rowan on the porch of a building close to where I called the tanniyn. To the left, a huge hole threatens to swallow the house and us with it. Metal shrieks and wood snaps in sharp cracks as the building slowly tips toward its side. To the right, a long crack is splitting the cobblestones, widening with every passing second. Below us, the porch shudders as if straining against the bonds that hold it to the house. We have to get away from here before the house comes apart at the seams, but we can’t. The tanniyn are everywhere.
Wherever I look, I see huge black bodies, streams of fire, and white eyes daring me to make a sound so that they can find me. I press my back against the wall behind me and clench my jaw to keep my lips from trembling. I want to think about courage or sacrifice or justice, but my mind is stuck on a single, inescapable thought: I don’t want to die.
Quinn stands next to me, blood flowing from the cuts on his back and on his face. Beside him, Rowan glares at us with hatred, his whip clutched in his hand. I ignore Rowan and reach for Quinn’s hand. He closes his fingers around mine and squeezes. Tears gather in my eyes, and I lift my chin. I don’t want to die. I don’t want Quinn to die. There has to be a way out of this. I start looking for a miracle.
The staff has long since been swallowed up by one of the cracks in the ground, and we can no longer feel the thunderous pulse of its sonic frequency, but it doesn’t seem to matter. The beasts are here, and they aren’t going away until they destroy everything around them.
The creatures roar and lash their tails, sending other beasts crashing into the buildings around them. Iron balconies tear apart, brick crumbles, and decorative pillars tumble to the ground, where they explode into piles of white dust. The noise is unrelenting—a fierce, predatory snarl that shakes the air. But beyond that, another roar is building. A wet, wild rumble of noise that rushes closer with every second.
I grip Quinn’s hand tighter.
“What is that? What else have you done?” Rowan yells.
The tanniyn closest to us whip their snouts toward Rowan, gray smoke pouring from their nostrils. Quinn pulls me against his side, and we cling to each other as the beasts slither toward us.
I drag in a shaky breath and force myself to think.
If the creatures strafe James Rowan with fire, we’ll be hit too.
I don’t want to die.
There’s a jagged seam the width of a wagon to the right of us and the crumbling brick building tipping slowly toward an enormous hole to the left.
I don’t want to die.
The floodgates are open. Which will hit us first—the tanniyn’s fire or the river’s water?
I don’t want to die.
Rowan raises his whip like he means to slash it at the tanniyn. I spin Quinn toward the wagon-sized crack to the right while behind us, footsteps stomp through the ruined building, coming closer by the second. I don’t have
time to wonder who it is because in front of us, a trio of the creatures lash their tails, sending a hail of debris onto our heads, and then cough an unending stream of fire straight toward us.
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CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
LOGAN
“Rachel!” I yell her name as the tanniyn spew fire at Rachel, Quinn, and Rowan.
Quinn and Rachel dive to the ground and slide down a hole beneath the unsteady building. Frankie shoulders his way through the building’s door and throws himself toward the place where I last saw Quinn and Rachel.
James Rowan doesn’t move fast enough to evade the tanniyn’s fire. It hits him, pushing him against the brick wall behind him. He screams—a wail of terrible anguish—as he is consumed. When the flames die, a charred, smoking heap is all that’s left of the man who thought he could control the monsters beneath our feet and use them as weapons.
I sprint toward the building, frantically looking for any sign of Rachel, Frankie, and Quinn, my heart pounding, my mouth dry, but before I can get there, a wall of water as high as two horses stacked on top of each other explodes into the city.
The water rushes through the streets, banking off buildings, and splashing onto the second-floor balconies. I stumble over a crack in the ground and go down hard.
Where are my people? Where is Rachel?
Desperately, I get to my feet and run for the leaning brick building as the tanniyn shriek and bellow, clawing over one another to get out of the water’s way. I skid toward the bottom of the grassy hill and see Nola trapped at the edge of the square, a crack on one side of her and a pile of debris on the other. Smithson is climbing over the debris pile, trying to get to her in time.
I reach the building as the wall of water bursts into the square, sweeping the beasts in front of it. They shriek, and then the water plunges down the holes that opened up to let the tanniyn out of their nests.
“Rachel! Quinn!” My breath tears through my chest in sobs as I pull myself onto the porch. Frankie, one hand wrapped around Rachel’s wrist and another around Quinn’s while the two dangle over the gaping pit of emptiness that leads down to the tanniyn’s nests, digs his heels into the ground and heaves himself backward.
Sprinting forward, I dive over the smoldering remains of James Rowan, slide on my stomach, and then slam my boots into the ground to stop myself. Wrapping my hands around Rachel’s arm, I pull her out of the hole while Frankie does the same for Quinn. Then Frankie tosses Quinn at the single remaining stable pillar supporting the building’s upper-level balcony and barks, “Hold your breath!”
Rachel and I run for the pillar as well, and drag in a deep breath as the water slams into us. It’s like being hit by a stone wall. Rachel spins away from the pillar, caught in the vicious current. I snatch Rachel’s tunic with one hand and wrap the other around the pillar. The force of the water tears at me, and my grip begins to falter while gallons of water pour over my head until I’m convinced I’ll never take another breath.
I try to hold fast to Rachel and to the pillar, but I know I can’t keep my grip much longer. I have to make a choice. It’s the easiest decision I’ve ever made. No worst case scenarios. No contingencies or backup plans. Just the one best case scenario that has been the foundation of every decision I’ve made in the last few months—keep Rachel safe.
Using the last of my strength, I shove Rachel toward the pillar so that she can wrap her arms around it. She latches on, and I try to recover my grip, but it’s too late. The vicious strength of the water is my undoing.
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CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
LOGAN
The water flings me away from Rachel, but then something jerks me to a stop and holds me in place.
I twist my head and see Frankie, his face red with exertion, gripping the back of my tunic with one meaty hand while he hooks the other arm around the pillar.
My lungs are burning, aching for air, as the initial rush of water subsides, sinking into the long underground tunnels made by the tanniyn and leaving us to collapse, gasping and choking.
“Thank you,” I say to Frankie. My voice is hoarse, my entire body shaking as I gather Rachel into my arms and hold her like I never mean to let go.
Frankie glares at me and then includes Rachel and Quinn as well. He raises one beefy finger and stabs it at us. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again.” His hand trembles. “I’m here to tell you that if I have to fish any of you out of sinkholes or keep your fool selves from drowning again, I will personally beat the sense right out of you. Are we clear?”
Rachel smiles at him. “I love you, too.”
He tightens his lips, and his eyes glisten, and then he hauls all three of us into a hug. It’s like being squeezed by an enormous bear. “Fool kids going and putting yourselves right smack in the worst possible places every time I turn around.”
“Cozy,” Willow says as she and Adam approach us. Frankie lets go of us, turns on his heel, and drags Willow and Adam against his chest as well. I expect Willow to give him grief, but she tolerates it.
“Where are Nola and Smithson?” Frankie asks after he’s done giving Adam and Willow the same lecture he just gave us. I reluctantly let go of Rachel and take stock of our surroundings.
Outside, the sounds of battle are unmistakable. Clashing swords. Shouted orders. The Rowansmark army doesn’t realize it’s lost its leader.
“Adam, see if you can find something that will work as a white flag and fly it from one of the turrets,” I say.
As Adam hurries to do my bidding, I search the square for signs of Nola and Smithson. The river’s new path takes it right through the square and down the multiple tunnels created by the tanniyn. The current is strong, and the water looks deep. A few of the tanniyn still flop around in the water, trying desperately to gouge their claws into the cobblestones and drag themselves out of the water’s flow, but it’s too strong. Too high. Too powerful, even for them.
I last saw Nola trapped between a pile of debris and a crack in the ground, with Smithson trying desperately to reach her. With Rachel, Frankie, Quinn, and Willow on my heels, I hurry past tanniyn corpses and crumbled piles of brick until I reach that spot.
They’re gone.
I spin on my heel, a slow circle to encompass the entire square, and then I see them. Smithson is lying on his back at the edge of the water’s flow, his eyes staring at nothing, while Nola is hunched over his body, sobbing.
“Oh no.” Rachel runs past me and flings herself onto the ground beside Smithson. I’m right behind her.
“He saved me,” Nola sobs. “He picked me up and threw me onto the grass so I could climb the hill and be safe from the water, but that meant he couldn’t get out of the way in time.”
Rachel lays her head on Smithson’s chest, tears shining on her cheeks, and I swallow hard past the lump of grief in my throat. “He saved me, too. I was about to fall into a crack, and he grabbed me. He was a good friend. I’ll miss him.”
I want to say more—I should say more for the boy who chose to follow me, even after he lost Sylph. For the boy who quietly fought at my side, and who sacrificed himself to save his friends—but I can’t speak past the ache of loss. I hope he’s with Sylph again. That he’s found a measure of peace he couldn’t find on this earth.
“I’ll help Nola,” Frankie says quietly. “Seems to me we have one more enemy who needs to be dealt with.” He nods toward the gate, and I realize the sounds of combat have ceased. Up on the wall, Adam is waving a white flag of surrender.
The Commander has won his battle. Now he needs to lose the war.
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CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
RACHEL
“One last thing to finish,” I say, and take Logan’s hand.
He pulls me against him, wiping the tears from my cheeks. “One last thing.”
Movement catches my eye, and I see Marcus walking with unsteady steps around the edges of the square.
“First, though, there’s someone you need to meet,” I say. Logan doesn’t argue as I pull him with me.
We climb around the glistening, scaly corpses of the tanniyn to reach Marcus just as he stops beside the ruins of the stage. He sees me and hurries forward.
“Sons? Mine? Saved?” Worry trembles through his voice.
Maybe it’s because the pain of losing Smithson is fresh, maybe it’s because for all of the horrible things Ian did, he made the ultimate sacrifice to redeem himself in the end, but tears slip down my face again as I say, “Ian saved us. He sacrificed himself and died a hero. I’m sorry, Marcus.”
He raises shaking hands toward his chest.
“But Logan was saved. He’s right here.” I grab Logan’s arm and pull him closer.
Marcus takes three steps toward him and throws his arms around his son.
“Logan.” One word, but the joy on his face tells the entire story.
Slowly, Logan raises an arm and awkwardly pats his father’s back. Behind me, Willow, Quinn, Nola, and Frankie join us.
“Love you. Love. Always. My son.” Marcus leans his face against Logan’s and mutters a stream of words that make no sense but somehow still sound like him telling his son how much he was missed.
Logan’s arm falls to his side, and Marcus steps back, a shadow of worried hurt on his face.
“Marcus, we have to leave for a bit, but then we can come back for you so that you can spend some time with Logan,” I say. “You two just need to get to know each other. You’ve known about him for his entire life. He’s only known about you for a few weeks.”
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