Henry scrambled to his knees, a spark of hope in his eyes, one I already knew I would be responsible for stamping out. “Go to Judgment. Bring back the white book, bring it here, we can free ourselves together. I know there’s something else, Dalton, I know it. Trust me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again, watching that light flicker and die. “I won’t help you do this. Forgive me.”
“No.” He swiveled back toward Ara and Malatriss, leaving me behind in the salt. “No, Dalton, I don’t forgive you. I never will.”
The field lay before us, pocked with holes, the already damaged fence on the border now a dwindling fire. I had never known whether the Residents could actually leave the confines of Coldthistle House, but now I had my answer as they hovered in wait, no longer with any walls between us, an army of floating black shapes. Mrs. Haylam stood at the center of the mass.
“Now’s your big chance, Poppy,” Chijioke was saying. His eyes glowed red, standing out sharply from his dark skin. “With Mary here again, you can scream your little heart out.”
It was odd, going into battle with a child at my side, but she had helped save my life once before, and I knew better than to question her power.
“I have so many bundled up,” Poppy said, grinning. “But I hope it is enough.”
The only one among us missing from the east lawn was Mr. Morningside. He hadn’t emerged yet from the house, and there was no telling what plan he might be concocting. Mary and Lee stood next to Chijioke, though Lee was wobbly with illness, the presence of so many Adjudicators making him green in the face. And there were many. Dalton had called it a host, but with their golden bodies filling the sky, the glare made it difficult to count them.
Moonless, Khent was forced to stay by my side, as I had an entire drawer of cutlery ready to transform for him. There were a few stray pistols and a hunting rifle in the house that were brought along, too, though I doubted they would do much against this motley arrangement of foes.
“Bah, Nephilim,” Khent muttered, spitting in the grass. “I thought I killed the last of those ugly fiends in Giza.”
I had hoped only to ever read of them in Bennu’s journal, but Khent was right—the huge, misshapen giants with their faces full of wasps lumbered toward the charred remains of the fence. I could hear the steady humming of the bees above their heavy footsteps. The six-winged, sword-wielding warriors above them were familiar, too, as were the cries of “sanctus” as they charged toward the house.
“It isn’t at all like reading a book,” I murmured, hoarse. Khent reached for my hand and squeezed it.
“You wouldn’t happen to be hiding a Sky Snake under those skirts?”
“Just petticoats,” I lamented. Then I turned a hard look toward the advancing enemies, too numerous even to contemplate. This had to be the bulk of the shepherd’s army, and our last stand against them would have to be enough of a distraction to let Dalton slip by. There was no sign of the shepherd, but then, Mr. Morningside was still absent, too. “Khent, if I need to let Father take over . . .”
“I will draw you back when the time comes,” he said, pressing my hand again. I had expected him to relish this chance for war and bloodshed, but his eyes were sad. “You make the javelins, I throw them. Father is only if we find ourselves overrun, yes?”
“Of course.” But what I really meant was, I shall try. And also, Are we not already overrun? The shepherd’s resistance was far beyond what I had expected or imagined, and for a brief moment I understood Henry’s dark motivations. This was what he feared when collecting his souls—this annihilation at the hands of former allies. Maybe it was always going to come to this; maybe peace between folk so different simply could not be.
“What is it, eyachou?” Khent asked.
“I was only thinking, this is all such foolishness. Do we not all inhabit this place within a place? We should be friends.”
“Yes.” He nodded, rubbing his jaw. “But these servants of Roeh, they do not look very friendly today.”
I strained to hear him above the noisy buzzing of the wasps and the beating of so many golden wings. We waited, silent, Bartholomew pawing listlessly at the ground, Mary and Chijioke holding hands while the Residents drifted back and forth at our flank. They all might be hurt. They might be killed.
“Mary—” I called out, intending to say something, anything, that might express my gratitude, my relief, that I had wished her into being all those years ago, trapped in a cupboard while my parents argued, desperate for one true friend to distract me from the misery.
She had just turned toward me when the first Adjudicator dropped out of the sky, hurtling toward us with two golden axes raised high. Finch had to be among them, I thought, but it was impossible to sort them out from the giant, floating phalanx of gold. That was the signal that broke the restless peace, and soon giants swarming with bees and screaming six-winged demons surged toward us across the field.
For an instant, it was so startling, so terrifying, that I froze. But then there was Father. Blood, he helpfully reminded me. More blood. No, came my answer, less blood shed by my friends. The only way to get through this was to protect my companions, no matter the cost. Mother had at first refused to assist, but at my nudging, she’d agreed to do what defensive spells she could. She stood closest to the house, in the shade of the overhang outside the kitchens. The ground all around us trembled and shook, then hundreds of hidden roots burst from below, rising high into the air before twining themselves together, forming a thick fence.
I heard the Nephilim giants rush up against the roots, fists striking, little wasp wings a symphony of furious frustration. The root fence did little against the winged enemies that soared above and then quickly dipped back below. They came a hundred across, a golden lance thwipping into the ground beside me. The lances. Of course.
At once I fell to work, feeling the anxious blood gather in my face as I took up knife after knife and closed my eyes, a short reprieve from the chaos while I transformed the cutlery with my Changeling powers. Khent handily took the lances from me as they formed, hurling them at any Adjudicator or Seraphim that flew too close. His aim was good but not perfect; a few slipped by his assault, and a long-haired female made of liquid gold landed not ten paces away.
“Ahhes, ahhes, ahhes.” Khent held out his hand to me and flexed his fingers. Hurry, hurry, hurry.
I panicked and felt the knife in my grasp slip, tumbling to the grass. Shrieking, I knelt to find it, feeling a rush of air over my head as Bartholomew leapt cleanly above my back, colliding with the Upworlder and taking her hard to the ground. Her screams were quickly silenced, but my eyes were closed in concentration, transforming another knife for Khent and telling myself I could not afford to slip up again.
Chijioke did his best with a hunting rifle, his aim skilled but the reload slow. Mary’s bright, glittering shield surrounded us, deflecting javelins hurled from every direction as the shepherd’s winged forces circled above, swarming. I could see Poppy jumping up and down, jittery with excitement, waiting for the right moment to unleash hell. The Residents slipped along our sides, no more than swift black blurs, and then they drifted up through Mary’s shield, high enough to reach the golden Adjudicators that controlled the air. Reaching for a fork to transform, I glanced upward, watching as a Resident overtook one of the host, enveloping it as if it were swallowing the creature whole. But it merely stripped the Adjudicator’s shining energy away, leaving the enemy in their mundane and decidedly flightless state. Startled, shouting, the poor thing plunged to the ground, reaching behind for wings that had disappeared.
That same Resident shimmered into nothingness afterward, breaking apart as the light it had swallowed dissolved the shadow. There were perhaps a dozen more Residents lifting into the air, but that was all Mrs. Haylam had brought. I was getting down to the spoons, exhausted, every transformed piece of silverware taking a little more out of me. Falling to my knees, I tried to catch my breath, finding the air devilishly hard t
o swallow.
“Breathe,” Khent reminded me. He had broken a heavy sweat from the effort, black hair matted back on his forehead, shirtsleeves soaked. “We may just make it through this.”
I glanced behind, watching Mother chant wordlessly while she kept the root barrier strong and stable. Mrs. Haylam, however, looked far worse. She had run out of shadow servants and endeavored to make more, slicing at her hands to make her minions, pulling from the meager shadows around the edge of the mansion. Had we battled at night, she might have instantly produced another dozen reinforcements. The few she managed to create, their strange, fat heads blossoming out from the shade of a crate or a flowerpot, birthed themselves into the ether, then immediately shot into the sky. Blood stained the front of her skirts, and she was beginning to look alarmingly pale.
The clamor against the root wall increased. Six of the wasp-faced giants crashed against it in unison with their shoulders. They were serviceable-enough battering rams, and soon the wood began to splinter, then give. I gasped, watching a single, thick arm punch through the fence. Not long after, the menace had torn open space enough to crawl through.
“Poppy, get ready!” I cried, then made another lance for Khent, dashing toward Mrs. Haylam. I skidded to a stop next to her and reached for my own skirts, tearing strips of fabric from the bottom and using them to bind her badly bleeding arms.
“Stop, girl, I know what I’m doing,” she muttered, her voice more rasping than usual.
“You’ll bleed to death, you stubborn old witch, let me help.”
She gnashed her teeth but allowed it, and I at least managed to staunch the bleeding on her forearms and near her elbows. But as soon as I bound a wound, she made another, the knife flashing as she cut into her skin through the frock.
“That’s enough now,” Mrs. Haylam whispered. “Go do something useful.”
Useful. Of course. She wanted me to dip in to Father’s powers and end the battle early. But I couldn’t, not when we might win without his help. I feared too much what it would mean for me if I relied on him. Every moment of greater influence seemed to stitch some piece of him to my brain permanently.
I returned to Khent’s side, handing off another lance, my hands shaking from lack of strength. His throws were weakening, too, and he grunted loudly with each toss. I had no stomach for it, I knew, cringing whenever my eyes fell on another fallen body on the grass. It was a relief, of course, that we were holding them off, but I felt no real animus toward the shepherd’s people—Sparrow had been the one thorn in my side, and now she was gone. These deaths felt utterly meaningless, wasteful, and they piled up, one after another, beautiful golden forms falling out of the sky, spinning lazily downward like some grotesque hunting party gone awry.
The numbers in the sky dwindled, but the fight before us on the field had only just begun. The Nephilim, buzzing and angry, lumbered toward us, picking up speed.
The spoon in my hand refused to change. I closed my eyes, I squeezed hard, and I channeled the last drips of will in my body toward the bloody thing, but nothing happened. I could sense Khent’s hand waving in front of me, but there was nothing I could do.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling tears slip down my face. “I have nothing left!”
The thunder of the giants’ feet masked a different kind of rumbling. To my right, from around the front of the house, came a spray of grass and gravel. The cavalry, so to speak, had arrived. Fathom, Giles, and Niles rode onto the field, Fathom screaming bloody murder as she cocked her pistol and fired at speed. They each managed a shot off toward the giants before circling back around to us, slowing their horses and fishing out their small arsenal of pistols and rifles.
“Just like the old days at Auntie Glinna’s, shooting pheasant in Somerset!” Giles called. He and his brother had come in matching hunting flannels done in the most fashionable purple-and-green plaids. “Good to see you again, Miss Louisa, though I do wish it were under less calamitous circumstances.”
“No time for pleasantries,” I called back, managing a weary smile. “But your aid is most welcome!”
“Where is Morningside?” Chijioke muttered, trying to unjam his rifle before giving up and accepting a fresh gun from Niles.
I shared his curiosity and glanced toward the house. Inside, I saw Dalton briefly at the kitchen window, and then he was gone, disappeared, a sharp popping sound reaching us even through the walls. That still didn’t account for Mr. Morningside’s tardiness. Had he left us? Had the bastard really abandoned us to fight his war while he retreated to safety?
Mary dropped her shield for a moment to rest and recover while Mother tried in vain to repair her wall. Smaller bursts of roots shot from the earth, but they did little more than trip up the giants, who collected themselves and pressed on. They would be upon us any moment.
There was no more I could do for Khent. I scrambled to my feet and went to Poppy, putting a tremulous hand on her shoulder. “As soon as you can make out the wasps on their faces, give it your all.”
“I am so ready, Louisa, I have not done a scream in a very long time, and it hurts so to be bottled up.” Bartholomew came to stand in front of the girl, guarding her, licking the copious blood from his paws. The melee had changed him, and he had never looked more like a hellhound, with a rigid spine of dark fur and slavering jaws.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Mrs. Haylam collapse to the ground. Before I could go to aid her, a flood of gold brightened the horizon. More Adjudicators. As many or more than had come before.
“Stars,” Mary cried, covering her mouth. “He must have called back his folk from every corner of the earth!”
“Now, do you think, Louisa?” Poppy asked.
“Aye,” I told her, my heart sinking to my toes. “Now. Do it now.”
While Poppy readied herself, I disappeared to tend to Mrs. Haylam, trusting the little girl to know when her power would help us most. She looked almost proud, like a soldier, and I wished that it was not so, that she was not a child forced into this war, that she could be somewhere at play, holding her dog and singing songs, not using her voice for bloody mayhem.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I never disliked you.”
The bedlam behind me twisted her words into nonsense. It took me a moment to untangle them, just as I untangled another torn strip of skirt to tie around her thigh. There was no pretense of housekeeper and serving girl now, no stations, no polite barriers—Mrs. Haylam’s wiry leg was stuck out toward me, propped in my lap while I wrapped it with coarse cloth.
“Did I accuse you of such things?” I asked, shaking my head. Before, I had seen just glimpses of the tattoos on her arms, always peeking out from her sleeve, but now I came to realize that underneath the sober, high-necked gown, she was covered in markings. Having suffered one such agony on my palm, I couldn’t imagine what she had endured to become that way.
“The way you look at me, girl. Always fleeting. Nervous. I was hard because I sensed the cleverness in you. The strength.” She coughed, a trickle of blood running down her chin, and I flinched. “Even before your father came. I wasn’t hard enough on Henry and look how he turned out. I’m one of the last of his true allies. He was never soft, never kind, and it forced them all away. We could use a couple of demons right about now.”
“I’m going to tell him you said that, you know,” I teased, hoping it would bolster her spirits.
“Do it. I won’t be around to suffer his complaints.”
“I won’t have you speaking that way. Where is Mr. Morningside? Why isn’t he helping us?” I pressed.
“He’s”—hack, hack—“making preparations. But like always, he will be fashionably late.”
Tragically late, more like. I thought more about what she had said, about Henry never being soft or kind. He had been, in my eyes, for a time—to her and Dalton, at least. He had taken in many of my kind out of guilt, but now . . . Stopping briefly, I glanced around, looking at us all battling against the Up
worlders. Fighting for him. And where was he? Why was he absent at his own fight? I felt suddenly angry, furious, dangerously furious, so much so that I felt Father flash against the weak membrane holding him at bay. These weren’t demons like Faraday putting their lives on the line for Henry’s house and livelihood, it was us. The cruel unfairness of it cut, and I wondered if maybe this was what Dalton wanted me to see in his diary. That it would always come to this, Henry hiding and scheming, while everyone else did the dirty work for him.
Even his one and only true friend lay bleeding and suffering.
I finished tying off her upper leg and sat back on my haunches, then turned at the sound of a gun volley. The bullets did next to nothing against the giants. Mary’s barrier extended outward again, enshrouding us, the noise of the battle growing dimmer for a moment. Then Poppy stepped forward and threw back her head, balled up her fists, and let loose one of her bone-piercing shrieks. The nearest wave of Adjudicators fell, gripping their heads in agony, distracted enough to become easy targets for our crack shooters. Poppy had weakened our foes, leaving them far more vulnerable to gunfire. I watched the Nephilim fall back, deterred, but only briefly.
Her scream, no matter how powerful, was not enough to turn the tide.
When it was done, I saw Chijioke go to comfort Poppy, who began crying, disappointed and afraid.
“Where is Morningside?” Chijioke shouted, clutching Poppy. “Damn him. We need his help!”
“Are you prepared to watch them die?” Mrs. Haylam whispered. More blood poured from her mouth. “Are you ready to have that on your shoulders?”
The thunder of the giants’ feet neared, deafening. A hail of javelins fell against Mary’s barrier, which itself would fall soon as she grew tired. Khent could do nothing, for I had no spears to give him and he had but a rudimentary knowledge of rifles. I sighed and stood, knowing what had to be done, however much I dreaded it.
“Louisa . . . ,” Mother pleaded with me softly, but I turned my back on her.
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