Sebastian scratched his head, which looked a little comical, with his pointed ears and curved horns. ‘Sorry about that. I didn’t realize it was that obvious. We can speak to each other inside our heads. It freaked me out the first time it happened, but I’m getting used to it.’
My breath tripped up my throat. ‘You can read minds?’
‘No, nothing like that,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s just like talking, only without using your voice. That’s all.’
‘And you can do this with anyone?’
‘Just shadow creatures, as far as I know.’
I was ashamed at the relief that flooded through me at his answer. The thought of another level of contact with him was terrifying, because it meant one more barrier I’d constructed would be torn down. I stole a glance at him as we walked. Why was it so hard to admit that maybe I wanted to cross that barrier?
‘Josephine?’
I lifted my head and looked at him fully. ‘Yes?’
Sebastian hesitated, and then came to a stop. The way he looked at me made my heart beat quicker. I edged closer to him, determined to hold his gaze. He blinked down at me, and I smiled in surprise. The guarded expression I’d gotten used to seeing from him was gone. Here was the Sebastian I was growing to—
‘Do you think …’ he began.
I’d never hear the rest of the question.
Marksmen appeared out of the shadows. Sebastian’s face went fierce, his upper lip pulling back to show his top row of gargoyle teeth. He whipped around, instantly stepping in front of me like a giant gray shield. I felt the shudder of those massive wings against my arm.
I yanked free from the memory, but I held onto his face in my mind – tighter than I’d ever held onto anything. The pendant spiked with heat, radiating through my fingers. I froze the image of Sebastian into place in my head, like he was a painting on the wall in front of me. It’s just like talking, but without using your voice, he’d said.
Sebastian?
I opened my eyes, waiting for something. The room was as quiet as my head. What was I missing? Right before Anya hit me, there’d be something – a feeling? No, it was a buzz, like electricity going through a wire. I tried again, a longer burst of thought this time.
Sebastian, it’s Josephine.
Slowly, a weird ringing echoed in my ears. The pendant throbbed in my hands. The ringing got louder until it became a definite hum. I held my breath and yelled more forcibly inside my mind.
Sebastian, if you can hear me, please listen. I’m here, and I’m going to get you out of there. Just hold on, okay? Hold on for me.
The pendant slipped from my hand. It fell soundlessly, disappearing into the fibers of the rug. The fireplace in front of me went lopsided. I tried to stand, to stop the furniture from spinning like the whirling cars at the Circe. The room swirled like a tornado and the lights went out.
21. Sebastian
I wasn’t sure if staring down a group of Sobrasi was better or worse than facing the High Council. Both were groups I knew practically nothing about. But no matter which way I looked at it, I was on the receiving end of something I probably wasn’t going to like.
I’d navigated through my brother’s Gypsy revelations. I’d managed my own gargoyle transformation – more or less. I’d dealt with the unfamiliar world of the Circe de Romany. But this, this was a whole new level of the unknown.
‘What am I doing here?’
They looked at me like watching an animal from behind the viewing area in a zoo. Spindles of adrenaline wound up my vertebrae, settling at the base of my skull. The cloaked Gypsies didn’t move. It would’ve been better if they’d moved – just the shifting of feet. A head scratch. Even a cough. Anything was better than this.
My breathing increased and grew shallow. I adjusted my stance, distributing my weight more evenly as my back hunched into a crouch. The instinctive dark emotions inside me awakened. Warning signals fired in my brain.
‘What am I doing here?’ I asked again, my voice changing under the influence of the thing beating on my chest cavity, ready to be released. I choked it down and clenched my hands at my sides. ‘You’ve gone to all this trouble; you could at least let me in on it. Or do you have to wear purple to get any answers around here?’
‘Shut up,’ barked Donani, kicking me squarely in the back, right between my wings.
I went down on one knee, but I was quick to rise. I growled, deep in the back of my throat. The other Marksmen shifted closer to me, looking more than ready to take me out. And I’d already given them plenty enough reasons. Quentin’s hatred was so palatable I could almost taste it.
The woman lowered her chin, obviously unimpressed with my outburst. Her thin lips pinched so tightly together that her entire face seemed stretched, like old parchment. Her hands fluttered from underneath her cloak, and she made a sign in the air with her fingers.
‘Bring him in.’
Her voice, heavily accented but clear, rang through the room. She didn’t take her eyes off me. A door clanged open from the opposite side of the balcony, and the scent that poured into the room turned everything in me to liquid anger. I spun on my heel, glaring up into the space as a snarl forced itself past my lips.
Augustine ignored me and bowed low to the woman. ‘Rani.’
He’d used that word before with the Queen, and I assumed it was some kind of title. At the moment, I concentrated mainly on preventing myself from flipping out again, as I had in the corridor. I felt dangerously close. I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth.
‘Where’s the Council?’ I demanded.
Augustine looked at me for the first time. ‘Oh, you were never going to stand before the High Council, I’m afraid.’
I took another slow breath. ‘Then why am I here?’
‘Nicolas Romany was only following Outcast law,’ said Augustine. ‘You see, if a Gypsy is found guilty during a Kris Romani, he loses his Roma blood in the sight of our people. He’s handed over to the gadje authorities for punishment.’ He smiled, and the motion tugged at the white scar on his face. ‘But, surely you’ve realized by now that you aren’t Roma. The High Council has no jurisdiction over you. The Kris Romani was just a diversion. Something for the Council to focus on while I secretly brought in those who represent a different authority.’
The way he said ‘different’ sent fiery spikes up my back. I studied the cloaked people staring down from above. The woman shifted her gaze to me. Her face twisted into a scowl.
‘I see only a gargoyle,’ she said, ‘and a fledgling, at that.’
Augustine’s smile remained fixed. ‘Appearances can be deceiving, Vadoma.’
The woman locked eyes with him. ‘I hope, for your sake, that you aren’t wasting our time. We have traveled far because you claimed to have what we’ve sought. But this,’ she gestured to me, ‘is simply a guardian. We have no need of another guardian. Ours are sufficient.’
I glanced beyond Vadoma to the shadowy wall behind her, using my night vision to peer into the darkness beyond the reach of the lights. So these gargoyles were the Sobrasi’s guardians. As far as I could tell, they were also the only gargoyles in the Court of Shadows, besides me. Were they original guardians, like Ezzie? Something strange and foreign thrummed deep inside my chest.
‘Trust me,’ answered Augustine from the opposite side of the balcony. He placed his hands on the railing and looked at me. ‘I won’t be wasting anyone’s time.’
‘I’m not your circus act,’ I spat at him. My muscles tightened along my shoulders. ‘Release me. Now.’
‘Oh believe me,’ he said darkly. ‘I shall.’
Warning blasts fired in my brain. Instincts burst through my chest. I snapped my wings full with a furious explosion of adrenaline and launched through the air – right at Augustine’s throat. I was almost on him. His face drained of color, smile faltering. I thrust out my hands—
Pain blazed through my wing and shoulder. My fingers missed their target. I gasped. M
y body jerked backwards. Augustine’s shocked expression grew farther away as I fell. I hit the floor, and bells clanged in my ears as my skull connected with stone. An arrow jutted through my shoulder, the diamond-coated tip dulled with my blood.
I rolled and turned my eyes on Quentin, blinking through the red haze coating my vision. Another arrow sat notched in his bow, ready to fly. I didn’t care. I ran at him full speed. His second arrow sliced through my side, but it was a distant pain, like a faraway memory.
I hit the Marksman so hard his bow wrenched free and clattered across the floor. We slammed into one of the columns. The wood groaned against our weight. Quentin swung at my face, but the blow, like the arrow, felt slight and feathery. He punched again, and I swatted it like a fly. I grabbed his shirt and threw. Quentin’s body spun and then crunched into the opposite column. A crack splintered upward in the beam.
The rest of the Marksmen circled me. I sized them up, sighting the smallest of the three. His spear missed me by inches. I grabbed his throat and slammed him to the ground. The terror in his eyes faded as the redness thickened around me, swirling and engulfing. I tried to breathe, but the floodgates opened, and I was drowning. The dark thing was going to take over. I couldn’t fight it anymore. The red consumed me. Let it take me.
Sebastian.
I jolted as my name screamed through my head. The red haze shimmered across my vision. The hold weakened. I retreated, backpedaling on unsteady feet, looking wildly around. My head buzzed, like stepping on a live current. A radio signal. Disjointed. Full of static.
Sebastian.
Her voice. It was her voice!
Then, out of the haze, like a vision or a dream, I saw her. Standing in the middle of a garden. Eyes wide. Diamond knife flashing. It left her hand like a rocket, striking its target. A chimera – Anya! Rushing at Josephine. Death in her eyes.
‘No!’
My voice rattled the vision like thunder. The chimera screeched at the sound. It threw clawed hands over its ears, face wrenched in fury. Then it bolted into the air, wings beating like a tornado as it fled. Josephine lay across the ground. Hair across her face. But safe. She was safe.
‘Josephine!’
The vision shattered like glass.
‘Come now, Sebastian!’ Augustine called down to me. His fear was gone, replaced with smug laughter in his voice. ‘You can’t keep fighting like this forever. The sooner you accept your fate, the easier it will be.’
My fate.
The world righted itself. Augustine was wrong. It wasn’t about my fate. It was about my duty. Josephine was here. My charge was in the city. That’s where I was supposed to be. That’s where I’d always be.
I had to get out of this place. Now.
My wing wouldn’t obey. It hung, half open. The sharp tip of Quentin’s arrow mocked me as it protruded through my skin, just above my collarbone. The arrow had pierced both wing and shoulder, pinning my wing to my back.
I heard the twang of a bowstring, and I ducked as another arrow whizzed by, this one from Donani, who stood over Quentin, the Marksman’s bow in his hand. Quentin struggled to his feet, holding his arm, limp and broken, at his side. His face contorted with pain and rage.
‘You’re dead!’ Quentin yelled.
A third shot fired. But the column was my shield. The arrow aimed for my chest sank into the wood. I turned my good shoulder into the beam and pushed. It shuttered, already compromised from our fight.
‘Don’t kill him, idiot!’ yelled Augustine as an arrow whizzed by my head. ‘We need him!’
I roared and slammed into the beam. It wrenched free from the balcony with a crack. Boards snapped and shattered. I spun around and rammed the next column. It gave way. The balcony on Augustine’s side teetered.
The purple figures retreated, but I didn’t see anything else. I hit the third beam and then ran through the doorway as the sound of collapsing wood erupted behind me.
I stumbled down the corridor, running the best I could with a half-spread wing. I pinged off walls, gritting my teeth with pain as my wing continually smacked into stone. I wrapped my fingers around the arrow at my shoulder and snapped off the tip. But I couldn’t pull it out. I’d bother with it later.
When I was free.
*
I put as much distance between the Marksmen and myself as possible, though I was forced to slow in order to get my bearings. I maneuvered through corridors, allowing my senses to lead me – sniffing for Gypsies and listening for voices. I needed to get to the surface, so I took any hallway with an upward slope or stairs, keeping to the shadows and avoiding anyone I sensed approaching.
The urge to find Josephine roared inside me like a fire that I couldn’t extinguish anymore. And I didn’t want to. Keeping her safe had been the whole reason I’d ended up here. But she wasn’t at the Circe anymore. Things had changed. All my old promises faded away, but in their place, new ones grew, stronger and more resolute.
I coaxed my breathing into a normal pattern. The dark thing had retreated, though not very far. I felt it biting at my heels as I walked. I touched my side, right underneath my ribs. Blood pooled along the waistband of my jeans. The diamond weapon had sliced through my gargoyle skin like it was paper, leaving a nice-sized gash, but the wound wasn’t deep. The other injury was definitely the more serious of the two. And it hurt a lot worse.
The network of tunnels wound like a narrow maze, nothing like the broad rooms and wide corridors I’d seen so far, which meant I was at least heading somewhere different. Unfortunately, I had no idea where. My shoulder pulsed insistently, and I winced. I needed a moment to rest before I went farther.
After two more right-turns, I reached a narrow hall with a metal gate at the far end. On the other side, a staircase wound up out of sight. I paused in front of it, taking a tentative sniff. No Gypsies. The gate was locked on the opposite side of the bars. I reached through and wrapped my fingers around the large padlock and squeezed. The metal snapped like a twig. I smiled grimly. Gargoyle strength to the rescue again.
I pushed open the gate, which seemed well oiled and didn’t squeak, and closed it quickly behind me. The stairwell was dark. My eyes shifted into night-mode. I counted fourteen steps to the top. I pushed open another door, this one solid, and stepped into a tiny room, piled high with crates, as well as shelves stocked full with boxes and cans of food.
My stomach grumbled, but there wasn’t anything in the room I could eat – not without puking it right back up, anyway. My gums prickled, demanding meat, as always. The deep, pounding ache in my shoulder spread through every membrane of my left wing, out to the very tip. I sank to the floor.
My survival instincts lessened once inside the quiet of the room. I wondered how long it would take the Marksmen to get out and hunt me down. I know how much damage I’d actually done to the room. Just a few minutes, I told myself. Then I’d get moving again. My eyes drifted closed.
‘Josephine,’ I whispered. ‘I heard you.’
*
‘Sir?’
Somewhere, my brain registered that someone was speaking. I groaned, brushing the sound away. Just a few more minutes.
‘Sir?’
In an instant, I was in a crouch, teeth bared. A figure fell away with a cry. I snarled again before I managed to yank the dark thing back to its resting place inside me and focus on what I saw.
A boy cringed in front of me.
His dark hair fell across his eyes, which were also dark, but wide and scared. It was the same boy who’d brought me the plate of food in the library. I jumped back, startled. The pain in my body surged to life, and I put my hand over the section of arrow still jutting from my shoulder.
The boy shook all over, but he pushed himself up, keeping a careful distance between us. His gaze went from my face to my wings, and then to the arrow wounds. He licked his lips. ‘Are you okay?’
I tried to speak, but my throat constricted. The pain intensified, like a hot brand sizzling into my skin. The wound
at my side had scabbed over, but my shoulder continued to ooze purple-black blood. I had to get the arrow shaft out so I could heal. But it wouldn’t budge, pulling from the front. I grimaced.
‘Need … to get … out of … this place.’
Each phrase took effort to say. I pulled myself up, grabbing hold of the shelves for support. The boy hesitated, then put his hand out to stop me.
‘Not like this,’ he said. ‘Wait here.’
The boy exited through another door on the opposite side of the room I hadn’t seen. I sank back to the floor, exhausted. Minutes crept by. Nerves sparked along my arms, growing into dread. What if he’d gotten the Marksmen, told them where I was hiding? I wasn’t in any kind of shape to fight them. Finally, the door creaked open and he entered, carrying a bundle in his arms.
I glanced at the items skeptically, and then looked back to the door. I didn’t smell anyone else nearby. I didn’t feel ice-cold blocks in my stomach. The boy unfolded the bundle. Wrapped inside the fabric was a package of hotdogs. I could make out the scent through the sealed plastic, and it made my mouth water.
‘It was all I could get from the kitchen,’ said the boy.
I didn’t hesitate this time. I needed the food. Ripping open the package with my claws, I greedily stuffed the cold hotdogs into my mouth, growling softly. The boy watched me eat, caught somewhere between curiosity and fear. When I finished, I wiped my arm across my sleeve. My gums ceased throbbing, and my stomach thanked me.
‘Wear this.’ The boy held out the bundle of fabric, which was actually a black cloak, like I’d seen Quentin and his Marksmen wear when patrolling the Circe. ‘You can hide better.’
I took hold of my half-unfurled wing and pulled it into my body. The movement felt like stretching a sore muscle. The boy threw the cloak around my wings and shoulders and fastened the clasp. He skittered back as soon as he was done, putting several feet of floor between us. But he wasn’t shaking anymore, and the fear on his face lessened.
‘Why … are you … helping me?’ I asked.
Midnight Page 18