by Nicole Maggi
“That’s not what was—”
“Do you have any idea what that was like? Watching my sister be tortured? Do you?” His words were punctuated with an anguished sob, his face a contorted mask of fury and fear.
“Oh, my God,” I breathed, “you were there?”
“Yes.” He let go of me. I fell back against the brick wall. “I was there. I tried to stop it. And do you know what happened? Do you know what they said?”
I shook my head, unable to speak.
Jonah ran his hands over his face and buried his fingers in his hair, pulling at it. “They called me disloyal. They said I was soft. It didn’t matter that she was my sister. She was one of them—one of you. That’s all that mattered.”
I reached out a hand, let it hover less than an inch from his chest, not daring to actually touch him. “Jonah, I’m so sorry—I never meant for this to happen—”
“But it’s your fault. You got her into it—”
“I asked her, but Bree made her own choice.” I pointed toward the hospital. “And I know for a fact she would make the same choice, even after this.”
“You didn’t give her a choice.” He stepped in so close to me that I felt his breath, cold and tinged with something sweet. “You told her about Mr. Foster. You said she owed it to him.” He leaned in. All I could see were his eyes. “You said she owed it to me.”
I couldn’t move, couldn’t look away, couldn’t deny it. “You’re right,” I whispered. “It’s all my fault.” This time I dared to touch him and laid my hand on his cheek. “Just tell me what I can do.”
He flung my hand away. “Don’t you get it? You can’t do anything anymore.” He stared at me, his skin mottled, his breath hard. “If they are willing to kill my own sister in front of me, what else are they willing to do? What line won’t they cross?” Jonah shook his head with a violence that made me shudder. “I can’t risk it. I have to fall in line, or they’ll kill someone I love.” His eyes searched my face as though he were memorizing it. “They’ll kill you.”
“Jonah—”
“No,” he said, his voice almost a moan. “No. There’s nothing you can do now.” He backed away from me. The harsh sunlight spilled over him leaving him half in shadow. “I will be a Malandante until I die. I can only hope that day is sooner than later.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, my body shaking with sobs. When I opened them again, he was gone. Tears spilled onto my cheeks. I slid slowly down the wall until my butt hit the cold, hard ground. Old snow seeped in through my jeans, but I just rocked back and forth, back and forth. I should’ve told Jonah. That night, in the basement, I should’ve told him Bree was involved. He could’ve watched out for her. I lowered my head into my hands and curled into a shivering ball.
It was a long time before I remembered Nerina was expecting me. I peeled myself off the ground and hobbled to the taxi stand, where luckily there was a taxi waiting. The kindly driver turned the heat up full blast while I sat shaking in the backseat, watching the bare trees and gentle hills roll past on the way back to the farm. I gave him a huge tip and climbed out of the cab at the top of the driveway.
Lidia’s car was gone; she was probably at Mr. Salter’s, as usual. The cab pulled away, and I stood in the driveway, a wind of loneliness swirling around me. It had been convenient having Lidia so preoccupied with Mr. Salter while so much was going on with the Benandanti, but now all I wanted was to have her make me a hot chocolate, sit by the fire with her, and tell her my problems.
But Nerina was waiting for me, and my duty came first.
I crossed the meadow, the grass crunchy with ice and hardened snow. When I neared the stone wall, I stopped.
The door was open.
My insides tightened and twisted. Nerina never left that door open. On faltering feet, I tiptoed to the opening and peered in. “Nerina?” I called in a hoarse whisper.
The only answer was the wind. It blew a sheet of paper up the stairs. I hurried down to catch it.
Webster, Pratt
It was the information sheet on the Raven we’d stolen from the Guild.
I scrambled down the rest of the steps and slid to a stop. The two Italian-leather chairs were overturned. One of them was missing two of its legs. The coffee table had been smashed into pieces, the couch mangled into a mass of stuffing. In the kitchen area, Nerina’s fancy coffee machine lay broken on the floor, her dishes and cups in pieces on the counter.
My insides pulled taut like a trip wire. I took a step inside, almost unaware of my movements. Something rolled underneath my feet. I looked down. It was an arrow. A few feet away, beyond two more arrows, Nerina’s crossbow lay snapped in half.
She had fought. She had tried to fend them off, but there must’ve been too many for her. I took another step, trying to quell the rising tide of panic inside me. Something glinted from the ruins of the coffee table. I sank to my knees.
Nerina’s locket, the one like mine, that contained her caul.
I snatched it and held it up in the dying light. It swung back and forth, hypnotizing me for a moment. When had they come? How much of a head start did they have over us?
I dropped the locket to the floor and took out my phone. Nerina had texted me an hour and a half ago. An hour and a half. Ninety minutes. A lot could happen in ninety minutes. A Benandante—even a member of the Concilio—could be tortured and killed in that length of time.
My fingers slipped as I dialed Heath. It took me three tries to get the number right. “You have to come,” I choked out as soon as he picked up. “Nerina’s been taken.”
Chapter Thirty
The Guard
Alessia
The world lay quiet and snow-covered below me as I soared higher, higher into the stars. On the ground, Heath streaked over hills, leapt over fences and wove in and out of trees. I counted each wing-beat, each heartbeat, each breath as we raced toward Bangor. Our best guess was that Nerina was being held in the same place as Bree had been, and the scent Heath had caught five miles out of Twin Willows suggested we were right.
We didn’t speak as we sped behind barns and over houses. It had now been over two hours since Nerina had texted me . . . two hours in which she could’ve been tortured . . . and ninety minutes of those two hours were my fault. If I hadn’t sat in the snow and been completely pathetic about Jonah, I would’ve gotten to Nerina’s sooner. They could’ve had less of a head start . . . or I could’ve been there when they attacked, and helped her . . .
And you could’ve been killed.
I dropped in the air; I hadn’t realized I’d opened the channel and Heath could hear me. Nerina will be all right. She’s Concilio. They won’t kill her.
I wanted to believe him, but I could hear how he was telling me this to convince himself. If the Malandanti were willing to kill the sister of one of their own members, surely they wouldn’t hesitate to kill a Benandanti Concilio member. They’d probably have a party.
I lifted my wings, let the wind fan my feathers. Our only hope was that they wanted to get information out of her and they’d been torturing her for the last two hours. It was a horrible hope, but it was better than the alternative.
Farmland gave way to strip malls and suburbs and the concrete streets of Bangor. Heath wove in and out of alleyways, keeping off the main sidewalks. A huge white wolf in the middle of the city would probably alarm people. I recognized the Guild’s building from a block away, its shiny, silver cubic walls rising above the other structures around it. But some of that shininess seemed to have dimmed, in just the few weeks since we’d taken down the Guild. As we neared, I saw that someone had spray-painted PIGS in red across the entry doors.
Around back, Heath said. I veered into the alley behind the building. Heath stood before a set of double doors, their handles looped together by a thick chain. Ready? On three.
I moved back to give myself space. One, two, three. I flew into the upper part of the doors while Heath slammed into the lower part. A huge crack fractured
one of the doors. Heath struck at it with his front paws, and it broke partway off its hinges, enough to let us through. This way.
I followed him through dark, twisting halls, like a maze out of Greek mythology. We seemed to be spiraling inward until we came to a room at the very center of the labyrinth. The door was black and solid. There wasn’t even a doorknob.
How—?
But before I could even finish my question, Heath rammed the door with his whole body. It creaked but didn’t budge. He rammed it again. Blood glistened on his throat. I flew into the door on his third try, tore into it with my talons, but nothing.
Heath fell back, his body heaving. I fluttered around the top of the door, looking for an opening, anything that could give way . . . and then the door swung open.
An unnaturally tall woman leaned against the door frame, smiling at us. “You’re right on time,” she said. Her voice sent shivers through me. She shook her long, wavy hair, her eyes glinting in the shadowed light, and I knew in an instant she was the Harpy.
Alessia, get out of here. Now.
I’m not leaving you—
Go! It’s a trap!
I darted up to the ceiling. The Harpy laughed. What light there was in the hallway dimmed. My vision grew cloudy. Something pulled at me. A sickening sensation flooded me. I looked down and saw the silver band wrapped around me, just as it had been the night the Lynx died . . .
I fell to the floor, my muscles limp and useless. The hooded mage stepped out from behind the Harpy and dragged me and Heath into the room. Someone was screaming, telling them to stop, but the sound of her voice grew smaller and smaller as the blood rushing in my ears grew louder and louder . . .
“Enough,” said the Harpy, the word cut through the pain inside me. “Lock them in with her.”
With a wave of his hand, the mage blasted us against the far wall. A tangled cry escaped me at the impact. A glimmering cylinder of silver light surrounded us. I stretched my talons out to touch it, and an electric shock ricocheted through me. Beneath me, Heath pawed at it, with the same result.
“It’s no use.”
I spun. Nerina stood an inch away from the light-wall, her arms wrapped tight around herself. Her hair had fallen out of its usual impeccable style, but other than that, she looked unharmed. Heath bounded to her, pushed his head against her hip.
“I’m all right,” she said. “They didn’t bring me here to torture me.”
Then why—?
“They brought me here because they knew you would follow,” she whispered and directed her gaze just outside the light barrier.
“That’s right.” The Harpy’s voice was like a thousand tiny nails on a chalkboard. She held up a hand. “Your mage is . . . not functional at the moment, shall we say?” She ticked down one finger. “You have one of your Clan watching her, do you not?” Another finger. “And the three of you are here with no way out.” She tucked her other three fingers into her palm and held up her fist. “That leaves one Benandante at the Waterfall. And one Benandante is no match for all of us.”
And out of the shadows stepped six other figures, all cloaked in dark silvery coats that covered their faces. Seven figures . . . I bit back a screech. This wasn’t the Clan. It was the Concilio Argento.
“Let them go,” Nerina begged. “I’m the one you want, Fina. Take your revenge on me and leave them be.”
The Harpy walked right up to the glittering cage. Her gaze swept over Nerina, a strange expression of mingled love and hate on her face. “Darling Nerina, always thinking everything is about you. This time, it is not.” She waved, and the six Concilio filed out the door, followed by the mage. “When we have retaken the Waterfall,” the Harpy said, her smile languid, “we will come back and deal with the three of you.” She leaned in so that her long aquiline nose almost grazed the bars. “I have been waiting many, many years for this moment, Nerina. Well, of course you know how long. You were there.”
“Then why not just deal with us now?” Nerina snapped. “Why keep us alive if you’ve already won?”
The Harpy ran her tongue along her top lip. “Oh, Nerina. I have always admired your practicality. But sometimes it gets in the way of poetry.” She snapped her fingers.
I sensed a rustling at the door but couldn’t see what was there.
The Harpy grinned, baring her teeth like the animal she was. “We have a member who seems to be losing his purpose. So we are leaving you in his care until we return, to make sure he knows his place.” She strode toward the door.
Just before she disappeared, she turned and blew Nerina a kiss.
I flew forward and peered into the dimness. My heartbeat pounded in every inch of my body. A form slowly took shape as it crept toward us, catlike and black . . . but all I could see was the glow of his emerald-green eyes.
Our gazes locked. And through the shimmering silver bars of my prison, all Jonah and I could do was stare at each other.
Bio
Nicole Maggi was born in the suburbs of upstate New York and began writing poems about unicorns and rainbows at a very early age. She detoured into acting, earned a BFA from Emerson College, and moved to New York City where she performed in lots of off-off-off-Broadway Shakespeare. After a decade of schlepping groceries on the subway, she and her husband hightailed it to sunny Los Angeles, where they now reside, surrounded by fruit trees, with their young daughter and two oddball cats. In addition to the Twin Willows Trilogy, she is the author of the novel The Forgetting.