The Girl at Midnight

by The Girl at Midnight (ARC) (epub)

  The Drakharin simply blinked at her, silent.

  “Tough crowd,” she said.

  “Who are you?” he asked, voice softly curious, as if he wasn’t expecting an answer. That was fine by Echo since he wouldn’t be getting one. “Why do the Avicen have a human child running errands for them?” His accent was hard to place. There was a faint thread of something almost-but-not-quite Scottish hiding beneath his words, like the slight rumble of well-loved r’s simmering just under the surface.

  “Excuse you,” she said. “I’ll have you know that I am this close to being a legal adult, thank you very much.” She held out two fingers, about an inch apart.

  The Drakharin made a noise that was almost a laugh. “You’re not what I expected, Echo.”

  Her blood ran cold. There was power in names. That was why the Avicen chose their own. And if there was power in names, then the Drakharin standing before her had just stolen a little bit of hers.

  “How do you know my name?”

  “A little birdie came and told me.” His smile was a punch to the gut. “What kind of a name is Echo anyway?”

  A little birdie … Ivy and Perrin. Echo’s anger flared, bright and true. “It’s mine, you scaly son of a bitch.”

  “I hear you have something of mine, Echo,” the Drakharin said. “I would like it back.” She hated the way he kept saying her name.

  “What? This old thing?” Echo said, twirling the dagger between her fingers. Moonlight danced along the birds on the hilt, and for a second, it looked as though their wings were moving.

  The Drakharin squinted at the dagger, and his mouth tightened into a hard line.

  “Among other things,” he said.

  The locket, Echo realized.

  She gripped the hilt of the dagger tightly enough that she knew she would have magpie-shaped indents on her palm. She hadn’t eaten a proper meal in days, and she would be slow, but she was fresh out of options. Fight or flight. Judging by the confidence of his stance, he knew how to handle himself in a fight. She wouldn’t stand a chance.

  Echo grinned and said, “Finders, keepers, asshole.”

  And then she ran.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Caius wasn’t certain what he had expected when he found the human girl who’d managed to evade the captain of his guard, but it hadn’t been this. One minute Echo was there, the next she was gone. It would have been impressive if it hadn’t been so annoying. She was human, and he had underestimated her because of it. Cursing under his breath, he ran after her. He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

  The girl didn’t seem particularly strong or fearsome, but she was fast. With surprising agility, she vaulted over a marble bench, flying past rows of armor. She was flashy—impetuous even—and that would be her downfall. And though she may have been quick for a human, Caius was not human, and she could not run forever.

  “Stop!” Caius called out. Not that he expected her to listen. “I didn’t come here to hurt you.”

  “Bull!”

  He didn’t know what bulls had to do with anything, but he had the distinct impression she was calling him a liar. He swerved around cases full of ceremonial swords, hands itching to unsheathe his own blades. But he wasn’t lying when he said he had no intention of hurting her. She was in league with the Avicen, but she was human, and that made her different. The normal rules of engagement didn’t apply. He couldn’t just kill her and be done with it. Killing her would be sloppy at best, unethical at worst.

  Echo swung around a balustrade near the staircase leading to the main entrance. Caius leaped, grabbing the back of her jacket like the scruff of a kitten’s neck. Her legs gave out from under her, knees smashing to the marble floor. She twisted as she fell, taking Caius with her. One bony knee angled toward his groin, but he tangled his legs with hers, pinning her down and trapping her wrists above her head. They were slender enough to fit in just one of his hands. He snatched the dagger she held, tucking it into his belt.

  “Like I said,” Caius bit out, binding her wrists with a leather tie. She whipped her head around, trying to catch his hand with her teeth. She was feisty, he would give her that. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Echo gave one final lurch, attempting to dislodge him. He didn’t budge. She heaved a sigh, sagging against the floor.

  “But you will,” she said, flexing her fingers to test her bonds. Caius had tied them tight. She wouldn’t be breaking free unless he wanted her free.

  “If I must,” Caius said, rising with a hand on her arm. She struggled to get to her feet, but when Caius used his free hand to steady her, she flinched, withdrawing as far from him as she could. It wasn’t very far, but she had made her point. She didn’t want his help. “You’ve got a lot of fight in you, girl.”

  “‘Though she be but little, she is fierce,’” Echo quoted. Shakespeare. It was almost interesting. She pulled at her binds once more. “I have a name, you know.”

  “Yes, and a ridiculous one at that,” said Caius, dragging her along after him.

  For someone of his talents, the museum’s lobby would be as good a gateway as any. The energy of thousands of visitors coming and going each day made it the perfect point from which to access the in-between. Echo dragged her feet, intent on making this difficult even if she had no hope of escape.

  “Speaking of names, you never gave me yours,” she said.

  Caius shrugged a single shoulder. “You never asked.”

  The name of the Dragon Prince was kept secret after the election to make it difficult for the Drakharin’s enemies to latch on to a specific target. Not even the Drakaharin born after Caius was crowned prince knew his given name. It wouldn’t mean anything to the girl, or so he hoped. It was a gamble, but the best lies were always salted with a sprinkling of truth.

  “It’s Caius,” he said.

  The girl mumbled something under her breath about sucking an appendage he was rather certain she did not have. He guided her down the steps leading toward the lobby, careful not to let her fall. When they reached the center of the room, with the apex of the glass pyramid directly overhead, he stopped.

  “Where are you taking me?” Echo asked, nodding toward the hallway leading to the metro station. “The exit’s that way.” She paused. “Jerk.”

  “Don’t need it,” Caius said. He couldn’t not smile at her confusion. “My sources tell me you know all about the in-between.”

  “Yeah, but …” Echo looked around, shaking her head. “There are no decent gateways in here. You’d have to find a threshold near transport or a natural one or something.”

  “You might have to. I don’t.” He looked up, appreciating the shine of starlight through the glass above, and Echo’s eyes widened. There weren’t many who could travel without the aid of magic powders and carefully chosen thresholds, but there was a reason Caius had been chosen to be the Dragon Prince. The Drakharin respected power, and he had more than his fair share. He pushed outward with his mind, and energy surged from the center of his body. A swirl of shadows erupted at the top of the pyramid, drifting down to surround them. The girl tried to pull away, but Caius kept his grip on her arm.

  “Come along, Echo,” he said. “I’m sure your friends would love to see you.”

  Darkness fell, and they were gone.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  As the darkness of the in-between faded, Echo’s spirits faded with it. Before her, black flames danced in ornate braziers on either side of a massive archway, so like the one in the Nest, but the iron beasts that formed it were no swans. Huge black dragons, with heads raised and teeth bared, puffed smoke from flared nostrils and gaping maws, necks entwined at a point high above Echo’s head. This had to be Drakharin headquarters.

  I am so screwed, Echo thought. Or I passed screwed five miles back.

  Two guards flanking the archway nodded at Caius as he dragged her through it. She swallowed. She’d never met a Firedrake before, but there was no mistaking those red cloaks and golden
armor. When they crossed the threshold into the castle’s main hold, the wooden planks beneath her feet gave way to uneven stone, and Echo stumbled. Caius tightened his grip, hard enough that the delicate bones in her wrist shifted. She gasped, and he eased off, just enough so that he wasn’t crushing her.

  She tried to keep track of where Caius was taking her, but the twisting corridors and spiral staircases of Wyvern’s Keep—it had to be Wyvern’s Keep, no other Drakharin fortress would be this grand—began to blend together. Everywhere she looked, there were dragons. Ostentatious marble sculptures with burnished gold detailing. Roughly carved wooden reliefs, worn smooth with the passage of time. Tapestries depicting hellish massacres of birds. She wondered if he was leading her in the most roundabout way possible just to confuse her. It would certainly complicate an escape, should she have an opportunity to try for one. She had the craziest hunch that she wouldn’t.

  Desenrascanço, she thought. Portuguese. To MacGyver oneself out a sticky situation. See also: a thing that will not be happening.

  “So,” Echo said, voice an octave higher than she would have liked. “I don’t get the grand tour?”

  “You know, you’re awfully cheeky for a prisoner,” Caius said, shooting her a wry smile over his shoulder. At least one of them found her predicament entertaining. “The person who hired me to find you would be amused.”

  “Must be my natural charm.” When in doubt, bravado. Always bravado. Perhaps Caius would be kind enough to inscribe that on her tombstone. “And can I ask who hired you, or would that be too cheeky?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Caius said, “The Dragon Prince.”

  Crap. When she’d told the Ala she would take on the Dragon Prince himself if she had to, she’d been trading in pure hyperbole. The universe was being entirely too literal for her liking.

  “Well, don’t I feel all important now,” she said, struggling to keep her voice light. “So, what? Are you a mercenary or something?”

  Caius yanked Echo up a flight of stairs, and she entertained the notion of throwing herself down them just to see if she could take him with her.

  “Or something,” he said, pulling her up the last few steps. “There is a … private matter I’d like to discuss with you before you meet him.”

  “A private matter? Are you flirting with me? Because you’re cute and all, but you’re not really my type.” Echo wasn’t sure she had a type, but if she did, it wouldn’t be him.

  Caius came to a stop in front of an elaborately carved door so abruptly that Echo stumbled into him. She bit back an automatic apology. No need to waste perfectly good manners on some jumped-up Drakharin mercenary. The cherrywood door had a tableau of dragons carved into it. There were creatures rising from the sea, scaled tails twisted in delicate curlicues, beasts soaring through the air on bat-like wings, and what looked like mermaids playing harps on the ocean floor.

  He pushed the door open, dragging Echo into a lavishly appointed library. Books covered every surface, wall to wall, floor to ceiling. Shelves overflowed with them. The room itself smelled like old paper, the air rich with the scent of well-loved books. Echo closed her eyes and, for the briefest moment, she was home again, surrounded by her own books, in her own library. The door clicked shut behind her, and she opened her eyes to find Caius standing before her, pupils dilated in the dim light of the fireplace, eclipsing the green of his irises. It had been a pretty thought, but this was not home, and she was less and less certain that she would ever see home again.

  Caius studied her for a few quiet moments. The only sound in the room was the soft crackling of the fire burning in the hearth. Had the entire situation not been so awful, it would have been cozy. Caius stepped toward her, raising his hand to trace the chain at her throat with a featherlight touch. He wrapped his fingers around it and yanked the locket from her neck. The force of it made Echo stumble forward. It looked so easy when people did that in movies, but having a necklace ripped off hurt.

  “Do you know what this is?” Caius’s voice was low and soft, but there was an edge to it, a hardness. Crushed velvet stretched over steel. He dangled the locket by its broken chain, firelight casting a warm glow over the bronze dragon on its front.

  Echo had a feeling that the answer to that question was not at all what she was about to say. “A locket.”

  “And do you know who the owner of this locket is?”

  Again, a question with an answer Caius knew and she did not. This game was no fun at all.

  “Me?” she asked. Bravado, bravado, bravado.

  “You’re funny,” Caius said, cupping the pendant in his palm. “But no.” He studied the smooth jade and scratched bronze, expression unreadable. Echo stood there, feeling superfluous. “It’s mine,” he said. “Or it was. Long ago.”

  She didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

  Caius raised his eyes to hers and said, “And you stole it.”

  Typical, Echo thought. The one time she got in trouble for stealing was the one time she didn’t actually steal anything. “In my defense, the old lady gave it to me. Freely, I might add.”

  Caius cocked his head to the side. The scales on his cheeks shimmered faintly in the firelight. “Did it occur to you that it was never hers to give?”

  Without waiting for a response, he grabbed Echo’s bound hands with one of his own, the other sliding the magpie dagger from where he’d tucked it into his belt. She fought to pull her hands back, but he was too strong. She closed her eyes, expecting to feel the sharp sting of the knife cutting into her flesh. Instead, the tie snapped, and her wrists fell free. Her hands, numb from lack of circulation, flopped limply to her sides. She opened her eyes. He had cut her bonds.

  “There,” Caius said, still with that soft, steely voice. “Now we can talk.”

  Rubbing her wrists, Echo waited. If he wanted to talk, he could talk.

  “Who sent you to retrieve these items?” Caius asked.

  She was pretty sure she didn’t have the right to remain silent, but she was going to exercise it anyway.

  Caius leaned against a leather chair large enough to be called a throne. “I know you didn’t go looking for them on your own. I want to know who sent you and why.”

  Still Echo held her peace. She may have been captured, but she wasn’t about to give up any information on the Avicen without a fight. She owed them—Ivy, Rowan, the Ala—that much. She pressed her lips together and let her eyes wander about the room.

  “Tell me, Echo. What do you know about the firebird?”

  She tensed, and judging from the sharpness in his eyes and the slight tilt of his head, she knew that Caius had noticed.

  “What’s the firebird?” When bravado fails, she thought, play dumb.

  Caius pushed away from the chair to stand before her, far too close for comfort. Echo took a step back, cursing herself for it but unable to fight the compulsion to put space between them. Caius crowded her against the door, the point of the magpie dagger resting between her collarbones.

  “Don’t lie to me, Echo.” He leaned in, face mere inches from hers. He tapped the blade against her skin, too lightly to pierce it, but firmly enough that she was well aware of how close the dagger was. “I don’t like being lied to.”

  Echo swallowed, and the blade pressed harder against the soft skin of her throat. “I don’t know what the firebird is. That’s not a lie.” Caius stilled the knife’s tapping but kept it against her neck. “I was sent to find the locket and the dagger, but I don’t know why. It’s bad for business if I ask too many questions, so I don’t. Surely, a man like you understands.”

  Caius studied her for a moment. Echo hoped there was enough truth mixed in to hide the taste of the lie.

  “A man like me,” he murmured. “Fine.” He stepped back, twirling the blade away from her neck. “Let’s say I believe you. Just tell me one more thing. Why are you, a human, helping the Avicen? Such a secretive people would never accept you as one of their own. There must be ano
ther reason.”

  “How did you—”

  Echo pressed her lips together, but she’d already said too much. This hired gun had found her deepest insecurity and poked at it. Damn him. Damn him to infinity and beyond.

  She was ready to lie, to tell him that the Avicen had bought her loyalty with genuine green American dollars when the door behind her burst open. It slammed into her back, and the force of it sent her careering into Caius’s chest. He caught her by the biceps, and, for a brief moment, their faces were so close she could see little flecks of gold in his green eyes. He spun her behind him to face whoever had hurtled through the door.

  A guard leaned heavily against the doorframe, hands clutching his side. Blood trickled between his fingers, and Echo thought that maybe he was holding his intestines in. Her stomach heaved.

  Caius knelt by the guard, steadying him. “Ribos,” he said. “It’s Ribos, isn’t it?”

  The guard nodded, beads of sweat clinging to his sallow skin.

  “What happened?” Caius asked. He pressed his hands above the guard’s, but there was so much blood, it hardly made a difference. “Who did this to you?”

  Echo thought about making a break for it, but looking at the freshly spilled blood pooling around the guard’s torso, she wasn’t sure that outside would be any safer. Caius, at least, seemed calm.

  The devil you know, Echo thought.

  “Tanith,” Ribos croaked. “Her Firedrakes.” He coughed, blood peppering Caius’s face. Caius didn’t so much as flinch. “A vote’s been called. She’s killing those who stand against her. She’s going to make herself Dragon Prince.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Caius debated washing Ribos’s blood off his hands after he’d called in another guard to take Echo to the dungeons. He wasn’t done with her, not by a long shot, but he had more pressing matters at hand. He was torn between two urges, one infinitely more reasonable than the other. He wanted to storm the great hall, covered in the blood that Tanith had spilled to secure votes from nobles who had sworn their allegiance to him. He wanted to show them what she had done, what their own cowardice had wrought.