Nathaniel braced his hands against the bars, and they pushed together. With one last agonized groan, the portcullis bent outward enough for them to squeeze through sideways. Silas leaped after them in the form of a cat, balancing on Nathaniel’s shoulder. His tail lashed as they ran across the bridge, the heat of the still-steaming channel gusting over them like a forge.
Elisabeth forced herself not to look down when they passed Hyde’s empty uniform, or to lift her gaze to the other Class Ten grimoires, roused from their stupor by the Chronicles’ escape. Lightning crackled through the Librum Draconum’s pillar, and a faint music emanated from the Oraculis, like chimes blowing in a distant breeze.
She reached the passageway first, and drew up short. The Malefict’s stink of rot and stone hung about the entrance. Every fiber of her body rebelled at the thought of entering, but she clenched her jaw, drew Demonslayer, and pushed onward. A moment later a green flame ignited in Nathaniel’s hand, illuminating the sheen of sweat on his forehead. He shot her a grin as he dashed beside her, but she knew it was only a front. He had to be even more frightened than she was. He was about to face the stuff of his nightmares. But the way he had looked a minute ago, almost peaceful . . .
Unease gripped her. “What did you hear the Chronicles say?” she asked.
He glanced at her quickly, and then away, fixing his gaze ahead. “I think I must have imagined it.” He laughed unconvincingly, then forced out, “It wanted us to come—to go with it. Join it. But that doesn’t make any sense. Why on earth would it want that?”
Elisabeth hesitated. The Chronicles had spoken to Nathaniel alone. She doubted its invitation had been meant for all of them. “If it speaks to you again,” she said, “promise me you won’t listen. That you’ll do anything you can to block it out.”
Nathaniel’s throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I will,” he said.
Grimly, she hoped that would be enough.
The Malefict wasn’t lying in wait for them; it had gone ahead. As the tunnel sloped upward, the first thing she heard was the Great Library’s warning bell tolling mournfully through the stone, a sound that poured courage through her veins like fire. If the wardens had rallied in time, hope still remained.
The passageway ended in a steep flight of stairs. At the top, it looked as though the Malefict had burst through the remaining earth by force, creating a shattered opening filled with a circle of night sky. As they clambered over the erupted flagstones, they emerged into the chaos of a battle.
Cold struck Elisabeth like a slap across the face. Cannons boomed, red flashes lighting up the Great Library’s salt-encrusted courtyard. A tang of gunpowder filled the air. Wardens pounded past, too engaged to spare her and Nathaniel a glance. Between each cannon blast, screams tore through the ringing in Elisabeth’s ears. Ahead, a section of the wall had been breached, its machinery a smoking ruin. As she stared around, trying to get her bearings, a warden staggered back through the breach, grayness creeping across his features like frost. When he had almost reached the library’s doors, he collapsed into dust.
The next cannon barrage illuminated a figure rearing above the rampart, the tines of its antlers stretching toward the moon. With a sideways slash, the antlers took out a cannon, tossing it aside in a spray of masonry.
Elisabeth took a faltering step backward. It didn’t seem possible, but— “It’s gotten huge,” she shouted over the din.
“It’s drawing strength from each life it takes,” Nathaniel shouted back. “It will only keep growing larger and more powerful.”
She turned to him, the wind tangling her hair around her face. “We have to stop it.”
Nathaniel’s gray eyes lingered on hers. Then he nodded. He bowed his head, his lips moving. Clouds swept over the moon and engulfed the stars. For a moment, the wind stilled completely. An eerie calm descended over the courtyard as the cannons ceased firing, unable to spot their target in the dark. Even the tolling of the bell sounded muffled. In the sudden quiet, Nathaniel’s incantation seemed to grow louder, the Enochian syllables echoing from the walls.
“It’s the sorcerer,” a warden called out. “There he is!”
Elisabeth had been afraid of this. With no evidence of Ashcroft’s involvement, Nathaniel appeared to be responsible for the Chronicles’ escape. As wardens pelted in their direction, she stepped in front of him, Demonslayer at the ready. Silas leaped from his shoulder, human again before he struck the ground.
Demonslayer clashed against the closest warden’s sword, the vibration shuddering up her arm. He had the advantage of skill, but she was taller and stronger. Parrying recklessly, she managed to block his strikes until their blades locked.
“He isn’t the saboteur!” she shouted over their crossed weapons.
The warden didn’t listen. Veins stood out in his face as he pushed against her, his sword screeching dangerously along Demonslayer’s edge. Her stomach turned when she realized she might have to start fighting him in earnest—perhaps even risk killing him. She couldn’t hold him off for much longer without one of them getting hurt.
Nearby, Silas neatly sidestepped another warden’s swing, appearing behind him in the same breath. He seized the man’s wrist and twisted. There came a sickening crack, and the warden yelled and dropped his sword. Before the weapon fell, Silas had already moved on to the next attacker in a blur of movement. One by one, wardens dropped like chess pieces around Nathaniel, left moaning and cradling their broken limbs.
Wind sliced across the courtyard. Nathaniel raised his head, his hair wild, his eyes rimmed with an emerald glow. Fire danced along his fingertips. He looked like a demon himself. Through bared teeth, he uttered the final syllables of the incantation.
Elisabeth gasped when she lifted from the ground, the toes of her boots weightlessly brushing the flagstones. Electricity snapped through the air, crackling over her clothes and standing her hair on end. The energy built and built until she thought her eardrums would burst—only to release in a rush that pulsed through her body, accompanied by a boom of thunder that felt as though the sky had plunged down to slam against the earth. Gravity yanked her back to the ground as a bolt of lightning flashed on the opposite side of the wall. It struck once, twice, three times, and kept going, each blinding, sizzling blast twisting between the Malefict’s antlers and coursing down its body in rivers of green light.
When the lightning finally ceased, her vision was too full of smoke and blotched purple afterimages to see what had happened. But she was able to venture a guess when a tremor ran through the courtyard, as though something heavy had fallen, and a cheer rose from the ramparts.
With a great shove, Elisabeth heaved the warden away. He stumbled, appearing uncertain. More wardens had arrived on the scene, but they hung back, staring at Nathaniel.
His chest heaved. Sparks flickered over his body; miniature bolts of lightning crackled between the tips of his fingers and the flagstones. As if that weren’t enough, he was grinning.
One of the wardens started forward.
“Stand down,” snapped a voice from above. A stocky woman with close-cropped hair stood on one of the stairways that zigzagged up the inner side of the rampart, watching them. She vaulted over the railing and landed beside Elisabeth. “The battle isn’t over yet,” she said in a tone of authority, “and these two aren’t our enemies. Those of you who can still walk, clear a position for the sorcerer on the rampart. He’s a magister. We need him.” When none of the wardens reacted, she shouted, “Move!”
Before Elisabeth could respond, she found herself hastened alongside Nathaniel toward the stairway. The warden in charge watched them askance. “You had better not make me regret this. Have either of you seen the Director?”
“The Malefict killed him,” Elisabeth said hoarsely.
She looked grim, but unsurprised. “I suppose that means I’m the Director now.” She paused, glancing at Silas before her eyes flicked to Nathaniel. “That’s your demon, I take it?”
“Ah,”
Nathaniel said, shaking a few last sparks from his fingertips. Deliberately, he avoided looking at the injured wardens still rolling around in the courtyard, clutching their broken legs. “I’m afraid so, Director.”
The warden—the new Director—was frowning. Elisabeth braced herself for disaster. But all she said was, “He’s a bit small,” and turned back ahead.
Their boots clattered on the metal grating. When they reached the top, smoke billowed over them in rancid clouds. Amid the haze, the wardens toiling over the cannons were little more than dark smudges picked out by the glow of torches. Elisabeth rushed to the crenellations and looked down. A smoldering mass lay crumpled at the base of the wall, surrounded by toppled barricades, whose spikes combed the smoke as it streaked away in the wind. But the fallen Malefict wasn’t disintegrating into ash.
“It isn’t dead,” she shouted back.
“I would be greatly obliged if you could make it dead, Magister,” the Director said. “As quickly as possible, for all our sakes.”
Veiled in smoke, Nathaniel and Elisabeth exchanged a look. She knew the truth: there was no way to contain a monster this dangerous. Ashcroft hadn’t given them a choice. She imagined the Chronicles getting loose and rampaging through Brassbridge, smashing towers with its claws, leaving a trail of dead and dying in its wake. How would that compare to an invasion of demons? How many casualties, how much destruction? She did not know. It was as though she stood behind a scale, blindfolded, and it was her responsibility to weigh one disaster against another, to choose the way in which the world would end. As she and Nathaniel gazed into each other’s eyes, the fate of thousands hovered in the air between them, and there was no time to speak or even think—only to act.
“Yes,” she said, each word an agony. “Do it.”
“I doubt more lightning will work,” Nathaniel said, turning back to the Director. “I’ll have to try something else. Give me a moment.” He closed his eyes.
Elisabeth’s free hand clenched as she stepped back beside Silas. He was gazing out over the rampart, expressionless, the wind stirring his hair, which was beginning to come loose from its ribbon. She grasped at one last hope. “Isn’t there anything you can do?” she asked him.
“I am not capable of miracles, Miss Scrivener.” His lips barely moved, as though he were truly carved from alabaster. “I cannot fight the creature; it is the creation of my former master. Baltasar’s orders forbid me, even centuries after his death.”
She hesitated as an idea occurred to her. Silas’s claim wasn’t entirely true. If she freed him from his bonds, he would no longer be constrained by Baltasar’s orders—by anything. He could stop this from happening. He would have the power to save them all.
“But I would not,” he murmured. “You know that I would not.”
His tone stopped her cold. “I’m sorry,” she said, though she wasn’t certain what she was sorry for, precisely—for the thought she had had, or for the hunger in Silas’s eyes.
He inclined his head. Then, suddenly, his eyes widened. “Down,” he spat. “Down!”
It was the first time she had ever heard him raise his voice. Everything turned sideways as he seized her and Nathaniel and flung them to the ground. The Malefict rose up over the rampart, smoke pouring from its mouth and slitted nostrils, eyes fulminating a foul, necromantic green. Silas pressed them flat as a colossal arm swept over the crenellations. Wind howled over Elisabeth, battering her senses, tearing at her clothes. A horrible sucking grayness dimmed her consciousness; she felt as though her life were a guttering candle being buffeted by a gale. Her hearing faded, and her vision dimmed. There came an eruption of green flame before the world split apart, shattering like a kaleidoscope.
Fragments of sound. Motion. A voice. “Elisabeth.” The voice belonged to Nathaniel, tight with barely controlled emotion. “Elisabeth, can you hear me?”
His face hovered over her, a pale, blurry smear against the dark. Soot marked his cheek, and green embers swirled through the night behind him. He was cradling her with one arm, the other gripping her hand, squeezing it desperately. Her breath caught when she saw her fingers, shriveled and leached of color. But as she watched, the Malefict’s touch receded. Sensation returned to her hand in a rush of pins and needles.
Nathaniel helped her up when she struggled to stand. Around them, devastation. Emerald flames licked over the battlements and danced along the empty uniforms scattered across the rampart. A lone cannon boomed, and a shriek reverberated through her ears—the Malefict. Nearby, the Director was barking orders, trying to rally the remaining wardens.
“I’m all right,” Elisabeth said, adjusting her grip on Demonslayer. “I’m ready.”
Nathaniel had a peculiar look on his face. He glanced meaningfully at Silas, then took a step backward. A protest rose to her lips even before he spoke. “I’m going to draw it away—”
“No.”
“I have to. I’m the only person who isn’t affected by its magic.”
“Wait,” she said. “You shouldn’t. The voice—you might not be able to resist it.”
“Don’t worry. I have an idea. There isn’t time to explain, but . . .” He was already turning, a fiery whip unraveling between his hands, its light transforming him into a tall, slim silhouette. The last thing she saw was a hint of a smile. “Trust me.”
Ahead of him, the Malefict finished raking its claws through a tower and turned, chunks of masonry tumbling down its shoulders. Though it resembled the moss spirit they had seen in the Blackwald, the bark that made up its hide was darkened and decayed, split in places to reveal an inner green glow. Nathaniel looked impossibly small walking toward it, his whip a mere thread of light.
Elisabeth wasn’t going to stand by and watch. She shoved Demonslayer through her belt and dashed toward the nearest cannon, its previous operator nothing but a uniform and a pile of dust. Sweeping the remains aside, she climbed onto the gunner’s seat.
The device was a far cry from the medieval-style cannons she had read about in books. Like the rest of the Great Library’s mechanisms, it was a complex instrument riddled with gears and pistons. She seized a wheel and experimentally wrenched it to the left, its metallic chill biting into her fingers. Machinery rumbled to life, shaking the seat so violently that only her grip on the wheel prevented her from being flung off. With a protesting groan, the cannon’s barrel swung several feet to the left. Now, up. She heaved on an adjacent wheel, and the barrel rose. All that remained was a lever beside her hip. That had to be what fired the cannon.
Nathaniel’s whip spun out, readying to strike. But he didn’t follow through. He stood still, gazing upward as the Malefict stooped over him. Her heart skipped a beat, remembering the transfixed expression on his face in the vault. Move, she urged. Fight.
In the silence, the forest exhaled a breath. Wind swirled over the rampart, fetid with decay, as though issued from the mouth of a corpse. Boughs bent. Branches creaked. And a voice whispered, “Thorn . . .”
“Don’t listen to it!” Elisabeth screamed. Her pulse throbbed against the collar of her coat as she rammed the lever down.
A rattling sound came from within, like chain links winching upward. The barrel shuddered, its mouth glowing red-hot. Then the cannon bucked in recoil, rattling her teeth and numbing her arm to the elbow. Somehow, she didn’t let go.
There came a thin, high whistling, and then a thud. She stood, clutching the wheel for balance. Green light roiled around a metal ball embedded in the Malefict’s chest. Elisabeth knew the cannonball must be huge, but against the monster’s colossal frame, it appeared no larger than a marble.
The Malefict had barely reacted. She began to wonder whether this had been a foolish idea. Then, the cannonball exploded.
The Malefict shrieked as splinters of its barklike skin went flying. A white cloud puffed around the crater left behind—salt. The cannonball was an iron-coated salt round.
Far below, Nathaniel shook his head as though trying to clear it
of cobwebs. His shoulders tensed, and he swept his whip through the air, the flame sizzling as it wrapped around one of the Malefict’s wrists. Jerking the monster off balance, he raised his other hand, which let loose a volcanic blast of green fire. Thrown back, the Malefict caught itself by clamping its claws down on a battlement. As the smoldering embers fell, it regarded Nathaniel at eye level, near enough to reach out and seize him.
“I know you,” it whispered instead. “Son of House Thorn, master of death.”
“No,” Nathaniel croaked, stepping back.
“Why do you hide your nature? Deny the call in your blood?”
Terror lanced through Elisabeth’s chest. “Nathaniel!” she shouted. He didn’t react, didn’t even seem to hear her.
“I see,” the Malefict said. “You wish to spare the girl you love. But you know the truth of magic. The greatest power springs only from suffering.” It drew closer to him, its spindle-toothed mouth seeping smoke. “Join me,” it whispered. “Master of death, become the darkness that haunts you. Kill the girl.”
Nathaniel’s arm drifted to his side, the whip fizzling out. Slowly, he turned. Elisabeth didn’t recognize the expression on his face. His coat was torn, and his eyes were rimmed in red.
Mouth dry, she spun the wheels, angling the cannon into a new position. She slammed the lever down again. As Nathaniel strode toward her, flames rippled over his shoulders and down his arms like the blossoming of some strange, translucent flower.
The cannon coughed. Stone sprayed several yards in front of the Malefict, a miss. She couldn’t aim directly at its head without risking hitting Nathaniel.
Green flashes lit the rampart. The sky above them roiled, a violent, churning mass of storm clouds. Surrounded by a corona of fire, he looked barely human, untouchable.
Elisabeth’s hands trembled on the controls. “Nathaniel, stop!”
He wasn’t listening. As he continued to advance, lightning streaked through the sky, arcing between the peaks of the mountains. The earth rumbled as snow cascaded down a nearby peak, the avalanche boiling over the trees that dotted the slope with enough force to level a village. Elisabeth had never seen such raw destruction. Worse, Nathaniel didn’t appear to even be aware that he was doing it.
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