Walking a line of nightwalkers was nothing for me—I no longer felt the tug of the oath begging me to put them all into the dirt—but Roisin was barely holding it together. If she lashed out now, she could slaughter them all. They were so young as to be practically defenseless, even if Lenora had seen fit to give them weapons.
Cameras flashed somewhere in the packed-in hordes of humanity, the press doing everything they could to get eyes on the only two allowed down this entrance so far. If Roisin let loose... It would be difficult to convince the humans of the world that we sunstriders meant them no harm.
"Steady," I told her softly.
"What is it?" DeShawn asked.
"We're being baited into a fight."
"Lenora sent them to the slaughter," Roisin hissed, talking to herself more so than the earpiece. "I will not be manipulated.
"It will only get worse," I said, watching her chin contort as she flexed her jaw.
"I know. I... have it. Do not send in the young ones, Emeline. Not yet."
"Understood."
Roisin met my gaze, and it was hard not to think of how her eyes looked like Lucien's when he'd been taken over by that shadow being. "I have your back."
She'd control herself, or she wouldn't. There was no going back at this point. If Roisin left now, she would be tracked by nightwalker and mortal alike. The only way was forward.
I said nothing to her, that was not how we showed our trust. I strode ahead, feeling her fall into step behind me, knowing from the shape of her shadow that her hands rested on the grips of her pistols. She'd pulled her claws back in. I wondered if Julian would insist she run the trial as I did for that level of control.
It was easy to think of what Lenora had said about the oath and its limitations as I watched Roisin's gait lose its smooth stroll and become a halting march. Roisin did not want to attack those lined along the pathway. The choice should be hers—was it not a violence in of itself to force someone to violence who did not desire it?—but there was an argument to be made that she had made that choice already, when she accepted the oath.
Had we been asked? If we could not recall our humanity, if that was the balance of becoming a sunstrider, then there would be no reason to ask our consent to join the order, would there? We could be turned against our will as easily as nightwalkers and never remember the moment.
There'd be time enough to dwell on those questions later, when I had the library and DeShawn's cache at my disposal. Whatever this building had been used for originally, all trace had been erased. Lenora had stripped the signage from the walls, covering the harsh edges of the modern surfaces with yards and yards of brocade, lace, and velvet.
How she'd come up with her set-dressing on such short notice, I had no idea, but the effect was total and immersive. The building opened first into a massive atrium, reaching an easy ten stories above our heads with balconies ringing each level so that party goers could look down on the crowd below. Music, some pulsing mix of the instrumental arrangements that had existed during Lenora's life and the heavy electronic bass of the modern world throbbed through the gathering.
And it was a gathering. Mortals were here in the hundreds, the thousands. Their eyes were wide with wonder and curiosity. They took glasses from passing ghouls without thinking, drinking deep of the singular beverage—red wine—without paying much attention. My heart clenched.
The nearest ghoul shrank away from me as I approached him, shying from his predator, but held firm long enough to offer me the salver crowded with full wine glasses. I snatched one up and sniffed deep, then offered it to Roisin. Her lip curled after one sniff.
"Nightwalker blood."
"Trace amounts. Lenora's, I think."
"Is it enough to enslave them?"
I tossed the contents into a nearby planter. "I have no idea. Maeve?" I asked the earpiece. "Can you dig up any research on the amount of nightwalker blood that needs to be ingested to create a ghoul? We've got a tainted punch here and I'm not sure if it should be our priority."
"Some will drink more than others," Seamus said.
"True."
I pushed to my toes to see over the crowd, counting the number of silver trays passed around and the glasses crowded on them. Lenora had said the party would start at sundown, and while we'd arrived on the dot, the mortals of London had beaten us to it. Half were already tipsy, the flush of booze and the deeper buzz of the taste of the supernatural rouging their cheeks.
"If the lady would prefer another beverage..." The ghoul I'd taken the glass from was still standing there, frozen in place, his shoulders hunched so high they nearly touched his ears.
"Where are you getting this from?" I demanded.
"The... the kitchen?"
Right. Stupid question. "Show me."
"There are more lovely places to visit, ma'am, surely—"
"Show me." I put steel in my voice. Or maybe it was gold.
His throat bobbed. "This way."
The crowd parted for us. Mortal, ghoul, and nightwalker peeled away as the server cut a straight line toward the kitchens, the glasses on his tray rattling from the tremble he couldn't hide. Gazes followed us, stuck to us. Every soul in the building had arrived dressed for a banquet at Buckingham, but somehow we stood out. Even those with no supernatural affinity could feel it. If our eyes didn't give us away, our movements did. Roisin and I did nothing to hide the liquidity to our limbs, the silence of our steps.
Maybe we should have. Coming in hot like this had seemed like a good idea, before we knew that there'd be nightwalker blood pumping in the hearts of the mortals. The more they drank, the more an instinctive fear of us built within them until they would finally tip their internal scales and transform into ghouls. Not good. We needed humanity on our side.
"The kitchen is just through these doors," the ghoul said, gesturing to a set of swing doors. "But I don't think..."
"Magdalene," Lenora said.
I turned to the sound of her voice. She was not near me, but some trick of her power had carried her voice to my ears. She stood across the atrium floor, on a stage that, under normal circumstances, a band might have occupied during a wedding. The glass in her hand was cut crystal, picking up the flickering of flames from the candelabras scattered throughout the space.
She did not look at me, her attention was on the mortals crowded around her in an attentive semi-circle. Politicians, mostly, though I thought I recognized the police chief, a stern woman with a head of grey hair, among them.
"DeShawn," I said into the earpiece. "I think your boss is here. Getting cozy with Lenora."
He snorted. "Figures."
"Who else is there?" Emeline asked.
"I don't know them. Politicians, I think. Business people."
Seamus grumbled. "Gotta put a camera on you, next time."
"There will not be a next time. Roisin, can you see to the wine?"
She flexed her fingers. No claws, despite the ghoul's proximity. "Yes."
"I really don't think..." The ghoul tried again. I grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him away from Roisin as she slipped between the doors and pointed him at Lenora.
"Introduce me to our hostess."
"Y-yes, ma'am."
The ghoul passed his salver off to another server and led the way. Every so often he tugged at the hem of his waistcoat, smoothing the satin fabric with the sides of his thumbs. The stink of ghoul was still fresh in his fear-sweat, not yet settled in. If Padhi got his hands on him, he might cure him with just the detox. I scanned the room.
If Padhi got his hands on even a fraction of the ghouls here tonight, he'd need a larger facility.
Despite the candlelight, shadows curled across the floor of the atrium, existing where they shouldn't, thickening and darkening where they should. The feeling of being watched gnawed at me, scraped against my skin. Such a show of force all in one place... I wasn't sure if the balance could be restored after tonight, but light help me, I had to try.
The crowd parted in front of my guide. Lenora was gone.
He froze and stammered, "I, uh, I'm sorry ma'am but I don't..."
"Hush." I nudged him aside and stepped into the space he'd occupied. The crowd swirled around me, like a stream eddying around a stone dropped in its center, and he disappeared into it the second he noticed I wasn't watching him anymore. Maybe after tonight he'd realize he toyed with more dangerous powers than he was willing to confront.
I sniffed the air. Hints of violets clung here and there, overlapping so often a trail was impossible to pick out. I could almost hear her laughing at me. Almost.
I moved faster than the mortals could follow, appearing on the stage in a blink of an eye. A woman—the mayor, I thought—sucked air through her teeth in surprise and stepped back. The police chief reached for a weapon that was not at her hip, and the other two men were too drunk to care.
"Where is Lenora?" I demanded.
The chief's eyes narrowed. "Who are you and what are you doing here? This is a private event."
"Scattering invitations over half the city doesn't make an event private, does it?"
Ignoring the chief, I closed the distance between the mayor and I, letting her get a good, hard, look at the gold and silver of my eyes. She knew about the Sun Guard, if only vaguely. She'd be able to draw her own conclusions.
"Where is she, Madame Mayor?"
"I do not know, miss...?"
I flashed my fangs in a smile then sucked them back in. "Shelley. I highly recommend you and the chief gather your resources and begin an evacuation of this building. This entire city block."
"Evacuation? Miss Faviola filed for all the proper permits."
Violets tickled my nose. "This is a trap, and you are being poisoned." Lazily, I slapped the glass of deep red wine out of the mayor's hand. "Get out."
She stood up straighter, fists balled, preparing herself for an argument she wouldn't get. I was already gone. The trail, deliberate, lead me through the crowd and up the levels that hugged the atrium, a faint dusting of her scent reaching up from the center of the gathering to the balcony above.
If Lenora sought to impress her guests with her speed and strength, then she'd soon find herself outmatched.
I leaped, grazing my claws against the wall for purchase, then flung myself upward, not bothering to gather light nor shadow to hide my path. Shouts followed me—screams of alarm blending with raucous laughter. I alighted upon the balcony railing and let my claws dangle at my sides.
Lenora did not flee from me this time. She stood at the back of a cluster of nightwalkers. Though she wore a violet cocktail dress, the silk ruched at the divot of her waist, she had hidden her face behind the black netting of a pinned hair piece, sly silver eyes watching me with what I thought was amusement.
"Rude of you," I said as I stepped from the railing and advanced on her. The knot of nightwalkers tightened, warning me with extended claws and hard glances. "To invite me to your party, then scurry off when I appear."
"Scurry? I only meant to invite you to meet my dearest friends."
She gestured to the nightwalkers that clotted the path between us. They had the scent of her about them, a lingering touch for her progeny, and the grave dirt stink of having been turned long enough ago that any humanity that may cling to them had been burned away. Two of them, a man near to me and a woman at Lenora's right hand, had a different scent to their blood. The salt-stung, familiar residue of Ragnar.
My lip curled back in a snarl. The blood oath may not drive me to plunge into a death-dance with all of them at once, but the children of Ragnar were enough to push me close to that edge.
"I thought I mopped you all up."
The woman took a step back. The man crossed his arms and smirked.
"Now now," Lenora said. "There's no point in old grudges here. This is a night for coming together, not making scenes."
"Coming together?" I gestured to the shadows that lay thick upon the floor, that crawled up the walls like dripping oil. "Coming together with beings you do not understand. Ragnar did great damage to this world. I will see the wound he made healed."
The man hissed. "You have no idea how deep our maker's roots run."
"Shallow."
I slammed my claws into his breast, savoring the lurch of his heart before he transmuted to dust.
Someone screamed, and the party began in earnest.
Twenty-seven: Old Tricks
The woman of Ragnar's line was upon me before her brother's ashes reached the floor. Her claws sank into my armpit, scraping rib and bone, sending a shock of searing pain that stunned me senseless for a beat. Then my instincts took over. We are animals, after all, and when threatened, it's best to let our beasts ride our bodies through to survival.
Moments blurred together. Her breath gusted against my face as she drew close, fangs reaching for my throat. I pivoted, twisting away, gasping as her claws wrenched free of my torso. Too many nightwalkers pressed me, and though they were young, this was not a moment to rely on tooth and claw. I freed my blade, took the woman's head and snarled as a gunshot blazed across my hip. The nightwalkers had learned that hand-to-hand combat with me was useless.
Ash billowed around my ankles, each body after the woman's nameless cattle to the slaughter. Below the walkway, humanity screamed and pushed and shoved, forcing one another toward exits, bunching up at too-narrow doors. Wine and blood mingled, dropped glasses and crushed glass adding to the chaos.
They feared me, for in their eyes it was I who instigated the violence. They did not know the poison they were being fed—those drops of nightwalker blood in the wine—colored their instincts against me.
I couldn't blame the wine entirely, could I? There were subtler ways to hunt a nightwalker. I had been taught such things, so very long ago. My teachers had taught me how to peel a mark away from a gathering of mortals, to lure, and then to strike. I had forgotten those ways.
Lenora fled.
Luna's attention scraped against me as I launched myself after her, and I could not tell if that being were angry, or intrigued, that I hunted her child. Flashes of violet silk flickered in-between slicks of black shadow, crushes of terrified humanity. All pretense of the pretty socialite stripped away as she extended her claws and scrambled up a wall, coming to rest on the balcony below, crouched like a gargoyle, her fangs long enough to show even behind the obscuring veil.
"You're frightening the children," she purred to me in her sing-song voice.
"This ends tonight, Lenora."
She cocked her head. "Hmm. I don't think it does."
The beast of instinct ebbed in me, slaked by the sea of ash that had been her progeny, stepping back now that it recognized a finer game at play. I sheathed my blade and sprang in one movement, angling for a tackle that would knock us both into the hallway.
Lenora smiled, stood, turned her back on the crowd and extended her arms as if crucified, then fell backwards, all in the blink of an eye. I hit the rail she'd been on and had to dig deep to keep from tumbling after her, arresting my momentum. Wood splintered and cracked.
She turned in mid-air, twisting like a cat, and hit the stage straight-up, not bothering to crouch to absorb the momentum. A starburst of shadows exploded from the place her feet landed, framing her in an inky black splotch before contracting back in.
Her pet shadows weren't the only darkness.
Geometric pinwheels of void burst into the air above the hoard of humanity. Planes of nothingness scythed through the space above their heads, thickening the air so much that my ears popped. The shadows that lay heavy upon the ground writhed, then froze, growing heavier somehow as those windows into emptiness twisted on an invisible axis, seeking some solid piece of this world to slice through, to drive away.
A presence watched me.
The humans weren't getting through the doors, and each passing second those planes drew closer their fear increased until I could smell it in their sweat. I pressed my earpiece. "Her p
eople are blocking the exits. Get those doors open."
"Heard," DeShawn said.
Lenora turned, slowly, on the stage, her arms held out and palms up in supplication, silver eyes tracking the blades of the end of the world.
"We called it here," she raised her voice to carry. "You and I, Magdalene. We stoked the fear that draws it like a moth to a flame."
"We?" I hesitated on the balcony as a smaller triangle of black spun near. "You did this, Lenora. You gathered a lodestone of supernatural blood and dropped it to stain the streets of London."
Behind the shadow of her veil, Lenora's smile was coy and triumphant. "You have always been a tool of the night, darling."
Shouts rang out above the already tumultuous clamor. I glimpsed red hair, flashing green velvet arcing across the open space, and then I nearly lost my grip on the rail as the scent of blood filled my world.
A tsunami of crimson followed in Roisin's wake. Blood and wine, blended together, wept from the doors to the kitchen, appeared to bleed through the very walls and swirl through the shouting crowd, deep enough to cover everyone to the ankle.
Roisin ended her leap on the edge of stage, one short lung from Lenora, and snarled at that woman, head tossed back. Blood streaked her cheeks and stained her dress, but none of it was hers.
"I'll give your pet shadows something to feed upon," Roisin hissed the words through her bared fangs.
Lenora turned toward this new commotion, an amateur mistake, and I leapt. She sensed my movement a fraction too late. Claws bit into my arm, my waist, a futile attempt to push me back, to spear me as I had her, but the die had been cast, and we both knew how this ended.
I held her to me, the claws of one hand deep in her chest, tickling her heart but not piercing it, not yet, while the other hand locked her in a grip from which she could not wriggle. The pulse of her blood was... wrong. Too fast, too fluttered. One so old as she should have a sluggish beat, even in fear. I sniffed. Graveyard dirt and endless rot and a touch of violets but just that—a touch. The rest of the floral scent had come from her black veil, dipped in perfume.
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