| |
“Daughter...?” The word pierced me like an arrow.
Brigette’s gaze shot to me, and her face crumpled into a pleading expression, brows drawn, eyes huge. “It’s not what it looks like, Evie.”
“You mean betrayal?”
“I didn’t betray you. I just... didn’t tell you everything.”
“Like the fact that your father was a member of Le Poing Fermé?” It explained so much, such as the source of her impressive Magic. I shouldn’t have been surprised she’d withheld such sensitive information, but her persistent deceit stung my heart.
“I hate him.” Brigette seethed. “He abandoned me.”
Her father jerked her arm. Disgust showed in the curl of his thin lip. He resembled his daughter in his long, lanky limbs and in the shape of his sharp chin and jaw. “Don’t blame me, girl. You abandoned yourself. And your Magic.”
“No, Father, I have not abandoned my Magic.” Brigette yanked free from her father’s grip and stepped back several paces. She bared her teeth and raised her hands, which glowed bright red with her rising power. A feeling like a fog of static electricity filled the room. She released her Magic, and her bolt of energy zipped toward her father.
He raised his hand—
And caught it.
Chuckling, he crumpled her red orb in his palm like a bit of paper, and the light disappeared.
My stomach sank.
She slung three more orbs in quick succession, zing, zing, zing. He dodged or caught each of them, his laughter growing louder with each one.
Brigette shrieked in frustration and raised both hands, teeth gritted in an angry grimace. Energy buzzed in my ears. Internally, I cringed, half expecting her to blow up the entire room, taking us all down with her anger. Before she could act, her father crossed to her side, hissed a sharp word, and touched her temple. She gave him a momentary look of dark hatred before her eyes rolled up, and she slumped to the floor.
I exhaled a breath of relief.
He gathered her limp body like a rag doll and dropped her onto the couch. “Stay there, and stay out of the way, girl.”
Another round of Magical artillery rammed against the cabal’s exterior wards. Fallstaff’s walls shook. The gaslights guttered.
I turned my attention to Thibodaux, temporarily putting the problem of Brigette aside. “The Council’s almost through your barriers, Thibodaux.”
“The Council isn’t here for us. It’s you they want, Stormbourne.” He tented his fingers over his broad stomach. “You’re the one who broke into their sacred temple and stole their prized possession.”
“If they take me, you’ll never get what you want.”
“What I want? I’ve gone along with Jackie’s schemes this long because he convinced me you were worth the trouble, but you’ve turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.” He opened his hands at his sides and slowly spun around, his gaze scanning the whole room. “Sitting on Inselgrau’s throne is more satisfying than I’d ever considered. I underestimated the appeal. And if the Council arrests you and takes you away, that removes all legitimate claims to the throne. Inselgrau would belong to me, free and clear.” He clicked his tongue, tsk, tsk, tsk. “You should’ve been more careful, my lady. If you had completed your task the way we’d asked you to—quietly and without giving yourself away—there’d be room for negotiation between us. But now you’ve brought the Council into it, and that... complicates things.”
I frowned, considering his words. Was he playing me, or had he truly changed his end game? Even so, nothing had changed for me. Le Poing Fermé and Thibodaux, in particular, had to go. “So you think you can make a deal with the Council? Hand me over and in return they’ll walk away and leave you with the keys to my kingdom?” I pointed at Jackie. “You know they’ll want your prized pet back too. Will you also give up Jackie to appease the Council?”
The assaults on Fallstaff’s exterior were coming harder and faster. The house shuddered like an ancient beast resurrected from its primordial grave, shaking off dust and flexing stiff joints. Distant voices cried out from distant rooms and hallways, shouting orders and desperate requests for reinforcements.
The three cabal members in my father’s office ignored their colleagues’ cries, acting as though their wards weren’t coming down around them and that the Council wouldn’t be storming their fortress any moment. My stomach swirled in anticipation. I reached for the skies and tightened my will around the lightning.
Thunder crashed, a distinctly sharper and harsher explosion than the Council’s missiles. I hoped Gideon and the others recognized my signal—my call to prepare for battle.
Jackie had mostly ignored me until this point. Now, he looked up, his cold eyes meeting mine. A silver sheen bled across his irises, illuminating his gaze. He cracked a thin smile and raised a fist toward me. “I am not concerned with the Council’s wishes.” He eased open his fist, releasing the gold chain he’d been holding. A tiny gold flame dangled from his fingers, and my heart seized. Brigette’s necklace. He’d found it. “I can take care of myself.”
He dropped the chain on my father’s desk and rounded on Thibodaux. Without raising his voice or changing his relaxed posture, Jackie addressed the leader of his cabal. “I can take care of Evelyn too. Handing her over to the Council was not part of the plan.”
Thibodaux raised his fleshy chin. “Plans change.”
Color flooded Jackie’s pale cheeks. Despite his grand speeches about fate and the pointlessness of wanting things, Jackie clearly wanted me. “My plans haven’t changed. And yours are too short sighted. They always have been.”
“You’ll do as I say, Faercourt.” Thibodaux’s tone was dismissive, condescending. “The decisions I make are what’s best for the whole cabal, including you, whether you like it or not. The girl goes. Be careful that I don’t send you with her.”
The glow in Jackie’s eyes shone brighter. His jaw clenched. “Evelyn is mine. The Council will not have her. They won’t have me, either.”
On the Velox, Jackie had indicated a rift existed between him and his cabal. Now that fissure was under duress, and it was tearing wider apart.
“And how will you stop them from taking her?” Thibodaux curled his fingers, and his bonds tugged me to his side. He touched a finger to my forehead, and pain filled my body like sand filling an hourglass. My world turned bright with agony. I howled.
“Let her go.” Jackie’s voice was fire and fury.
Thibodaux hacked a sharp, high-pitched laugh. “How you will stop me?”
The room temperature plummeted. Breath misted from Thibodaux’s lips as he exhaled.
“Like this,” Jackie said. A bolt of energy shot out from him, as fast and bright as lightning but as cold as polar ice.
Thibodaux defended with his own Magic, and Brigette’s father joined this sudden civil war, attacking Jackie, who was slinging Magic and raising shields faster than I could follow.
The men shouted at each other, strange words, and eerie discharges of sound followed. Amid the chaos, Thibodaux released his bonds on me. The crippling pain eased. I dragged myself to Brigette’s side and shook her. “Wake up.”
She didn’t respond.
“Brigette.” I shook her again, adding a shock to my touch. A bright missile zinged over my head and smashed into the wall beside me. Swords and shields tumbled to the ground in a discordant clatter that rattled my eardrums. Her eyelids fluttered open.
Something crashed outside the throne room, and shouts filled the corridor. In the back of my mind, a voice urged me to hurry because the Council had likely broken through and were storming the house. “Time to leave before we get caught in the crossfire. I don’t care if you want to help me fight or not. If you want to save yourself, you’d better come with me.”
I shoved my shoulder into her armpit, clenched an arm around her waist, and jerked her to her feet. We stumbled across the room, staying low to avoid the Magical artillery zooming around us. We staggered into the hallway, and several indistinct figures raced toward us, shouting for us to stop. Brigette groaned, and a blast like an explosive gust of wind burst from her. Her Magic rammed into our pursuers, forcing them back.
I tried to run, but Brigette dragged her feet, barely maintaining consciousness. Whatever her father had done had weakened her, and that last blast of Magic had drained her.
“C’mon, I can’t carry you on my own.”
She groaned again, straining, and managed to keep her feet under her as we scurried to the end of the hall. I called to the heavens, drawing down a bolt of lightning. It crashed through the huge window at the end of the corridor.
“What are you doing?” Brigette rasped.
“Getting us out of here.”
“You’re attacking your own home?”
“Le Poing Fermé made a mistake thinking that they could restore Fallstaff and use it like bait to lure me into doing their bidding. I won’t do things their way, and if that means destroying Fallstaff and building something new, I’ll tear this place down around us without a regret.”
When we reached the end of the hall, I stopped at the window and peered out. Dawn was trying to creep in, but heavy cloud cover choked the fledgling sunlight. Although we stood on the first floor, the house’s foundations rose high. The ground dropped at least ten feet below us. We might’ve survived the jump, but only if we managed to make our way over a windowsill lined with broken glass.
“Lady Stormbourne, stop right there.”
I flinched and glanced over my shoulder. A tall, reedy man in a dark suit and long cloak stood several yards away.
“DeLaguna,” Brigette whispered.
Behind him stood his scheming, backstabbing, two-faced apprentice. A raw gash marred his broad forehead, and the shadow of old bruises ringed his eyes. He had survived my attack at the basilica, but I had obviously wounded him—possibly bad enough to leave a scar. I couldn’t say I felt sorry for it.
“Lady Peacock,” Taviano bent his knee in a mocking bow. “So nice to see you again.”
Thunder crashed, and lightning squirmed across the sky. Winds tore through the corridor from the open window, and the wall-mounted gaslights guttered and flickered. “So what were your plans?” I asked. “Do you actually think you’ll arrest me and lock me up in the caves beneath your basilica?”
A look of distaste puckered DeLaguna’s lips. “Magicians and the gods have had a special bond for millennia. You are a goddess, Lady Thunder. Your status affords you certain privileges.”
“Like room service in my prison cell?”
“You’ll be offered a fair trial.”
“There’s not a fair thing about the circumstances that brought us to this moment.” I glanced at the windowsill, looking for a place to step up without impaling myself.
“No one here would argue you had every right to reclaim what was rightfully yours by almost any means necessary. But the moment you violated the sanctity of the basilica, you stepped over the line. That was an action for which we cannot look the other way.”
“Did you ever pause long enough to ask yourself how I broke into the basilica?”
DeLaguna raised a long knobby finger and pointed at Brigette. “By the work of that girl’s foul Magic.”
“No.” I raised a finger at Taviano, mimicking DeLaguna’s gesture. “It was the foul Magic of your apprentice. He showed us the way in through an underwater cavern. That’s information only someone with insider knowledge would know. Your student has betrayed you, Master. He wants you to fail so he can take your place on the Council. Ask yourself how much you really trust him.”
Taviano’s ridiculous hair fluttered in the winds. His lip curled into a snarl. A look of doubt crossed DeLaguna’s wrinkled face. His eyes cut to the apprentice standing at his side.
I gathered Brigette closer.
She mustered some strength and whispered to me, “Hold on, Evie.”
Prickling, tingling energy swirled around us, but it was weak. Diluted. I doubted she had the power to get us out before DeLaguna and his men stopped us. Obviously realizing what Brigette intended, the older Magician shifted his weight and raised a hand. He opened his mouth, but his breath came out in a thick spurt of condensed vapor.
The air chilled, raising goose bumps on my arms and neck.
Jackie appeared, inches away, and wrapped his arms around us. “Trust me,” he said as blackness and vertigo swirled through my vision. “And don’t let go.”
Before the unsettling feeling of teleportation could register, Jackie had transported us from the west wing hallway on the first floor to Fallstaff’s open front yard. We set down hard, and Brigette tumbled to her knees. I wrenched her to her feet. Jackie took her other arm and together we ran.
“What are you doing, Jackie?” I snarled. “Why are you helping us?”
“You heard what I told Thibodaux in there. I won’t let the Council take us.”
“Do you expect me to fall at your feet in gratitude?”
“No.” His silver eyes flashed. “I expect you to survive. I expect you to win.”
We sprinted across the yard, sights set on the cover of the stables. Gideon must have been watching for our approach. He raced through the stable doors but skidded to a halt. “Evie!” He pinned his gaze on something behind me. Distress carved lines around his mouth and across his brow. “Run!”
I turned, glancing behind me. The shock of seeing a large crowd of Magicians emerge from the shadows of the forest was so swift and sudden, I felt as though I’d slammed into a wall while running full speed. My breath fled in a gust. My knees turned to water, and my grip on Brigette slipped. She sank to the ground.
“What’s going on, Jackie?” I wheezed.
He gave me a worried look, the first slip in the confident façade he’d worn ever since his fever had broken aboard the Velox. “It looks like the Council has called in reinforcements.”
