WITHOUT LOOKING BEHIND me, I knew who’d dislocated my shoulder.
Lord Hensley.
The shooting pain in my shoulder forced a low, tortured scream from my throat. It made everything dim. Sound. Sight. Even the sense of someone behind me. I felt like I was swaying, but Hensley’s hand was still heavy on mine. His stump was still pressed into my shoulder.
I couldn’t feel my arm. Couldn’t bring it down. Couldn’t grasp my sword. My arm was useless, hanging over my shoulder like a hook or question mark, shooting with blinding pain. When I turned my head, I could half see a bulge pushing out from the front of my shoulder. Bones out of socket. I wanted to be sick.
A few paces away, James stared at me, unmoving thanks to the dagger at his throat. Blood trickled down his skin.
“Just on time.” Hensley’s voice rumbled behind me. “You realize that, don’t you? There was no one there when your soldiers arrived at the ambush. There was only Brooks, who thought he was actually going to succeed, and given all the information needed to lure you here. You fell for it last night, Tobiah, and you fell for it again tonight. Only now, you’ll get a taste of what you so despise.”
I wanted to jam my elbow into his sternum, but the pain was a deafening roar in my ears. Any time I tried to move my arm, the world turned sideways and I staggered.
“My lady.” Hensley nodded at her; I could half feel his chin brush my fingertips. “Feel free to dispose of that one. He’s no longer necessary.”
She gave a wide, terrifying smile, and began to draw her blade across James’s throat.
“No!” The scream tore from me. This could not happen again. I wouldn’t let it. I couldn’t let him get hurt—
A knife filled my right hand—the hand I couldn’t feel. I wrapped my fingers around it. At least, I hoped I did. I thought I did. It was so hard to tell with my shoulder stuck out of socket, the muscles and nerves stretched tight. Saints, I could barely feel anything but the pain.
But a knife was in my hand. I threw myself back, felt a moment of resistance, and Hensley yelled. He shoved me forward, and I stumbled toward James.
The distraction was enough.
The Nightmare leader had loosened her grip, and James had stomped down on her foot and twisted away. He whipped his sword free of its sheath and slashed. Blood spread across her stomach. She didn’t move.
Hensley was bleeding from the cheek. I’d cut him, but shallowly, and at an angle that wouldn’t do more than scar. He bent to grab the black-handled knife I’d dropped. “Where did you get this?”
He didn’t wait for me to answer. He ran toward me, knife in hand, and drew back to shove it into me—
The knife vanished. James lurched forward. His sword plunged into Hensley’s shoulder.
Hensley dropped to the floor with a loud clang. More Nightmares and guards filled the platforms and catwalks around us, but none were close enough to fight us yet. Which was good, because my right arm still hung uselessly over my shoulder.
“Let’s fix this.” James grabbed my wrist and pulled it up and around. Black swarmed into my vision, forcing me to my knees. But the pain of hitting the floor was faint and faraway. The only thing I could feel was my shoulder being wrenched straight out to my side. He gave my arm a long tug and used his free hand to shove the bulge of displaced bone back into its socket.
I blacked out.
When I opened my eyes I was sitting on my heels, my arm tucked against my chest like I’d almost lost it. It had felt like I’d almost lost it.
James scraped his sword off the floor and faced Hensley.
He wasn’t dead yet?
I wouldn’t let James fight him alone. Groaning, I picked myself up off the ground, reached across with my left hand, and slowly drew my sword from the sheath across my back. The awkward motion made my shoulder and rib hurt, and I was far less skilled fighting left-handed than right, but I’d had some training, at least.
Together, James and I faced Lord Hensley.
“Your life at court is over,” I rasped. “The king knows what you’ve done.”
“You think I care?” Hensley shook his head. “Once I make this sale, I’ll have enough money to disappear.”
“Who do you plan on selling to?” I stepped aside so the Nightmare leader’s body was visible. “Seems to me your buyer won’t be able to pay.”
“There are others in Skyvale.” He looked desperate, though. He was pale and sweating, bleeding, and he pressed his stump to his hurt shoulder.
“You underestimated us.” I adjusted my grip on my sword.
Hensley reached out to hold the rail. Heat radiated off his hand, through the metal. At once, the cut on his face blackened and stopped bleeding. The gash on his shoulder cauterized.
James and I glanced at each other. His eyes slowly widened.
“It’s hot.” I twisted away from Hensley. “Run!”
Already, heat spread across the catwalk, through the soles of my boots. The gaining burn spurred me away, like I could outrun Hensley’s magic. Already, the metal glowed a dull red.
Maybe I should—
A set of stairs caught my eye. I lunged for them, James close behind me. Before we were halfway up, I grabbed a firebomb from my pocket, but before I could throw it, every muscle in my shoulder seized and I dropped the vial.
James was fast. He snatched the firebomb from the air and hurled it toward Hensley.
The explosion rocked the stairs as we resumed our ascent. Running with my sword in my good hand, and everything shaking beneath me, was more difficult than I’d anticipated, but the heat under my boots had eased.
Finally, we reached a wide platform with more staircases branching off. Two up. One down, besides the way we’d come; that was crumbling into one of the vats of firefly. The liquid turned bright as chunks of metal vanished beneath the bubbling surface.
And Hensley? I couldn’t see him through the smoke and destruction. Only the vat beneath where he’d stood, which bubbled ferociously now.
“We need to go down.” My words came out in hard gasps. Smoke and firefly stench filled the air, smothering. If we didn’t get out of this building soon, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to remain upright. Let alone able to fight.
“Down is a bad choice right now.”
James was right. The other downward stairs were flooded with Nightmares, Hensley’s guards, and even a few police officers.
“Up it is.”
As we climbed, James sheathed his sword and struck a match; a fuse took the flame and he tossed the smoke bomb back onto the platform behind us, just as our new pursuers stepped off the stairs.
We ran on. My legs burned with the exertion, and every motion jostled my shoulder and rib. It took all my focus to follow James, to keep lifting one foot in front of the other. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t sheathe my sword with my left hand; I’d barely been able to draw it.
And Hensley’s people were still behind us.
“Turn right!” James’s shout came out ragged and it seemed we spent hours climbing up and down stairs and avoiding Hensley’s men. Smoke bombs and firebombs were our best defense, and we threw them whenever necessary, but by the time we reached the ground floor, we had none left.
And a small army of Hensley’s men stood between us and the door.
My chest felt like it was on fire as James and I halted, staring at the guarded exit. At our backs rose one of the giant firefly vats. Broken metal hung above it. Shining liquid spilled over the sides where pieces of the catwalk had displaced it.
I couldn’t tell if there were other doors around the building. Probably. But I didn’t know where they were, and I didn’t want to risk getting trapped on the catwalks again. My legs were limp from climbing stairs and there was definitely no way I’d be able to rappel down the side of the building.
Which, unfortunately, left fighting our way through a dozen people.
Before I could attack, metal screeched and everyone blocking the door looked up with panic in their eyes.
They turned to run.
I ran, too, James just a second behind me.
Fifteen paces from the door, I called out to James. “What’s happening?”
He glanced over his shoulder. Ten paces. “The whole thing is white-hot.”
That couldn’t be right.
Seven paces.
I checked over my shoulder.
He was right.
The vat was blinding white, and it seemed to be ripping open at the top. Firefly spilled out, spreading across the floor.
I ran harder, lungs and legs burning. The air, too, seemed to be on fire. It was so much hotter than it had been before.
The vat split open just as James and I reached the door. A wave of firefly—as tall as me—thundered toward us.
“Go left!” I shouted to James. Left was uphill, and the others had gone right—toward the storage warehouse.
I pushed myself harder as the firefly spilled from the warehouse and washed through the street. Liquid heat nipped at my heels, but the wave crested and fell back—downhill.
We ran a few more paces and bent over, gasping. Behind us came the cries of Hensley’s people as they drowned in firefly.
I straightened and turned to look. I didn’t want to watch them die, but I needed to know what happened to them.
There were thirteen bodies on the ground, a river of firefly running around them. They were dead.
Another figure washed out through the warehouse door.
I staggered back with the shock.
Hensley had always been big, but now he was half again his normal size. Otherwise, he looked the same as a glowman as he did as a regular man.
If firefly made one feel the way they wanted to feel, and becoming a glowman made them permanently that way, but twisted and grotesque . . . I supposed Hensley had always been confident.
I lifted my sword, still in my left hand, but I shouldn’t have bothered. He wasn’t moving.
“What happened to him?” James sheathed his sword, then took mine and did the same across my back.
“My guess is that he fell into the firefly and ingested so much that he became a glowman. He was using his magic when he died. Maybe that’s why it boiled like that.”
“There are no burns on him.”
I shrugged with my good shoulder. “That’s probably part of his power. Things he heats won’t burn him. But he can drown. And he can die of an overdose.”
James gave Hensley and his people a long stare before he turned to me. “What happened with that knife, by the way. Where did it come from?”
“It must have been Hensley’s.” The words burned in my throat.
He nodded, then broke into a smile. “That was a good move with it. You saved my life.”
The truth was, I would do anything to save James’s life. I was just glad . . .
Another sound caught me. Shouts. Boots on paving stones. “I think the Indigo Order just found the clue you left.”
“Then we’d better run again.”
Just what I’d been hoping to do.