I didn’t wait to find out whether Syrene intended to follow Wraithwood’s command.
I snatched the axe from Strahl and whirled, hefting it over my head. Then, with all of my remaining might, I brought the blade down onto the mess of tubing still connected to the machine.
If you’ve never had a broken rib before, then I’m not strictly sure I can convey what a poor idea it is to do something so er, vigorous, while nursing one. The resulting snap of pain travelled all the way up to my head to press behind my eyes. I wobbled on my feet, too breathless even to scream, as I teetered on the edge of blacking out.
As my vision belatedly returned, I saw that I had dropped my axe into the tubing. Despite my haphazard swing, several of the already-weakened aether lines had crumpled like eggshells, spewing Unseelie aether into the air. Rust crawled swiftly across my old, trusty weapon as the aether spread like a puddle, eating away at the other tubes. Within seconds, my well-kept hand-axe became indistinguishable from one of Galtir’s many abandoned, crumbling artefacts.
Syrene had hesitated, I was certain—it was the only reason I wasn’t dead yet. Her emotions twisted on the air in a whirling pool of conflict. Confusion. Betrayal. Fury. Denial. Resentment.
And then… resignation.
“Get behind me, Strahl,” I wheezed painfully.
Truly, I don’t know why he listened to me. I’m sure I didn’t strike a particularly intimidating picture, helplessly clutching at my midsection as I fell to my knees on the ground. But for some utterly mysterious reason, Strahl took a swift step back, putting me squarely in front of him.
I grabbed one of the severed tubes leading out of the machine, snapping it up before me as Syrene abruptly turned upon us. A billowing plume of Unseelie aether hissed into the air between us. The faerie recoiled with a sharp shriek, as several of her ashen leaves withered and turned black.
Syrene’s outrage vibrated around us as she skittered backwards, shedding dead bark with every step. “How dare you,” she hissed. All four of her black eyes fixed upon me with murderous intent.
I brandished the tubing at her again in a warning gesture. She jolted backwards on all fours, hissing at me like a territorial alley drake.
“I know, I know,” I gasped. “I ought to honour my Seelie creators by laying down and dying. If it makes you feel any better, I’m sure I’ll get around to it really soon.”
As Unseelie aether bled into the air, echoes stirred to life around us, broken from the stupor enforced upon them by the pylons. Several of the black strands wrapped around them wavered and unravelled, as Wraithwood’s control faltered against their burgeoning will. The emperor’s shade blurred again, and a soft, frustrated curse spilled from one of the nearby echoes.
Ghostly battle cries rang out across the plaza as several of the tatterdemalions reclaimed their old script. Imperial soldiers rushed to form new battle lines, as the Coalition echoes on the other side of the barricades prepared to charge them.
A blinding burst of aether exploded just a short distance away from us, shining like a small sun. A clear ringing sound hummed across the plaza, informing me that Miss Hawkins had just drawn her silver sword.
It was, I thought, just enough chaos to confuse everyone at once.
Strahl, for his part, was still intensely focussed on the faerie before us. “You don’t have to do what he says, Syrene!” he bellowed from behind me.
Several Imperial tatterdemalions shoved past the faerie for the front lines, barely aware of her presence. She darted between them with unnatural grace, watching the severed tube in my hands with wariness. “We… have sworn an Oath,” she hissed back. There was a faint unsteadiness in her voice—but I knew it wasn’t nearly enough to save us. The only thing truly standing between Syrene and our instant, bloody demise was the trickle of Unseelie aether I’d put between us.
And I highly doubted that would last for long.
Wraithwood had already begun consolidating control of the echoes. Though he’d abandoned his grip on several of them, the black strands that remained had stabilised and tightened. Any moment now, I realised, one of those echoes would charge me in order to knock aside my paltry defence against the faerie before us.
It’s possible that the Lady of Fools still loved me, despite my open blasphemy. It’s also possible, I suppose, that having a skilful crew and a ready contingency plan often pays dividends.
A twisting cloud of reddish-black aether hurtled past me, slamming directly into the Envoy.
Syrene screamed. It was a high, hideous sound that resonated deep in my soul. She skittered backwards, frantic to escape the Unseelie aether that had coalesced around her. Everywhere it touched, the inky cloud ate away at her like acid, melting bark and stone like brackish water. She stumbled into tatters, tossing them aside like toy soldiers in her desperation to escape.
I spied Miss Hawkins standing among the Imperial echoes, almost ten feet away from the machine, with both hands outstretched. One still clutched at a knot of midnight threads; the other twisted in the air as I watched, directing that cloud of Unseelie aether after Syrene. Hawkins trembled with the effort. Her eyes had now gone fully black; the bruised aether that she exhaled into the air reminded me forebodingly of blood.
It only struck me an instant later that she had not, in fact, drawn Galatine.
Silver flashed among the echoes that separated us from Miss Hawkins. Galatine slashed through black threads like butter, separating the tatterdemalions from Wraithwood’s control. The sword cut cleanly through each ebon string; each time it did, I felt the resulting snap, as the thread recoiled and the echo jerked violently. The controlled tatters backed away swiftly, stumbling with new clumsiness, as Aesir MacLeod single-handedly cleared a path to us.
Despite the imminent danger, I couldn’t help gaping at the sight. Aesir had drawn the silver sword with his flesh-and-blood left hand. Though he wielded Galatine inexpertly, with almost no finesse, it hardly seemed to matter—snapping those threads was a trivial effort, at best.
Aesir noticed me staring. His eyes narrowed. “No’ a word, Blair!” he shouted over at me. “Ah dinnae wan’tae hear it!”
Behind him, I saw Miss Hawkins stagger, dropping her left arm. The Unseelie aether that had so briefly chased down Syrene gave up the certainty of its form, dissipating slowly into the air. Her focus returned to the black threads still tangled around her right hand.
Syrene’s scream had trailed off—but I still felt her agony from afar, shivering on the air. Her slender, monstrous figure trembled as she forced herself back to all fours. Ruinous scars of molten darkness marred her body, as layers sloughed off of her in chunks. I found myself abruptly reminded of Old Ironspine.
“Stay down.” The words spilled from one of the echoes Miss Hawkins currently controlled, clipped with effort and pain.
Syrene ignored the command. She rose up slowly, fixing a murderous gaze upon Hawkins. Her legs gathered beneath her, as though she was preparing to pounce.
Hawkins’ echoes piled onto the faerie before she could leap.
I wasn’t really expecting the tatters to hurt Syrene—after all, I’d seen her take the full brunt of an unloading repeater without significant harm. But this time, as she swatted an echo aside, another one slammed its rusty bayonet into the rotting bark of her midsection.
Where once that metal would have bounced away harmlessly, it now sank in deeply, as though Syrene was made of flesh and blood. The faerie let out another loud howl of pain, now tinged with desperation.
A different flash of silver cut abruptly through the crowd of staggering echoes. Midnight threads snapped and recoiled—but this time, it was Hawkins who stumbled back, choking off a shocked cry of pain. She snatched her right hand back as though it had been burned, stumbling to her knees. The glove on her hand now twisted uncomfortably with black aether; she clawed at it blindly, trying to peel it away. Not far behind her, I saw Mr Finch frantically wrestling with the prototype machine as it reacted to the disruption with far less grace than the bigger machine had done, spewing Unseelie aether from uncomfortable places.
Wraithwood’s dark figure dashed through the tatterdemalions, bathed in Clarent’s cold, wintry light. His form was visibly ragged, and his steps seemed unsteady. Grey hair hung in a lank curtain about his face, barely obscuring the dried blood beneath. Though he was moving too quickly to make out the details, I knew that there was something wrong with his face. I wondered, suddenly, just how much Unseelie aether he had channelled at this point.
Clarent hewed down echoes with impunity, cutting through anything and everything that happened to block Wraithwood’s will. Each tatter slowed his pace by only seconds… but it was already clear that he was heading directly for Hawkins.
Aesir—the only person close enough to block Wraithwood’s path—had frozen entirely in place, staring at the Legionnaire with the same horrifyingly blank expression I’d seen him wear in Old Pelaeia. In that moment, as his will failed him, Galatine guttered in his hand… and then, it vanished entirely.
Strahl stepped out from behind me, snatching up a rusty sabre from the twitching remains of a tatterdemalion. It was, I thought, a poor sort of defence against a silver sword—but whatever his intentions, he had little chance to execute them. He managed only a single stride before violently stumbling, as thick roots surged up from the ground to lash themselves around his calves. Though Syrene’s huddled, injured form was no longer in sight, she hadn’t given up quite yet.
Strahl chopped at the roots with an incoherent cry of frustration, before fixing me with a furious glare. “Go!” he growled.
In retrospect, I’m fairly certain that what Strahl meant to say was something like “save yourself”. But even if I had been willing to do such a thing, what I heard was: “go help Hawkins”.
I’m proud to tell you now: I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t hesitate, or waste time trying to conjure up one last plan.
Instead, I did the most foolish thing I’ve ever done in my life.
I ran after Wraithwood, ignoring the hideous pain in my ribs. The Legionnaire had left a clear and unobstructed path in his wake—perfectly serviceable for a man of my relatively small size.
I threw myself at his legs, and tackled him from behind.
We tumbled together in a heap of limbs. Fresh agony tore a raspy scream from my throat—but I leaned into the adrenaline, secure in the knowledge that I was very likely to die at any moment.
Though I’d caught Wraithwood by surprise at first, the brief advantage didn’t last. He rolled me beneath him, using his superior mass to his advantage. As he looked down at me, I saw at last the face that he had been hiding behind the mask.
His eyes were ugly blood clots; if there were any irises left within them, I couldn’t even tell. Black veins pulsed under flesh gone grey and wax-like. The dried blood on his face had a brackish sheen to it that made it look like ink in the aether-light that surrounded us. A long, hideous gash at his temple had exposed a small chunk of his skull, where a few slivers of his mask stood out, still embedded there.
Wraithwood pinned me with a hand at my neck, and raised his silver sword.
It was a beautiful sight, actually. This close, I was able to make out the exquisite faerie artistry on Clarent’s gleaming blade. The swords were all so bright—I’d assumed that they were simply unembellished aether. But Clarent whirled with intricate iridescent lines, shifting in complex, hypnotic patterns that no mortal hand could ever have inscribed.
For one split second, I felt Wraithwood’s hand tremble at my throat. The killing blow skipped a beat, just as it had done with Hawkins back in Morgause.
And I realised then what I should have known all along.
“Mercy,” I croaked out breathlessly.
Wraithwood’s clotted eyes flashed with fury. “No,” he spat.
I reached up to close my hand around the burning white blade above me. “I wasn’t… talking to you,” I wheezed.
My fingers didn’t burn, as I touched the silver sword. I didn’t expect them to. In fact, I had decided with every fibre of my being that Clarent wouldn’t hurt me. I didn’t have the luxury of believing otherwise.
The sword’s will flooded through me like one of Syrene’s emotions. I felt its ragged, panicked desperation, as it struggled against the hand that held it. It had been struggling all along, I thought; never successfully, but it had always tried. Wraithwood’s will hadn’t faltered in the least when he’d tried to kill Miss Hawkins before—only Clarent’s intervention had saved her, at the very last moment.
And Wraithwood’s grip on the sword was getting weaker. The Unseelie aether in his body had laid waste to his connection with Clarent, steadily eroding it. Though he must have known it was happening, Wraithwood was no Hawkins: He couldn’t bring himself to give the sword to someone else while he used the machine.
Wraithwood’s face twitched with dawning fury. “Don’t,” he growled warningly, as the sword wavered in his hand. “Don’t you dare. I own you.”
I hadn’t the first idea what I was doing, as I closed my fingers around that silver sword. But I knew how tired it was, how close it had been to giving up entirely. I felt the wild surge of hope that had come with Galatine’s arrival.
I offered up a wordless promise—a solid vision of a better future. Miss Hawkins would take the sword back. There would be no more blood, no more atrocities. The oppressive will that smothered it would dissipate entirely.
I offered it the perfect image of a blue patch of sky.
A curl of Seelie aether flared against my hand. An alien will surged through me, closing its grip around my vocal cords.
“Death… to tyrants,” I heard myself rasp.
It happened all at once—so quickly that I barely understood the process. The supernatural will that pressed against my mind surged with one last burst of manic defiance, snapping every chain that bound it. Aether melted against my hand, flowing in reverse… and suddenly, there was a hilt in my hand.
Seelie aether sang in my veins, tingling with such breathless power that the pain in my broken rib barely seemed to register. Suddenly, I understood why all of the aethermancers we’d faced showed such supernatural resilience, with this incredible sense of invincibility pumping through their veins.
I’d thought that Clarent would be tired of blood by now… but I’d underestimated its desperation. Its will overpowered me; my arm moved without thought, slashing Wraithwood viciously across the face.
Wraithwood let out a rasping cry. His blood seemed blacker than it should have been, as it hissed and steamed away from the sword. His weight rolled away from me abruptly as he staggered back to his feet, backpedalling from the vengeful blade.
I took a step closer, lifting Clarent towards him. In that moment, with Seelie aether flooding me and Wraithwood cringing back, I was quite frankly out of my mind. I didn’t feel like a guttersnipe pickpocket from Morgause, or a deeply chastised child soldier. I was Jack Blue, come alive from the pages of Mary’s most over-the-top adventure novels. I was a swashbuckling hero, here to seal Wraithwood’s doom, once and for all. I was—
—entirely incapable of wielding a silver sword, I’m sad to say.
Clarent wobbled unsteadily in my hand, spitting out awkward flares of Seelie aether. My eyes widened as I flailed internally, trying to stabilise the brief miracle of will that had allowed me to steal the sword in the first place.
I was not, however, any sort of aethermancer. I wasn’t even an engineer, like Aesir or Mr Finch. Whatever I was doing, it was very wrong—perhaps even counterproductive. I felt Clarent flail along with me, like a man being dragged to the ground by his drunken companion.
The silver sword disappeared again with a tiny, anticlimactic fizzle of aether.
Wraithwood’s bloody eyes bored into me as I stood there in front of him, gently gaping at my empty hand.
“I’m going to tear that sword from your corpse,” he informed me raggedly. He raised his gloved hand, drawing fresh strands of midnight from the air.
This time, the black strings frayed oddly. The towering black machine behind him gave a loud, unpleasant rattle… and then, it flickered and died, taking those ebon strands with it.
Mr Finch’s giddy, incredulous laughter rang out across the plaza. No longer tethered to the dying prototype machine, my chief engineer had sneaked away to the other machine—which was, I now suspected, missing some very crucial parts.
Miss Hawkins staggered up beside me. Finally back on her feet, she seemed far prouder than Wraithwood in posture, though perhaps only an inch less exhausted. “You’ll have to go through me,” she told him quietly. “And you’ll have to do it without your army.”
Wraithwood dropped his gloved hand with a laugh. It was a wet, sickening sound that soon turned into a cough. “Clarent won’t save you this time, Jane,” he told her. “And neither will Galatine.”
I was far more surprised to discover Aesir on my righthand side, tall and pale and trembling. The silver sword he’d borrowed was still nowhere to be seen—but at this particular comment, he hardened his jaw. “Ah think ye’d be surprised,” he told Wraithwood.
Whatever Seelie aether Aesir had first used in order to summon Galatine, it was clearly spent—but I’d forgotten that Aesir still had one more source available to him. He yanked back the sleeve of his flight suit to reveal his prosthetic right arm; his fingers tore at a valve there, releasing a spray of prismatic aether into the air. The scintillating mist flashed with white-hot light as Aesir drew forth shining Galatine with his flesh-and-blood arm, letting his mechanical hand go limp.
I didn’t have any Seelie aether on me—but that didn’t stop me from trying to draw Clarent again. I scowled at my right hand, shaking it fiercely. Predictably, no legendary sword appeared. “Rust it,” I muttered. “I think mine’s broken.”
“Get behind me, Blair,” Aesir said bluntly. “It’s awright. Ye’ve caused enough trouble fer ten awready.”
I glanced around the plaza, taking in the fresh wreckage and twitching rubble that had once been several tatterdemalions. Battle cries still rang out beyond us, where Coalition echoes had clashed with Imperial troops in earnest. “I think I could have done better,” I muttered, as I inched my way behind Aesir.
Wraithwood snatched a thick iron cylinder from his belt, slamming it into a device at his wrist. Aether hissed, and bruised light began to burn within the focus. He flicked his hand, splitting the night with a barbed tongue of blood that only vaguely resembled the shining aether-whip he’d used in Morgause.
I hadn’t known that you could cram Unseelie aether into a device made for Seelie aether. In fact, I greatly suspected that it was a terrible idea. But Wraithwood had clearly stopped caring about terrible ideas around the time the first half of his face had melted off, and then kept going regardless.
In at least some respects, I suppose, Miss Hawkins hadn’t fallen far from the tree. Only an instant after registering what Wraithwood intended to do, she’d reached for one of her own vials of Unseelie aether, pressing it swiftly against her gauntlet. A gentle click-hiss informed me that she had copied Wraithwood’s gambit, infusing her shield focus with the blasphemous stuff.
Wraithwood lashed out at Hawkins with that hideous aetheric whip. It cut the air with an unnerving screech that vibrated deep in the roots of my teeth.
Miss Hawkins lifted her gauntlet in reply. Already, it had started bleeding reddish-black aether at the edges; but now, as it flared with will, a midnight aegis welled forth like blood from a wound, seething into the space between them. Wraithwood’s unholy whip cracked harshly against that shield, sending up another painful, unearthly shriek as power met power.
Hawkins heaved the whip aside with her shield. Aesir followed up on the moment, lunging forward with Galatine. Wraithwood stepped back quickly, ceding ground to the two of them as they pressed him. His red whip cracked again—but this time, as Galatine swatted it away, the unholy weapon guttered and died.
This particular development stunned Wraithwood back by several more paces. His focus flared again, reforming the whip, as Aesir laughed with revelation.
“What’d tha Seelie craft these swords tae fight, Wraithwood?” he called out. “Ye’ve been killin’ mortals fer so long, seems ye finally forgot!”
Wraithwood reached swiftly for another iron canister at his belt. Aesir raised the sword before him expectantly—but Wraithwood crouched instead, slamming the canister into the back of his boot. Belatedly, it dawned on me that he was preparing to flee.
He never had the chance.
A distant crack rang out from the clock-tower, echoing across the plaza. Wraithwood’s head snapped violently to the side, and an ugly spray of blood flashed into the air. The man in front of us toppled into a boneless, bleeding heap.
This time, Wraithwood did not rise again.