Tiana did not speak to Aveline again until a full four and a half days after her meltdown. Time had never passed so sluggishly for Aveline or been filled with such a lack of activity, and she found herself eating constantly as a means of staying occupied.
If the Hanover girl had it in her to be spiteful or vengeful, Aveline would have chalked up her silence to passive aggressive attempt to punish her for the mirror incident. But Tiana was neither of those, and Aveline heard her cry too often during the days of silence to assign malice to her actions.
Tiana was devastated, and nothing Aveline said helped the distraught girl recover.
Aveline downed the last bite of a berry filled pastry that had become her favorite since she discovered them in the kitchens. She grimaced, about to remark aloud how boredom would drive her into obesity or insanity by spring, when Tiana spoke at last.
“I had a dream about you last night,” she murmured.
Finally. Aveline looked down from the ceiling she had been staring at. Her back was to the wall beneath the window, which gave her the ability to see most of the room, except for the depths of the closet and bathroom. With her weapons cleaned, and her daily exercises finished, she had been trying to determine how to spend the unbearably long hours stretching between lunch and dinner.
“A dream or one of your visions?” Aveline asked warily. She dared not mention the mirror incident for fear of driving Tiana to tears or back into her closet. She was anxious to move on from the unexpectedly horrible attempt to help Tiana feel more confident about herself.
“Some dreams I know to be dreams, and some visions I am certain are of the future. But often, there is a vision or dream too disconnected from what I know of the world for me to determine which it is.” Tiana shrugged. Her eyes were on the veil she was embroidering. She had not smiled since the mirror incident, either, and had barely eaten. “I saw you but did not understand the circumstances.”
“What happened?”
“You were outside the city with two men I have never seen before. They were … are or will be … it can be confusing.” Tiana sighed. “Friends. They are your friends.”
“What were we doing?” Aveline asked, intrigued.
“You were agitated and worried. I think you were looking for me.”
“You weren’t there?”
“Your necklace was dark.”
Aveline touched the timepiece dangling from her neck. Tiana’s was bright, given their proximity.
“One of them was named Rocky,” Tiana added. “You never spoke the other’s name.”
Aveline dropped the pendant, gazing at Tiana in uneasy surprise. Witnessing the furniture lifting off the floor at random times was less unnerving than Tiana’s even stranger ability to glimpse the future.
Rocky’s alive. At least, in this version of Tiana’s vision. Aveline almost sighed at the revelation she did not end up causing her friend’s death. Unwilling to discuss Rocky, who was trapped in prison, pending Tiana’s murder, Aveline searched her mind for a series of events that would allow Rocky and Tiana both to live. When she came up with no such scenario, she focused again on Tiana. “What else?”
“There was not much to it.”
“What about details? Was it light or dark? Were we dressed for winter or spring?”
Tiana paused in her sewing, pensive. “It was dark and cold but not winter. There was no snow on the ground but I could see your breath.”
“Just three of us?”
“That I saw, yes.”
Aveline tapped her fingers against her kneecap absently, thoughtful.
“I have seen this Rocky person before,” Tiana said. “If you know him, then perhaps the other dreams are real, too.”
“What other dreams?”
Tiana began embroidering once more. “I see him when he visits. He has come here daily for the past four days. Maybe he searches for you.”
“It’s not possible!” Aveline said with more emotion than she intended.
Tiana tensed.
With effort, Aveline quieted her voice. “How can you know this?”
“I know nothing with certainty. But if you know he exists, and I have never seen him before, then is it not possible he may be waiting for you where I see him?”
“It would be sheer madness, if so.”
“How are you so certain he has not come?” Tiana asked, perplexed. “How can you doubt his presence here and yet believe my ability to see fragments of the future?”
For once, Tiana made absolute sense. Aveline snapped her mouth closed. Karl had told her Rocky was in prison, but what if her friend found a way to escape? What if Karl had negotiated his release early? Was it possible she worried about Rocky, when he was completely safe? She did not doubt, if he were released from prison, he would find her.
“Where is he?” Aveline asked, standing.
“In my dream, he waits by the southern entrance and stops every fourth slave who passes him. I cannot hear what he asks them, but each one of them shakes his or her head, and then moves on.”
Before Tiana had finished speaking, Aveline was at the door. She left her ward secure in her room and raced through the Hanover’s apartment, barely able to contain her excitement.
Ten minutes later, she reached the bottom floor of the great pyramid and hurried to the slave entrance she had never had a need to visit. When she reached it, she stopped just inside. The door was propped open, allowing the scents of the city and chill of winter to enter.
Rocky was not there. She waited and paced, venturing out into the cloudy, cold day briefly to observe the immediate area, in case Rocky had chosen to wait outside.
Disappointment sank into her. Rocky was nowhere in sight. Had Tiana’s dream been wrong? If so, how could she know about him at all?
“Aveline.”
She turned at the familiar voice. Jose, the assistant to the madman with the electric trees, stood nearby in his cloak, as if he were leaving for the city. His warm eyes and wide smile mesmerized her before she had a chance to blink.
“I meant to visit,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. “But … duties.”
“I rarely leave. When you wish it, you are welcome to visit,” he replied.
Why did his gentle response leave her cheeks warm? Aveline tore her gaze away from him, not liking how abruptly unaware of her surroundings she became when she saw him. With him standing before her, she could see, hear and smell only him. If an army of Shield soldiers approached, she would not notice them until after they had subdued her.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“My master has had one of his coughing fits. I go to fetch herbal tea to help him,” Jose replied.
“They have tea in the kitchens.”
“He insists upon a tea a single merchant in the entire city sells,” Jose said.
A smile slid free as Aveline recalled the eccentric man in the basement. Mohammed was better off with Jose than with her as an assistant. She would be nowhere near as patient with the madman as Jose appeared to be.
“You are waiting for someone?” he asked, glancing past her.
“No. Just needed some air,” she lied.
An awkward silence fell between them, ripe with tension and self-consciousness she was unaccustomed to.
“I must go,” Jose said and cleared his throat. “My apologies. Nothing would please me more than staying to talk, but if I do not return by dusk, my master will grow even madder with worry.”
Aveline stepped out of his path, wanting to respond without knowing for certain what the right words were. She had seen where Jose worked and lived and yet, realizing he was about to walk away, she experienced the sudden urgency to speak, as if this were the last time they would ever meet.
“I would be … happy to visit tomorrow, if that’s … happy to you.” She mentally kicked herself. Of all the words to choose, why had happy – which she could not recall ever using – escaped her mouth twice?
You’re a fool, Aveline! She yelled at herself.
“That is happy to me.” Jose was grinning.
Mortified, Aveline nodded and spun, walking away quickly. Only when she had turned a corner did she release a deep sigh.
Assassins were dutiful, honorable and skilled – but never happy. What was it about Jose that left her stumbling verbally and fevered? For all she knew, he was an assassin, her competition, or some other sort of degenerate.
Lecturing herself about how dangerous it was to lower her guard around a stranger, however handsome he was, she descended to the basement to walk off the strange tension the run in with Jose caused.
The halls were quiet and cool. Afternoons were generally inactive until dinnertime, and few slaves passed her in the halls. It was as her senses returned to their normal state of awareness that she noticed the brush of cotton on cotton behind her. The faint sound would have been impossible to distinguish in a crowded market or elsewhere in the inner city. But here, in the near silent hall, it was unmistakable.
Someone was following her at a safe distance. The women she had bested on her first day as a slave were not likely to be ready to challenge her again any time soon, but it was always possible they had friends who witnessed the exchange who were.
Aveline navigated the underground maze easily and led whomever followed down a corridor lower and narrower than most, and away from the flow of normal foot traffic, in case she drew blood. The hallway ended in a t-intersection, and she went left, walked four steps and then halted. Pressing her back against the cool wall, she eased a knife free from the small of her back and waited.
Silence. Her stalker had stopped.
“Avi?”
She froze, not expecting the quiet voice.
“I know you’re there.”
Rocky could sense her as well as she could him. She lowered her knife and eased to the corner then peered around. He remained a safe distance way, pending her reaction.
“How … where … Rocky, what’re you doing here?” Uncertain where to start, she put her weapon away and closed the distance between them, slinging her arms around her best friend. Her thoughts raced, a jumbled mix of astonishment that he was alive, incredulity Tiana had really envisioned him, and confusion over how either was possible.
Rocky hugged her. “Looking for you!” he said with his normal humor.
Relief washed over her. He was solid and strong in her arms, a reassurance he was indeed free and safe. Recalling the emotion she experienced when she heard he had been captured, she felt the anxious tension within her unravel without realizing it had been coiled in the pit of her stomach since hearing the news.
She released him and stepped back. Like any good assassin, Rocky was making an attempt to fit in. He wore the clothing of a slave, though the pants legs were too short on his tall frame and the sleeves of his shirt did not quite reach his wrists. He wore a sash, twisted in a way no real slave would wear it. Still, his attempt at dressing like a slave had granted him access to the pyramid.
“We have an agreement. We’ll always find one another,” he said firmly, though his eyes were warm. “When I heard you were here, I didn’t believe it!”
“When did Karl get you out? Did he send you?” she asked.
“Karl?”
Movement came from down the hall as a slave passed through an intersection.
Avi glanced past Rocky before taking his arm and tugging him down the vacant hallway where she had been waiting to ambush her stalker. “Yes, Karl! He sent me here on my first mission,” she explained as they rounded the corner.
“Karl.” This time, coolness was in Rocky’s tone.
She faced him, searching his features quizzically. “You say his name as if you have never heard of him before. I assume he got you out at some point the past two weeks? Or did he send someone else?”
“Out of where?”
“Of prison. Where you were sitting because the Shield caught you that night instead of me!” she exclaimed with a small laugh. “What is with you, Rocky?”
Rocky was frowning.
Aveline amusement faded. “What’s wrong?”
“I wasn’t in prison,” Rocky replied. “After we got separated, I went to our rendezvous point, but you never showed.”
She blinked, uncertain how to respond.
“It took me a week to find out where you were,” he added.
“Why would Karl claim you were in prison?” she asked. “Did he at least tell you where to find me?”
“Avi, Karl left the Guild the day after your father was killed. He’s working for the Trench,” Rocky said, referring to the Guild’s competition. “He told the Guild you were dead. They held a ceremony for you and your father.”
She was silent, stunned.
“I never would’ve known you were alive, or here, if some irate apothecary hadn’t shown up at Guild Main demanding payment for medicines he claimed had been stolen from him by the Devil’s daughter. No one else listened to him, but what he said sounded too much like you for me to ignore.”
Rocky’s words were moving at the speed of sludge through her mind. If any other person stood before her, she would never believe any of what was said.
“You’re saying Karl lied about what happened to me to you and lied about you to me,” she stated.
“It seems that way.”
“Why?”
Rocky shrugged. “Rumor has it he was paid off by someone. You say he hired you for a mission?”
She nodded.
“Against Guild rules?”
She nodded again.
“And that didn’t bother you?”
“He said he’d get you out of prison if I did it, and he’d sponsor me to become a full assassin,” she whispered. The reality of what Karl had done began to register. She had silently questioned why he was working outside of Guild practices but never suspected he was deceiving her about his intention to help her or flat out lying about Rocky being in trouble.
Dread sank into her stomach, along with hurt. “There must be an explanation. What reason would he have to lie to me?” she mused aloud.
“Maybe he heard the Guild wasn’t going to appoint him the leader, as he hoped. You know people’s motivations can be complex.”
“Karl helped my father raise me. He’s family! If this is true, then he betrayed everything my father stood for, everything I thought he stood for! He would never leave the Guild if my father lived!”
“Burn me, Avi. I don’t know why it all happened, only that it did happen,” Rocky replied. “I was never in the Shield prison or in any danger at all, and the entire Guild was stunned when he left.”
Rocky’s presence was too damning for her to deny Karl’s actions had been undertaken with no good intentions towards her. But what was he doing? Why? If his promises to aid her were false, had he been truthful about hiring her because of her demon cursed blood? About wanting Tiana dead? He had known too much about who Aveline was hired to protect for it to be coincidence.
“Karl is a smart man. He knows your weaknesses,” Rocky said. “He probably knew I’d try to find you, if he didn’t lie about you being dead.”
She warred with herself for a moment, wondering who she should trust: Rocky or Karl. When she met Rocky’s gaze again, she knew the answer. Karl had been her father’s advisor – but she knew little about him aside from how close they were and how well he treated her, until her father’s death. In comparison, she understood the depths of Rocky’s loyalty from years of experience.
She would never doubt Rocky.
“I’m glad you’re well, Rocky,” she managed.
“What reason would Karl have to send you here?” he asked, motioning to the pyramid above the basement.
She did not answer. Of all the emotions Aveline thought she would experience upon learning Karl might have betrayed her, sorrow was an unwelcome surprise. It ran deeper than fury. Even the devil in her blood was subdued. On the night she lost her father, she had lost Karl as well without knowing it.
The longer the quiet stretched, the more she thought about the assignment Karl had given her. She hated the relief trickling through her sorrow, as if some part of her – an instinct she had not wanted to acknowledge – had never wanted to hurt Tiana in the first place.
“Avi?” Rocky’s soft voice drew her gaze to his face. “I know Karl was close to your family. We can find him together.”
“No,” she said and then shook her head. “I mean, yes, I want to find him, but Rocky …” Uncomfortable with expressing emotion, she drifted off.
“It’s Karl,” he finished for her. “And you just lost your father. You don’t want him dead, even if he has betrayed you.”
She nodded, grateful Rocky understood without her explaining it. “I want to talk to him before we do anything else.”
Rocky studied her. “It’ll be dangerous to approach him.”
“He’s supposed to contact me in two days,” she replied. “I’ll request a meeting in person.”
“Somewhere in the open where I can observe from the shadows.”
“I won’t go without you,” she agreed. “I trained with him as well. It would take both of us, if it comes to that.” I hope this is a huge misunderstanding. The longer she considered what Karl had done, though, the less she believed it possible he had done this for a reason other than to serve his own needs, whatever those were.
“It is good to see you, Avi. I feared you were dead for a week,” Rocky said. “I never felt so alone.”
Aveline forced herself out of her mind and smiled at her friend. The pain of losing her father remained fresh, and she did not want to know how it would have felt to lose Rocky as well. Orphaned at an early age, he had been mentored by her father and loved by her as a brother from the day they met. His suffering, too, was of Karl’s devising, and Aveline shifted further away from her denial of what Karl had done when she imagined her best friend feeling the pain she did.
“I’m alive, Rocky,” she said. “We’ll figure this out together. I want to talk to Karl, to hear the truth from his mouth. If justice is needed, we will burn him.”
“So no Guild until after we meet with him.”
“I think that’s best. Don’t tell them I’m alive. Maybe bringing in Karl will be enough to win over a new sponsor and make up for taking on an assignment prior to becoming a real assassin,” she said.
“If Karl hired you under the guise of sponsoring you, the Guild’s council won’t hold you responsible.”
“I was hired by someone else,” she replied. “I took the position here before Karl assigned me a mission.”
Rocky’s eyebrows went up.
“I’d be in trouble either way,” she said. “I can’t explain this all now but I promise I will soon.”
“You have more allies than you think you do. Come with me to the Guild after we confront Karl. We can explain everything.”
“Let me make this right or … as right as I can,” she replied, thoughts on her father’s spirit watching her from the sky. Her gut instinct about Karl’s request had been right, and she ignored it. Her father would not be pleased with her for this or for accepting a position guarding Tiana before Aveline was an official assassin. “I broke two rules. I wouldn’t feel right asking the Guild to sponsor me, knowing I’ve disappointed my father.”
Would her father want her to leave Tiana and return to the Guild or stay and carry out her duty? Aveline had taken an oath to protect the girl, but she had done so before becoming an assassin. The thought of abandoning Tiana, even if she were coerced into accepting the assignment, did not sit well with Aveline. At the very least, she wanted to ensure Matilda was no longer a threat.
She recalled her father’s lecture about fulfilling one’s vows, no matter what the circumstances, and waffled with her decision before coming to a conclusion. She should not have accepted this assignment, but she did. She was therefore obligated by her promise to Arthur.
“Is this electricity magic?” Rocky asked, eyes on the bulb overhead.
Aveline snorted. “Yes. I cannot be gone long from my post. Do you have time to go somewhere with me quickly?”
He nodded.
Reeling from all she had learned, she could think of nothing but grabbing a snack. Aveline led him through the hallways to the kitchens, which were always occupied and bustling. As soon as one meal was over, the staff began clean up and preparing for the next. The constant activity meant no one noticed two additional slaves as they slipped in to snag some of the pastries cooling on a wooden table.
Aveline loaded up a sack with them and led Rocky out of the kitchens and back towards the southern entrance. When they reached the door, she handed him the bag.
“Will you come back tomorrow afternoon?” she asked.
“Without a doubt,” he replied and accepted the treats. “You are safe here? You have weapons?”
“I do,” she confirmed. “I’m safe and overfed.” She patted her belly.
Rocky nodded in approval. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” He turned away and began walking.
“Rocky,” she called.
He faced her again.
“Thank you,” she said with emotion. “For coming to find me. For not giving up on me.”
“It’s just us now. We have to take care of each other,” he replied. With another quick smile, he left.
She watched him, too preoccupied by all she had learned to know where to start. The idea Karl had turned against her, against the Guild, was nearly too wild for her to accept. A small part of her continued to deny it, while her instincts whispered everything Rocky said and believed to be true were supported by Karl’s discussion with her.
Realizing she was standing near the door, staring dumbly outside, Aveline retreated to the elevator and returned to the Hanover’s apartment. She did not want Tiana to suspect she was distressed – or discover anything if she read Aveline’s mind. Aveline went in circles mentally, trying to understand Karl’s betrayal so soon after her father’s death.
Unable to sort through her tangled thoughts and feelings, she finally ceased pacing through the quiet apartment and went to Tiana’s door.
It was cracked open.
Aveline’s guard went up, and she paused to listen. The sound of someone beating on the closet door was muffled. Aveline pushed the door open silently.
What is this? She thought, startled by the sight before her.
Matilda was pounding her fists against the closet door hard enough that her hands were bloodied. Her eyes were wild and bloodshot, her nose red, and her hair mussed. She appeared possessed as she smashed the door over and over, impervious to pain.
Aveline closed the door to Tiana’s room behind her, assessing the situation. Matilda had been quiet and absent the past few days, since Aveline returned from the apothecary. Ghoul’s Fancy, the drug she had mixed in with Matilda’s normal powders, was supposed to elevate moods to the point one did not know what was dream and what was reality any more. Aveline had hoped the euphoric high would prevent Matilda from hurting Tiana or trying to poison her again.
Matilda sagged against the closet door, breathing hard. A knife was on the vanity near her, and she picked it up after a brief rest and jammed the blade into the lock on the closet.
What had happened?
The sound of Tiana crying came from the closet, reassuring Aveline that the Hanover girl had used her brain for once instead of wilting when Matilda hurt her.
Aveline opened her mouth to speak before recalling Matilda thought her mute. So she opened the door and slammed it closed, as if she had just entered.
Matilda straightened and faced her, her blue eyes glazed. Her nose was running, and drool leaked from the corner of her mouth. She steadied herself against the wall with one arm outstretched.
She was high or drunk or otherwise not herself, but this was not the effect of Ghoul’s Fancy. What had the apothecary mixed into the drugs, if not what Aveline requested? Anger slid through her. She added him to the list of those she planned on murdering when this assignment with Tiana was over. The apothecary would share the same fate as those running the brothel and butchering children for meat.
Possibly the same fate as Karl.
Aveline was not ready for this thought. She gritted her teeth in response to the pain of betrayal that slid through her and focused on Matilda, who was squinting at her to determine who she was.
“Slave,” Matilda said finally. She pushed herself away from the closet. “Open this door.”
Matilda was too far out of her mind to notice Aveline’s shrug. Was she high enough to forget Aveline was mute?
“I do not have the key,” Aveline ventured.
“What?” Matilda snapped. “Someone must have it!” She careened towards the vanity and began yanking out drawers and dumping them. When she did not find the key, she went to the wardrobe and did the same.
Aveline moved to the closet door and knocked softly. “Tiana? Are you hurt?”
The sniffling stopped. “N… no.”
Matilda kicked clothing with a loud curse. “Where is the key?” she shrieked.
Aveline felt the door give behind her. Tiana peered out, her eyes and nose red from crying. Her face showed Matilda had landed a couple blows before the girl ran to hide in the closet.
“Stay here,” Aveline said. “Hide if she tries to get you again.”
“Come in here with me!” Tiana whispered urgently. “She is utterly mad. She will hurt you!”
“I can take care of myself,” Aveline assured her and moved away.
Tiana protested, and Matilda whirled. She started forward, knife raised.
“Whoa!” Aveline said and moved to intercept her. “You’re not right in the head, Matilda! Stop this now!” She pushed Matilda and gripped her wrist.
“Leave me be, slave!” Matilda hissed and shoved her. “If the freak’s father will not burn her, then I will carve those ghoulish eyes out of her head!” Spittle sprayed Aveline as Matilda spoke.
Up close, Matilda was even less herself than Aveline initially thought. The woman’s gaze was unfocused and her pupils dilated to the point her eyes were almost completely black. The blood vessels in her neck had begun to rupture, creating a network of purple webbing. The veins in her arms, neck and face were bulging.
“Let’s be calm about this,” Aveline said quietly, uncertain how to talk sense into Matilda, whose eyes were trained on Tiana. “You are ill, Matilda. If you don’t seek out your physician, you will suffer more than you already are.”
The hair on the back of Aveline’s neck rose, but it was not from the crazed woman she was trying to subdue. The armoire was floating, along with all the belongings Matilda had dumped onto the floor. Tiana was too upset to control her strange ability.
Matilda looked at Aveline, away, then back. Her mouth fell open, and surprise registered across her features.
“You are not mute!” she exclaimed, squinting at Aveline. “George claimed you had no tongue!” Her arm dropped, and confusion replaced surprise. “Why does my head hurt so?” She clutched her temple with one hand.
“I don’t know, but let me help you. We can go get help now,” Aveline said and shifted closer.
“But you have no tongue. How can you speak?” Matilda asked.
“Matilda, please. You are not well,” Tiana pleaded softly, drawing near.
Aveline waved her back.
“Those eyes.” Matilda was staring at Tiana again. “You deformed, crippled, sick demon! I will cut them out and then your tongue, slave, before I burn you both!” She launched at Tiana.
Aveline blocked her again with her body and was driven back by the force of Matilda’s charge. The woman raked nails down Aveline’s face and plunged the knife towards her mouth. One leg buckled as it hit the vanity, and Aveline careened dangerously, struggling to avoid Matilda’s knife and catch her balance. She knocked into Tiana, who had emerged from the closet. The Hanover girl was sent sprawling into the middle of the room.
Matilda wrenched her arm free and stumbled away, towards Tiana. Aveline hit the ground and launched back up, diving between stepmother and stepdaughter as Matilda’s knife hand plunged downwards toward a helpless Tiana. Aveline calculated the angle of the blade as she moved. With luck, she would take a hit to the shoulder, maybe her upper back. It would anger her without disabling her, so she could disarm Matilda and throw the insane woman out.
What happened next was not an event Aveline would ever be able to describe to anyone else.
Tiana screamed, and the world rippled as an invisible shockwave tore through everyone and everything around them. Aveline’s breath was knocked from her body, and one ear popped painfully then began to ring. She was flung across the room and slammed into the door. Lights exploded behind her eyelids, and she fell to the floor.
The ringing and sharp pain of her ear prevented her from sinking into unconsciousness. The back of her head pulsed from where it had hit the wooden door, and Aveline sought to pull herself out of the in-between state. Urgency was at the edge of her mind, agitated by the sensation of being caught in a cobweb of currents.
A new sound, that of someone banging on the door to Tiana’s room, helped ground her.
Aveline’s eyes fluttered open. Vertigo swept through her, caused by the damage to her ear. Her stomach roiled, and she clutched at the floor to try to steady herself. Sitting up, she touched the blood trickling from her hurt ear and struggled to make out what had happened through the sensation of the world spinning around her.
“This is the Shield! We order you to allow …” The shout was accompanied by more banging on the door.
Tiana was hunched over in a pool of blood, clutching a knife, rocking and mumbling. Matilda’s body sprawled out beside her, still.
Alarm and concern prevented Aveline from letting the vertigo drive her to the floor. She staggered up, tripped, and lurched to her feet once more. She dropped to her knees beside Tiana, unable to see clearly what the Hanover girl was doing until she was within arm’s reach.
“ … bleed the evil out. I have to bleed the evil out. I …” Tiana was saying over and over.
The sensation of twirling and spinning began to subside. Her senses were delayed but working, though her brain remained sluggish after the blow to her head. Aveline began to catch up with her surroundings and specifically, with the girl before her.
Rocking back and forth, Tiana’s arms and legs were bloodied, her gown soaked with red. She was cutting herself as she mumbled and had shredded one forearm and both her thighs.
“Stop.” Aveline snatched Tiana’s wrist.
“ … have to bleed …” Tiana pulled away.
Aveline snatched her arms and shook her. “Stop, Tiana!”
Tiana’s ghoulish, black eyes were unfocused as she stared at Aveline. “Aveline,” her voice trembled. “You live.”
Aveline lifted her face as Tiana stretched out a bloody palm to her. “I do.” Before she could ask what had happened, her gaze fell again to Matilda’s body.
Aveline released Tiana with one hand and stood up on her knees, shuffling closer. She reached out to Tiana’s stepmother and then froze, her hand halfway to the still body.
Where was Matilda’s head?
Tiana was breathing hard and quick. She clutched Aveline’s arm. “Forgive me,” she whispered, panicked. “I feared she would hurt you … I lost control … please forgive me! I did not mean for this to happen!”
You did this? Aveline stared in disbelief. Matilda’s head was nowhere to be seen. Too much blood formed puddles on the floor to be from Tiana’s self-afflicted wounds alone. The ringing in Aveline’s ear became louder, along with the shouting from beyond the door. The sound of an axe splintering wood jarred her. She shook her head, grappling with her own weakened state.
“You have to hide!” Tiana told her urgently.
Aveline shifted back and sat before her.
“He will burn you!”
“Tiana –”
“Quickly! If they see you here, they will murder you!”
Aveline glanced down. Covered in the blood of the two most powerful women in the city, holding Tiana’s knife, and seated beside Matilda’s headless body, even dazed Aveline understood being discovered in such a state by the Shield did not bode well for her.
Tiana sagged.
Aveline caught her. “You’re hurt.”
“Bleed the evil out,” Tiana said again, her voice growing weak, distant. “I thought I had killed you. Forgive me, Aveline.”
“Stop it!” Aveline snapped, irritated. “It isn’t possible for me to hide. I won’t dive out the window, and you need me here to help you.”
Tiana’s eyes fluttered closed. “Behind the tapestry.”
“What?”
“Go behind the tapestry.”
The door began to buckle. Aveline lifted her head too fast, and the room began to spin again. What was wrong with her? Why did she feel as if she had been caught beneath the hooves of a stampede of horses?
“Please, Aveline. They will not hurt me. I am a Hanover. But you are my only friend. I cannot lose you.” Tiana was fading. Blood loss and shock were too much for her, and her eyes closed as she fell unconscious.
Aveline hesitated, hating the thought of leaving Tiana in the middle of this disaster.
An axe made it through the door, which meant the Shield soldiers would soon follow.
Aveline debated but then stood. If she were thrown in prison now, she would never know who else threatened Tiana or be able to help. She had to make this right, which started with fulfilling her duty to the Hanover girl.
Besides, if the Shield discovered Tiana’s eyes, someone would need to be able to rescue her, if her father decided to burn her.
Setting Tiana down gently on the floor, Aveline leapt to her feet and was hit by a wave of dizziness. She staggered to the closet and inside. Blinded by the spinning sensation, she stretched out her hands to catch herself against the wall. Her palm went through the wall. She tumbled helplessly forward, through the tapestry and into the dark, hollowed out space behind it.
Aveline landed in a heap and gripped her head. At the sounds of the Shield soldiers smashing through the door, she stilled her breathing and sat up, afraid they would find her. From the footsteps, she counted three of them.
Silence followed, and she inched close to the tapestry to hear.
“This is her,” the voice was hushed.
At first confused, Aveline recalled that no one but her had ever seen Tiana. She silently cursed the soldiers for stopping to stare at the elusive Hanover daughter instead of rushing to help her.
As if hearing her thought, one of the Shield members stomped across the floor towards Tiana. Another began belting commands. The sound of sheets tearing was accompanied by a soft-spoken order to lift Tiana carefully.
Only when she was convinced the Shield members were acting to help Tiana did Aveline ease back from the tapestry. She shifted into a more comfortable position and stretched back with one arm, expecting to find a wall close behind her.
Her fingertips grazed nothing. The light from the closet, diluted by the tapestry, lit her immediate surroundings. She twisted to peer into the darkness and began to realize the hiding place was not completely dark. Ten feet away, a similar patch of faded light was present and another fifteen feet after that, a second. She could not gauge how far the tunnel went.
Aveline climbed to her feet slowly to prevent the vertigo from returning. She tested her body and frowned. The strange shockwave had hit her hard. She was fatigued, worn, her muscles shaky and skin crawling from Tiana’s magic. Her left ear continued to ring faintly, and she could barely hear out of it.
Stretching her legs, Aveline began to walk towards the first patch of light down the darkened tunnel. She braced herself against one wall as she moved, afraid of collapsing and alerting the Shield soldiers to her presence.
She reached the lit area. Aveline started to lift the covering hiding the tunnel entrance from those on the other side before she noticed light piercing a peephole. She went to it and leaned against the wall, peering into the adjacent chamber.
She recognized the gilded chamber immediately as Matilda’s. Her eyes fell to the still form of a slave in the middle of the floor. Blood darkened the carpet beneath the slave’s head. One of the gold candlesticks Aveline had admired lay beside the woman’s head, the heavy base bloodied. It was the same slave she had seen beaten by Matilda before.
I’m definitely going after the apothecary first, she vowed. The drug he had mixed in pushed Matilda over the edge, and now, two people were dead. Aveline had wanted the threat to Tiana to disappear – discreetly. There would be no hiding two murders in the Hanover household.
Her demon’s blood stirred with her flash of anger. Another wave of dizziness swept through her. Aveline sagged and lowered herself to the ground. The world was growing dark and fuzzy around the edges, her muscles starting to give out.
Please forgive me … you are my only friend. I cannot lose you. Tiana’s desperate words rang in Aveline’s mind louder than her damaged ear, along with the Hanover daughter’s previous assertion her father meant to murder her soon.
Until that moment, Aveline had only known one other person who would kill to protect her, and that was Rocky. Tiana did not think herself worth saving, but she had taken a life in order to help someone she cared about.
“She’s madder than I first thought,” Aveline murmured.
What would happen to Tiana, once her father found out what had happened?
Aveline’s last flicker of urgency died, replaced by the overwhelming need to sleep. Any sense of protectiveness she should have possessed about her ward crumbled beneath the oppression of looming unconsciousness.
Aveline rested her head on the cool floor and closed her eyes. As she slid into unconsciousness, she saw the map Tiana had created of the Free Lands in her mind’s eye. Tiana would not live past two days outside the city or a few weeks in her room. Was it possible to protect the Hanover girl, or was she simply doomed?
Lost Vegas Novellas
Aveline (September 2016)
Tiana (October 2016)
Arthur (November 2016)
Black Wolf (December 2016)