Chapter 17

An explosion of shattering glass rained down inside the manor house, shrill enough to be heard through the heavy layers of stone. Laughter rose like wind, the hooting and whooping drowning out even the terrified screams. At the wild drumbeat of horse hooves, I bit the inside of my mouth hard enough to taste blood.

I gripped Emrys's arm, drawing his focus back to me. "You said there was a way out of here?"

"I don't know where it is—" He spun around, searching. "It opens to the Avon River—where they used to bring the relics in—the river's east of here—"

"Where's east?" I asked.

Caitriona pivoted, trying to orient herself. "I think … that way?"

I saw only a bare stone wall.

"Perhaps this is a forest after all," the hag sneered. "What will you do, little fox?"

"You, be quiet," Neve said, throwing the fabric cover over the mirror again.

And in the merciful stretch of silence that followed, the elevator dinged.

A moment later, before I could even think to move, three shadowed figures burst into the warehouse, their chests heaving, reeking of blood and sweat .

"Oh gods," one was chanting, his body shaking, "gods—"

Their tuxedos hung from them in tatters, the once-white shirts splattered with enough gore to make me gag.

"Hey!" Emrys barked at them. "Where's the—"

When they turned to us, it was as if that last veneer of humanity had been ripped away from them and what was left in their haunted eyes spoke to their most basic, primal instinct. Survive. And through the dark veil of pain and terror that had them in its grip, they reacted like the wounded animals they were.

One had a work axe in his hand, and I watched in slow horror as he threw it directly at Caitriona's head. As she leaned back, dodging it, he limped forward with a ferocious scream. "You won't take me!"

"We're not hunters!" Olwen cried. One of the men lowered his head and charged toward her with death in his eyes. She threw out a hand with a sharp grunt, and the blunt force of wind knocked the man back into the nearest case. The glass fractured as he struck it, shards slicing into him as he slumped to the ground.

I leapt back as the third man tried to swipe the jagged stone across my chest like a dagger, spit flying as he screamed at me—just screamed, as if he could breathe his desperate rage into my body and infect me with it. I backed away, bumping into one of the worktables, feeling across it for something to protect myself with.

Emrys appeared behind him, a vase in his hand, and smashed it into the man's skull. The man's scream died with a whimper as he collapsed, the whites of his eyes flashing as he sank into unconsciousness. I stared at Emrys, my lungs working like bellows, and he stared back, his eyes lit with fear.

"You—" I began. A clatter rose from down the hall—the sound of hooves against stone.

I swung my gaze toward Caitriona as she caught her attacker around the neck and held him in the crook of her arm.

"Where is the hidden escape path?" she demanded. "Where? "

The sound of horse hooves thundered in my ears, rattling the ceiling, shaking the furniture in the room like a cup of dice.

It didn't matter what the man told us. We were out of time. Caitriona caught my eye, understanding even before I did. She released him and he fled to the far end of the room, disappearing into the shadows. He moaned, frantically running along the walls as he searched for a doorway that never appeared.

I barely had time to get the word out. "Hide!"

We scattered to the four corners of the room, Olwen and Caitriona running for stacks of empty crates, Neve for the small fleet of covered antique cars. But Emrys was gone. The warehouse shrouded itself in shadows around me, my heart pounding so hard it was painful.

"Run, little fox!" the hag sang out, her voice barely muffled by the thick velvet thrown over the frame. "Wherever shall you hide from the hunters?"

Adrenaline gave me the last burst of speed I needed to reach a baroque armoire painted with scenes of fairies.

All the modern cabinets around me would be locked or be storing something. But this—this was open. The lower half was filled with drawers, but I could dislodge the upper shelf and climb up into it, curling my legs in tight to my chest.

I had only just got the doors shut when one flung open again.

"Seriously?" I whispered.

Emrys's pale face hovered in front of mine, just as shocked to see me. But there was no choice; at the sound of approaching voices, I gripped his wrist and hauled him up beside me, narrowly avoiding being kneed in the face as his long limbs tangled with mine. The wood groaned beneath our combined weight.

But the old wood somehow held.

"This feels familiar," he breathed out. I elbowed him a bit harder than I'd meant to trying to shut the doors again, but with both of us inside where no human was meant to be, there was no way to completely close them. We had a clear line of sight to the entrance as the first of the hunters arrived.

"No," the last man moaned, sinking onto his knees. "Please—please—I have a family—I can pay you—"

I held my breath, suddenly terrified that the slightest rustle of fabric would alert them to our presence. The bracelet on my wrist pressed into my skin, and I forced myself to concentrate on that, not on worrying about whether or not the others had found a safe enough place to hide.

A hunter stepped forward. The sunken, sinewy planes of his face made it impossible to tell who he was, but the moment he spoke, it was like I'd been caught in a net of stinging holly.

"Looks like we've caught ourselves some little mice who scurried off before the fun was over," he sneered.

I bit my lip, heart sinking.

That was Phineas Primm, one of the Hollowers from our guild. I'd recognize the old man's smarmy, nasal tone anywhere.

Emrys lifted his head, meeting my gaze in alarm.

I squeezed my eyes shut at the sound of the man's final screams, the wet rending of flesh as the hunters fell upon the other men we'd left there, unconscious. My stomach turned violently, horror and guilt flooding my veins.

I tried to focus my thoughts on the past, filtering back through my memories to find that night in the library. Primm, Septimus, and Hector had dogged my every move, keeping a close watch on the books I'd retrieved as I was trying to puzzle through the mystery of the Servant's Prize. Septimus had been wearing the pin of the silver hand holding the branch—had the others?

Yes. Yes, they had.

It couldn't be a coincidence. They were all connected to Endymion Dye in some way, even Wyrm and the Hollowers of his guild. The pin was more than a mark of belonging, it was a vow of allegiance.

More and more of the hunters poured into the warehouse behind Primm—a dozen, if not more, their spectral glow a sickening shade of poison green. If they searched the warehouse …

Emrys's hands came up to gently grip either side of my face, turning it away from the carnage and toward him. His own expression was calm, but I could feel a slight tremor in his fingers.

"Help!" came the hag's voice, as sweet and crisp as it had been when we'd first arrived, when she'd pretended to be Elaine. "Help me, please!"

"Ignore whatever the beast says." Endymion's clipped voice shredded the last of my nerves. "The hag will say whatever she must to convince you to release her."

"He lies," the hag moaned. "My name is Elaine. The Sorceress Lav—ah—the Sorceress Honora imprisoned me for daring to love the man she set her heart on—"

Well. Let it never be said you couldn't teach an ancient hag a new trick—or a new story.

"Start with the cabinets on the far end and work your way toward the center," Endymion ordered. "Tear the place apart if you have to, but make quick work of it."

This time, I was the one holding Emrys's face still, forcing him to look at me, not the twisted remnant of his father's soul.

I'd never seen his eyes like that before, his pupils dilated so that the green and gray were barely visible. I pressed my fingers against his cold, clammy skin. Even in the darkness of the armoire, his pulse was visibly fluttering at the base of his throat.

I started at the chorus of smashing glass and cackling glee. Alarms squealed, each screech like a knife in the ears. The flaring of fire, of cracking and splitting stone—one of the hunter's screams turned to bloodcurdling laughter from the others.

"A curse's not going to hit the same if you have no bones to break," Primm sneered.

They've set off the protective wards, I thought, wincing again as something crashed to the floor .

Emrys bent his head, letting it rest against our knees, his breath shuddering. The way his dark hair curled against the nape of his scarred neck, the vulnerability of his posture, made my whole chest ache.

"Why did he think it'd be down here?" one of the hunters asked. "Did he get a feeling or something? Or did Wyrm claim to have trapped it for him?"

"If he wanted you to know, he would have told you," Endymion snapped.

My body went rigid. He was close. Somehow, despite his being incorporeal, I could have sworn I heard the clip of his boots against the stone floor. A cloth whoosh ed as it was tugged free of something.

My head came to rest against Emrys's. I closed my eyes, breathing in the comforting scent of him—greenery and traces of fire smoke.

Please don't let them find the others, I begged. Please just go—

"Let me out, please!" the hag cried. "I do not deserve to be punished in such a way!"

"Do they really listen to this racket every time they're down here?" one of the hunters asked. "How do they shut her up?"

"I'll do whatever you want—I'll tell you whatever it is you want to know," the hag tried. "Perhaps you'd like to find some special sword to slay your enemies?"

"Oh, damn me, the Helm of Awe?" one of them said. "I'm taking it."

"Then I'm taking Chrysaor—I spent years of my bloody life looking for this blasted sword, and they've had it all along," said another.

The Hollowers did what Hollowers did best. The scavenging turned feral, the smashing and plundering frenzied. Death had only unleashed their darkest instincts.

"I'll tell you about the others hiding down here!" the hag cried. "I'll let you feast on their flesh instead!"

My blood turned into ice. Emrys's fingers tightened around my wrist .

"Keep searching," Endymion barked out. "Leave nothing of value behind!"

"There are—there were four girl whelps, and a boy," the hag continued. "His name was—it was Emrys!"

I lifted my head, and that slight movement, that shift in weight, sealed our fates. The armoire creaked loudly in the heavy silence, and my heart stopped dead in my chest.

A heavy, oppressive feeling of malice neared, turning the air noxious. I stared out through the cracked opening between the doors, too scared to even draw in a breath.

"What did you say?" Endymion asked, his voice hushed.

Emrys's breathing grew shallow, as if recognizing something in the tone. He released his hold on me, pressing his fists against his eyes. I didn't know what to do—the plans wouldn't come. There was no way to get either of us out of here without one of the hunters seeing.

The terrifying sensation released as Endymion stalked back across the shadowy warehouse, kicking aside broken chairs and crunching through shattered glass as he approached the mirror like a looming thunderstorm.

"What did you say?" he growled.

"Look!" The hag retreated in the glass, until I could no longer make out her eerie shape. "His face was like this—look, look! "

He fisted one hand in the velvet cover, ripping it away from the rippling surface of the magic. Whatever Endymion Dye saw there drew him closer. Closer.

His profile, barely visible through the darkness, wasn't of the man who'd exercised such careful control over the perfect image he'd cultivated as the de facto leader of our guild—charming one moment, cutting the next.

And there, staring into the depths of the mirror, the last trace of the man he had been shattered.

"You lying bitch !"

He gripped the frame with a scream of pure animal rage, throwing it to the ground. He whirled, upending the nearby table with a single hand, kicking in the oak legs, unleashing the deadly edge of his sword on its body until splinters exploded from it.

He fell upon the armchairs with the same mindless fury, shredding them, ripping out their stuffing as if they were entrails, before turning to the racks of wine and champagne bottles. The air was stained red with the spray of wine and fizz, a river of it snaking through the shattered remains of the warehouse.

The other hunters stood by, watching silently. Unwilling to disrupt his rampage, unwilling to risk joining him in case that scalding anger rebounded onto them.

Emrys lifted his head, but the set of his mouth, the look in his eyes—that wasn't fear. It was a bone-deep weariness. Recognition.

The ache in me deepened.

Nash had been a real bastard at times. He'd subjected us to curses and the elements when we slept rough. But even when I'd riled him up until he saw red, he never raised a hand to us. Never.

I watched Emrys, not his father tearing the paintings down from the wall, punching through the priceless canvases with his fists. How many times had his son been on the receiving end of them? How many times had his mother?

He lowered his head again with a shaky sigh. Trying to make himself smaller.

Above us, the horn sounded its thunderous cry, echoing through the levels of the house like a building quake. Then, and only then, did Endymion stop.

The destruction he'd wrought was still collapsing, shards of broken bottles still dripping champagne. The transformation was terrifying for its swiftness. He straightened, the placid mask slipping back into place as he faced the other hunters.

"If it was a feeling our lord had, he was likely sensing the hag," Primm told him. "Waste of time, if you ask me— "

Endymion flashed across the room, his ghostly hand closing around Primm's throat. "No one asked you."

He threw the other hunter to the floor, prowling back toward the entrance, leaving the others to follow with their plundered treasures. Swords that cut through any surface. Shields that protected against any spell. Mantles that increased their physical strength. More, and more, and more relics that would make the dead beyond invincible.

The voices echoed back to us long after they'd left the room. "To the next, to the next!"

I counted to a hundred in my head before I dared to whisper, "Emrys?"

The heat of his body against mine, the pine-sweet smell of him—it all crashed into the adrenaline still screaming through my veins, with the horror at what I'd just witnessed. I was still so bad at this, but something in me needed to try. To comfort him. It was the only explanation I had for why I leaned forward again, listening to my own inexperienced instincts, and hesitantly pressed my lips against his upturned cheek.

Emrys drew in a sharp breath, sitting up so quickly his head bumped my chin.

"Don't," he breathed out shakily, his face stricken with a disgust that cracked me open. "Don't touch me."

He pushed the doors to the armoire fully open and climbed out, letting them shut behind him.

Heat burned in my chest, rising to spread over my face. The humiliation of it was so acute, the sensation of my heart shattering so violent, I actually thought I might vomit. Even as I tried to steel myself, to swallow the sour taste on my tongue, I caught myself hoping the darkness of the room would overtake me like a drowning tide and carry me into its depths.

You stupid, gullible idiot, my mind seethed at me, sinking deeper into the abyss of self-loathing.

All this time, I'd prided myself on being able to read people's feelings, to use those tricks to figure out the secret longings of their hearts—the dreams and possibilities they wanted me to weave for them as I turned over each tarot card. I had been the hustler, not the hustled.

Until Emrys.

Some part of me—some tiny, desperate piece of my heart—had still held on to a sliver of hope. That it wasn't all pretend. That his feelings for me had been as real as mine were for him.

But he'd disabused me of that notion swiftly and brutally.

Don't touch me.

I pressed my fingers against my burning eyes, hating myself, hating him. When the stinging sensation of needles passed and the blood returned to my limbs, I climbed down from the armoire and pushed past him.

Neve spotted me before I saw her, weaving through the debris at a full run toward me. The sight of her chased the clawing bitterness away, replacing it with a pure, effervescent relief. When she threw her arms around me, I didn't even try to squirm away.

"Is everyone all right?" Olwen asked, accepting her sister's help over the pile of downed display cases. All of us, I noticed, were careful not to look at the bodies of the men.

"Well, I'm fine," the hag said, her voice muffled by the floor.

I only nodded, keeping my arm looped around Neve's shoulder. She shot me a questioning look, one that I avoided.

"What now?" Neve asked.

"We give chase," Caitriona said. "Follow them back to whatever lair they've slithered off to."

Neve leaned over the back of the Mirror of Shalott, studying the sigils there. "The current spellwork is specific to trapping a hag." She pointed to the markings. "I don't know what sigils we'd need to use to trap something like Lord Death."

"I do!" the hag offered. We ignored her.

"I can write to Madrigal again and ask for the Council of Sistren's help," Neve said. "They have researchers— "

"No," Caitriona cut in. "We do not involve them."

There was a difference between being righteous and obstinate, and she had crossed from one into the other.

"Cait …," I began. Something hot and wet struck my cheek.

I looked up, touching my hand to it, only for another fat drop to fall, striking my scalp. I looked down at my fingers, holding them to the nearest flickering light.

Blood.