“They’re awfully heavy,” I said. Plus, Ari already stole all the ones with magical properties.
“You won’t trick me,” he growled. Antonia whimpered as he jostled the knife at her throat. “Show me where you’re hiding your rings.”
“I don’t have any! I’m sorry! Please stop, you’re hurting her!”
Behind me, Ari snarled, “Durnip, what in the name of the Dark Lady are you doing?”
“Ari?” The halfling blinked. “You’re here, too? What are you waiting for? Hurry up and stab the Blood Duchess.”
“You fool, let Antonia go!” Ari pinched his forehead.
“But she’s my hostage!” Durnip protested.
“Doesn’t this situation seem strange to you? The Blood Duchess would have already stabbed straight through poor Antonia’s body to get at you. She only adopted the girl so she could have a claim as royal regent for Arahasnor. I’m ashamed to be part of the Twelve Avengers with the likes of you. Why would you possibly imagine the Blood Duchess would be a good enough person to care about the child she took in for political reasons? There was no point in pretending to threaten her!”
“Who’s pretending?” Durnip twisted Antonia’s hair, making her yelp. “After the Blood Duchess is helpless, I’m going to kill her daughter in front of her to make her pay for what she did tomyfamily.”
The temperature in the room dropped. Ari’s eyes narrowed. The rest of his face barely twitched, but there was danger in his expression that hadn’t been there before. Very slightly, he shifted his neck.
Rings on a chain hanging under his shirt glowed before a red light shot forth from one of them and filled the entire room with a blinding blaze.
I cried out, my hands going over my eyes. When I could see again, Durnip’s knife had eroded to nothing.
I knew what I had to do. I ran forward to pull Antonia away from him.
“Wait!” Ari cried, but I was already moving, and I wasn’t sure if I could reverse my momentum.
Shoulder slamming into the bedpost, I picked Antonia up. She trembled slightly in my arms. “I’ve got you,” I said.
Smoke spewed from Durnip’s mouth. It eroded the bed curtain and shot toward my face.
Ari moved between us. He held up one of the rings around his neck, and it formed a golden shield.
My heart hammered as I stared at the tattered cloth falling in threads to the floor. That had almost been my face. I ought to have had a bigger reaction, but I felt numb.
Ari clubbed Durnip over the head with the butt of his sword. “He’s got an acid-breath gift. I tried to warn you.”
“Sorry,” I croaked. “You saved my life. Thank you.”
“Don’t worry about it. You did well.” Ari looked up and directed a blazingly brilliant smile at me.
Antonia stirred in my arms. “I was so scared!” She leapt away from me and flung herself at Ari, sobbing.
Ari rubbed her back. “I’ll hug you later all you want, but first I need to take this man away before he has a chance to hurt anyone again.”
Antonia let go and wiped her tears. “I’m okay. I can be brave.”
I suspected this wasn’t the first time she’d needed to be brave in a dangerous situation, and it made me sick. “What are we going to do with him?”
Ari prodded the unconscious assassin with a boot. “Tricky. I was going to try to persuade him to help me find the real duchess, but I’m not sure I want to work with someone who would threaten a child. He’s not easy to imprison with his gift. I suggest a stone—”
Before Ari could finish, black mist rose up from the ground and fastened around Durnip’s unconscious form. The air reeked of deadleaves and decay. A low voice whispered, “Traitor.” A shadowy tendril leapt out at Ari. He jumped backward, but it drew a line of blood down his cheek. One of the rings fell off his chain, a smoky quartz, and vanished into the darkness.
Durnip sank into the shadows and vanished before I could do more than gape.
Antonia shrieked and fell backward.
Words failed me. I pointed. “What?”
