Diana’s head tilted to the side.Temple could not see her expression, but he knew that inquisitive angle.She’d seen her cousin’s glamour slip.
She took a single step toward Apollo.“Let us talk alone.There are many ears here to gather our private dealings.And many eyes, too.”
Was that a hint about his glamour?She was trying to warn him.
Fordham might have interpreted it that way.He looked down.Did he see what Temple did?Wrinkled shirt and trousers flickering beneath fading finery.
Fordham shoved Sybil to the floor, lurched forward, and grabbed Diana by the arm.“Your sister’s a pretty little thing,” he called out, catching Temple’s eye.“You’d better keep a leash on her or she’ll get hurt.”
Sybil jumped to her feet, and with a cry more like a hiss, she launched herself at Fordham, hands like claws ready to scratch.
Diana threw herself between Sybil and Fordham at the same time Temple grabbed Sybil around the waist and jerked her backward, put her behind him.
“Do not punish Sybil because I’ve married her brother,” Diana said.
“I don’t care who you’ve tricked into marrying you, cuz.”Fordham shouldered through the crowd.“Out of my way!”As the crowd parted, he dragged Diana toward the doors that led outside.
Nico appeared at Temple’s elbow and Temple’s father at the other.
“What should we do?”Niko asked.
“Sybil and Jane,” he said to his father, “take them to Nickleby.Nico, stay here.In case I need you.”
Temple’s father took Sybil’s hand without another word, and Jane popped up on toe and kissed her husband’s cheek before they disappeared into the crowd.
Together, he and Nico made for the doors.Nico had once produced weapons for the army, using his silver talent to create bullets that went farther and guns that shot with silent accuracy.He might now spend his days making toys for children, silver wonders of delight, but he knew deadly.
Diana had told Temple to stay back but he couldn’t help it.When she disappeared through those doors, he followed.The night air was thick with the scent of rain.A storm was coming.The sky in the distance grumbled, flashing with anger.
The dark garden had swallowed Diana and Fordham up, left no trail of breadcrumbs to follow them by.
“You go that way.”Temple pointed to the right.“I’ll go this way.”He nodded to the left.That direction… felt right.The ring warmed when he stepped that way.Nico disappeared like a shadow, and Temple ran.
The gravel crunched beneath his feet, and he opened his senses to the soil.More iron out here than inside but all of it in the sort of raw state he could do little with.Wait?—
He froze.Something nearby.In the shadows.
He ducked behind the bush and dropped to his knees, searching, searching—aha!A spade, rusty from being forgotten outside for who knew how long.It left a window open in the iron, and he slipped through it.He heated the iron in his blood until his hand glowed, and he used the forge of his own body to fashion the spade anew.He stood and continued on as he worked, opening his ears to sounds past the gravel, the thunder rumbling in the distance, the wind.
“You don’t have to drag me, Apollo.”
There.Diana.Her voice sharp.That some comfort.If she was fighting, she wasn’t afraid.
Temple followed the sound of her voice.
“You ran last time,” Fordham said.“Are you going to tell me, newly married with a family who loves you, you’re not going to run again?”
“No.I will not run.I want to talk with you.”
He laughed, a guttural rusty sound.
Temple continued fashioning the spade, lengthening it, sharpening its end.
“I do not think,” Diana said softly, “youwantedto kill me.You were mad with grief.You?—”
“I slammed your head into a wall, Di, and watched youdie.”That last sentence wobbly, like a bird’s call in storm winds.
“And then you dropped to your knees and cried,” Diana countered.
