As the monster dodged, Jack leapt onto the battlements. She lashed out with her sword, the blade passing so close to my face I saw my nose reflected in it. It bit deep into the creature’s carapace. A spray of ichor fanned out to join the other stains on my clothes. The flickering wings halted, their strident buzzing silenced. We dropped together, straight toward the jagged rocks at the island’s edge.
A hand grasped my wrist, nearly wrenching my arm out of its socket. I swung sideways and smashed face-first into the wall. My scream was cut off as the breath was forced out of my lungs. The insectoid thing hung from me for a moment, its claw still hooked on the edge of my cloak. Then the cloth tore, and the creature continued its final descent.
“If you could find a way to climb up,” came Jack’s strained voice from above me, “I’d appreciate it.”
I looked up to see her braced on a crenellation, trying her hardest to hold my weight with one arm. I scrabbled to find handholds and footholds. After a moment, I managed to get my fingers over the lip of the wall. With a great heave, Jack pulled me up and over. We both collapsed on the walkway, panting for breath.
“Thank you,” I said.
Jack gave a weary shrug. “I’ve been told it’s important I live up to my name.”
Behind us, an errant boulder slipped past Kit’s breath. It smashed into the tower. The roof disintegrated, showering rocks and timbers into the stairwell.
Just before the collapse, a black bird had launched itself from the highest window. I frowned as it banked and flew off into the distance. The first faint glimmerings of a suspicion began to form in my mind. Something that someone had said to me didn’t quite addup.
Jack dragged herself to her feet. As I started to do the same, a blurry figure dashed up to us and gibbered something in a voice too fast to decipher.
“Take your leg off or talk slowly, Harry,” Jack said. “We didn’t get a word of that.”
The blur resolved into the oddest of the masked hunters as she detached her leg and cradled it in her arms. “Sorry. Have a message for you. Summons from the court.”
“I already know about it,” Jack said. She jerked her chin in my direction. “I’m trying to get her there in one piece.”
Harry shook her head, bouncing on her foot as if impatient to be moving again. “It’s changed. Not just her. All the hunters, too.”
“What?” Jack’s eyebrows shot up into her messy bangs. “Has Gervase lost his mind?” She gestured at the ongoing battle.
I could make out other hunters in the mix now, wherever the fighting was thickest. One had wrapped a horn bird in a mass of morning glory vines. Its struggles were weakening as the pretty flowers choked the life out of it. Another hunter appeared to be grabbing not-quite-bats out of the air and shoving them into her mouth, which was open wider than seemed possible.
“We’re the only reason the castle is standing!” Jack said. “The moment we leave the wall, it’s over.”
Harry shrugged. Jack drew in a breath and closed her eyes. Her face scrunched up in thought.
I tried to catch sight of Sam, hoping he’d recovered since Kit had brought me the bad news, and I’d find him tossing monsters around like so many matchsticks. He was nowhere to be seen. But that didn’t mean anything, did it? A thousand small skirmishes were being waged on every side of the castle, far more than I could take in at a glance. He might be fighting in any one of them. He mightbe.
“Where is—”
Jack’s eyes popped open. “We’ll make them pause the assault first. Tell Kit and Max to meet me here. Everyone else needs to concentrate on picking off as many of the fliers as possible. Hurry!”
Harry had reattached her leg before Jack finished speaking, shifting back into a blur and zipping off along the walkway while the last word was still echoing in the air. Jack turned and looked over the parapet. The seething carpet of furry snakes had gathered close to the wrecked gatehouse. The broken walls shielded them from arrows as they slithered into the water.
I pushed my other concerns aside, at least for the moment. “How are you going to stop them?”
“With a terrible plan that probably won’t work. Unless…By any chance, do you have anything spectacular to contribute?” She kept her voice casual, but I heard the urgent hope underneath. “As long as it doesn’t turn me into a bird again.”
“I don’t know.” I’d have said no, but after what I did when Sam was injured—whatever it was—I wasn’t sure anymore. “Maybe if I had some time to think about it?”
“Time isn’t something we really—”
She broke off as Kit sprinted up to us, panting with effort. Max, her telltale hat pulled slantwise over her ear, wasn’t far behind.
“What do you want?” Kit asked between wheezy breaths, clutching at her side as she skidded to a stop. “Every moment I waste here, a rock might sail through.”
Jack pointed at the bay. “Make a wave. As big as you can.”
“Why—”
“Now,Kit!”
