Blanche let out a breath. “Good.” She glanced at me sideways. “You ready?”
“Ready.”
We slipped out into the courtyard beyond, my eyes darting every which way for signs of trouble. We walked in the direction of the castle gates, sticking as close to the shadows of the buildings as possible, hoping to escape detection. All we had to do was find a way to open the gates, then our friends could simply disappear into the surrounding forest. After that, we could focus on finding Henri and Ludovico. I knew from personal experience how relentless Montoni was. If we did all manage to escape, would Montoni ever stop hunting us? Perhaps this was but a prelude to what awaited us on the other side of those castle walls.
As we drew closer to the gates, I saw three carts waiting, horses yet to be hitched to them, and I paused. Perhaps Montoni was waiting for us, standing guard before the only exit from this terrible place, but I heard Blanche’s sharp intake of breath beside me and knew that something was wrong.
Blanche rushed forward, throwing caution to the wind, and I followed uneasily. I threw glances all around us, wondering where Henri was, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Blanche,” I whisper-shouted, “Wait. We have to think about this.”
But even as I said it, I could make out Henri in the back of one of the carts. He was covered in a net and as it shifted and grazed his skin, steam burst from his flesh. Silver. He was trapped in a silver net.
Henri saw us coming and began to struggle more adamantly, his agonized cries echoing across the courtyard as the silver net chafed against his naked chest, burning him with its brutal poison.
I faltered briefly, as I realized what I was looking at. He was bait.
“Blanche, we have to stop,” I insisted, trying to keep pace with her. “Montoni is clearly …”
My voice trailed off as something suddenly sang through the air, and I looked up to find an object hurtling in our direction. I opened my mouth to gasp out a warning, but it was already too late. A large silver bolt slammed into Blanche’s leg and out through the other side, digging into the stone ground at her feet and pinning her to the spot. Blanche roared as blood oozed from her leg, which continued to steam as if burning her. In a flash of blonde fur, she suddenly stood in her half-wolf form, growling as she yanked on the bolt, to no affect.
“You weren’t simply going to leave without saying goodbye, were you?”
I felt a shudder pass through my body as I tilted my head up to find Montoni standing on the rooftop, grinning down at us triumphantly, a harpoon canon mounted beside him.
He’d been waiting for this. And now Blanche, our only real chance of facing off against him, was indisposed, pinned down like a butterfly.
Montoni shook his head with a chuckle. “And just when things were starting to get good.”
Montoni climbed down from the rooftop with practiced ease, while I frantically tried to pull at the bolt in the stone at Blanche’s feet. It was like trying to draw Excalibur from rock.
“I should have listened to you,” Blanche said, voice garbled in her half-wolf form. She whimpered deep in her chest as her leg continued to steam from the silver.
I swallowed hard, unsure of what to do. I looked up at Henri, still several yards away, thrashing against the silver net with futile gestures that only served to inflict more pain. Next to him, in one of the other carts, I saw Ludovico, bound and gagged. Standing over him, Bertolino grinned—the smug bastard.
I cursed silently. This was a doomed escape attempt from the start.
“That leg doesn’t look good, niece,” Montoni mocked as he landed on solid ground. His eyes found mine and his grin spread. He was enjoying this, dropping all civility and punishing us, hurting us. This was the true Montoni: vicious, ruthless, cruel.
There was nothing I could do to help Blanche. But if I could free Henri …
I sprinted for the carts, and Montoni chuckled behind me. “What does our little hero expect he’ll be able to do?”
I ignored him and propelled myself forward, toward Henri, who looked up with wide eyes, pained and hopeless.
“That’s quite enough,” Montoni’s stern voice commanded, and I stopped short as he leaped into my path, his body still transitioning to a man-wolf, black fur thickening across his body. “I have no need of your insolence. I will—”
He was cut off as a blur of gray fur slammed into him, sending him into a nearby wall, where he grunted and dropped to a knee, eyes glittering dangerously. I blinked as a new man-wolf bared its teeth at him, claws clenching and unclenching at its sides. Who wasthat?
I realized that my way was now unimpeded and raced for the carts, only hesitating when Bertolino dropped to the ground, brandishing a dagger. But I’d just taken down Schedoni. I wasn’t afraid of this pathetic underling. I screamed as I launched myself at him, barreling into his stomach as he shrank back in surprise. I thudded his arm into the ground until he dropped the dagger before I landed a solid punch across his face.
It only took the one hit to knock him out.
Ludovico grunted in the cart above, and I sent a quick look back at Montoni and the gray wolf, to find them grappling in a blur of fur and teeth, their maws snarling and their claws raking.
I quickly untied Ludovico. “Join the others in the front hall,” I ordered him, leaving no room for objections. I turned to the cart with Henri and met his eyes, green and blazing.
“Henri,” I whispered, rushing to his side. I assessed the net, pinned to the base of the cart by a dozen silver rings. I would have to cut the net loose from each of them, and as I grabbed a length of net, I realized that it was tough material. It would take some time to saw through it. Although I didn’t necessarily need to cut through them all. Three, maybe four, would be enough to free him.
