I smiled, my lips stretching for the first time since Eli was shot, knowing that I had no control over Eli’s actions at all, but not wanting to say that to Alex. “I’ll do my best.” I tapped one of the screens. “Soul. On the outer edges of the island. What’s she doing?”
“Walking the periphery of the island. She’s been doing it since the EVs came ashore.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t sure what Soul was doing or planning, but there wasn’t much I could do to stop her.
“Anomaly.” He stabbed a different screen. “There.”
A slender shimmer moved up the stairs to the second floor and proceeded to the third floor.
Alex said, “Go.”
I pulled on Beast’s stealth, gripped the rubies, and raced after the Cym-shaped shimmer.
A camera wolf caught my movement and followed.
The smell of magic hit the air, faint but harsh as tar—a curse being cast. As the scent blazed out, I could see Cym, standing on the landing at the third floor, glistening beneath the obfuscation spell, which she couldn’t hold strong while casting a curse. I was ten feet from her and at least six feet below her. She raised her arms. The prickle of magic blazed out. There wasn’t time.
Time... I could—
Beast took over. Shoved up with my back legs. I leaped. In midair, I/we drew a fourteen-inch vamp-killer from a sheath at my calf. Spun that arm back, winding up. And took her through the neck, near her head. I landed fourteen feet beyond her, in front of Sabina. A bloody blade in my hand. My mind thought,Thank you, Beast.She hadn’t let me bubble time. I started to stand upright. Stopped. Unable to move.
A dozen swords were at my throat. Carefully, I set the blade on the floor. “Intruder,” I whispered. And sucked in breaths I hadn’t taken while I leaped through the air.
“Golden. Absolutely, fucking golden,” the camera wolfman said.
Cym’s death had broken her spell. Her body, blood, and partially attached head were visible. Her lemon scent filled the room, drifting from her body and blood. The wolf moved the camera along her body and up to her head. Cym was dressed vaguely as a pirate, with embroidered vest, a white shirt with full sleeves, thigh-high boots, tight pants, and gaudy, mismatched jewelry. “Sorry ’bout the language, Champ,” the camera wolf added, not sounding at all apologetic, “but that was fuc—fricking fabulous.”
“She was under an obfuscation spell,” I said. “Witchcraft in the Sangre Duello is disallowed.” Only in La Danza could it be used.
“She wasn’t dueling. You killed her?” Titus asked. “For using a spell? Isn’t that what witches do?”
With a vamp-killer I turned her head to expose her fangs. “Witch. Also a Mithran. Also a member of Clan Des Citrons, who are sworn to Titus Flavius Vespasianus.” With the tip of the blade I snagged Cym’s fancy white shirt and pulled it from the vest. On the front was the emblem of a lizard eating its tail.
Titus looked momentarily nonplussed that I knew all this. Then he got over it. “One acting on her own. Or a traitor to my cause.”
“She threw this at me last night.” I held up two fingers to show I didn’t have a weapon and slowly inserted them into a throwing knife sheath. I removed the knife and extended it, hilt first, to Leo.
Leo, no weapons drawn, hands clasped behind his back, walked slowly to me and sniffed along its length. “Magic and the mixed blood of humans and Mithrans. A blade improperly cared for. Or coated with a death curse.” He accepted the blade in one palm, holding it so the light fell on it. “Steel, double-sided blades, set in an olive wood hilt.” Leo’s eyes drifted to Titus. “For Christmas in the year 1702, you gave me a set of throwing knives made from olive wood.”
“You were my servant,” Titus said dismissively. “I gave similar sets of blades to everyone in my retinue. There were hundreds of you. I decimated an entire olive grove to accommodate the wood needed.”
Without taking his gaze from the emperor, Leo said, “She attacked you yesterday, my Enforcer. Who was she attacking this time?”
I thought back to the wild leap in the air. The direction of Cym’s barely seen arms. The people on the other side of her. “She wasn’t throwing a blade. She was casting a curse. I believe it was directed at Sabina, the outclan priestess.”
Leo’s eyebrow quirked up, just the one. “Indeed?”
That’s what it looked like.I didn’t say that. I said, with certainty, “Yes.”
Beast is best hunter. Beast will eat witch head.
Beast will not.
Beast hungers.
“Who sent her?” Titus asked.
“You. Me. A third party who wishes to rule,” Leo said. “Any of a hundred names come to mind, including Clan Des Citrons, who killed cattle on my hunting lands before joining with you.”
