I could feel the dribble of blood that was creeping down my neck, catching on the material of my shirt. Yet another shirt ruined, not that it was important right now. I wondered if Elowin would actually kill me. It didn’t seem likely, but the tighter she pressed the knife to my skin, the more the likeliness grew, and the higher the panic clawed up through me.
Until Yael spoke.
“Elowin.” It was just the one word, delivered so precisely, so calmly, but it dropped right over my head and knocked me out a little bit.
Suddenly, everything was okay. The panic evaporated, the world slowed down around me, and the pain of the blade against my neck eased.
“Release the dweller,” Yael suggested, his tone almost conversational.
I blinked, trying to figure out why the pleasant suggestion soundedoff. I was suddenly sure that Yael and Elowin were close friends, and that we had all come over for a friendly visit. The insistent thought was pushing into my mind, warring with the fact that she was holding a knife to my throat. That didn’t seem like a thing you did on casual visits with your friends. Elowin seemed to come to the same conclusion, because the knife drew further away.
“I’m … I’m so sorry,” she muttered, releasing me.
I stumbled forward a step, and all hell broke loose. Rome grabbed me, lifting me into the air and tossing me to the side. I yelped, sure that I was about to land flat on my face, but hands plucked me from the air easily, catching me against a hard chest. I looked up at Aros, completely disoriented, because it seemed that we were suddenly on the other side of the room, and I couldn’t figure out how we had gotten there so quickly. I wiggled and twisted, trying to see the others, and Aros set me on my feet again, though his hands came down on my shoulders, anchoring me back against him so that I couldn’t actually go anywhere. I fought off the lingering dizziness in my brain, focusing on the other four Abcurses as they surrounded Elowin in an angry circle.
“Good girl,” Yael cooed in approval, even though Elowin had to be about twice his age and the look on his face was more ‘I want to crush you into pieces’ than ‘I approve of your actions’.Still, he said it so persuasively, it was difficult to resolve his expression with the words that came out of his mouth. He reached down, taking the knife out of her hand. “Now why don’t you tell us why you took our dweller, and tried to mess with us, hmm?”
“She doesn’t belong here!” Elowin was back to panicking, even though she hadn’t tried to keep her knife. She actually wasn’t moving at all, her arms were hanging limply by her sides and she was staring up at Yael with a pleading expression, trying to appeal to him as though he would understand her. “She’s just a dweller! You can’t change all the rules for her and expect everyone to be fine with it. The rules are there for a reason!”
Yael exchanged a look with the others, and Siret grinned, taking a small step toward Elowin, so that her attention flicked directly to him.
“What’s the reason?” he asked, conversationally.
“It is how the gods wish it,” she spat back, regaining some of her fire, now that her eyes weren’t locked on Yael. “You’ll all be punished for going against them.”
“It’s true,” Coen agreed, grabbing Elowin by the shoulders and spinning her around to face him, “the godsdolike their punishments.”
I knew that he was about to kill her. I could see it in his eyes. He had death-eyes again. I really needed to learn to step back and stop defending people who only wanted to hurt me, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I shouted Coen’s name in my head, and his attention wavered, his eyes seeking me out in the corner of the room. As soon as he was distracted, Elowin screamed something that sounded like a cry for help, before erupting into flames.
“Holy crap!”I screamed unnecessarily, pointing right at her. “The lady is on fire!”
The other Abcurses took a step back, but it definitely wasn’t a big enough step to avoid getting killed if Elowin decided to give one of them a hug.
“That’s her gift, I guess.” Aros’s hands tightened on my shoulders. “And stop distracting them, you’ll end up getting someone hurt.”
Elowin lunged for the knife in Yael’s hand, but he pulled it out of the way, side-stepping her. There was a laugh in his eyes. Actually, theyalllooked amused.
Seriously?
Did nothing ever frighten them?
The door burst open before Elowin could lunge again, and a group of people spilled inside, along with a billowing rush of red smoke. For some reason, it reminded me of Rau—of the scarlet-red cloak that he had worn on both occasions that he had appeared before me. Aros shoved me behind his back, basically squashing me between him and the wall, and I saw boots move in front of us, turning to face the rest of the room. I couldn’t see much else, because of the smoke, but I recognised Rome’s massive feet.
Someone screamed—a woman. It didn’t exactly sound like Elowin, but it was hard to tell. Things started crashing around, and I could see that Elowin’s fire was starting to catch onto things. The flames were licking up the fabric that covered her windows, adding to the smoke that already choked the room.
“I need to get Willa out of here,” Aros muttered, as one of the guys grunted, and a body flew into the wall right beside us, collapsing the plaster.
“Rau is blocking the exit,” Rome spat back. “Turns out Elowin wasn’t smart enough to come up with this plan all on her own.”
Rau! AGAIN?
“So we’ll knock him the fuck out of the way,” Aros countered, grabbing my arm and dragging me across the room.
I tripped over a lank leg—which had been dangling half across the floor, courtesy of the body sticking out of the wall—but Rome caught my other arm, and they carried me between them the rest of the way to the door. I caught sight of the dark-haired sol who had impersonated me back at the academy. She and three other sols were fighting against Coen, who seemed to be playing with them more than actually fighting them. But Fakey was holding a candlestick and it looked like she might actually manage to hit him, so I untangled myself from Aros and Rome, running over to her and yanking the thing out of her hand before she could use it.
She spun, her eyes narrowing, and I knew that she was about to get her revenge for all the times I had punched her. Or … she would have, if Rome hadn’t grabbed me again, dragging me back to the front door. He pushed me through in front of him, and Aros kept an arm outstretched in front of me, like I might attempt to run off and attack Rau all on my own.
Which actually wasn’t a bad idea. I mean … I had a candlestick, and Fakey made it look super easy to use as a weapon. I could totally take Point on this. And, let’s not forget that I had stabbed a god before. That practically made me an expert in god-fighting.
