The squirrel flies out from beneath the veil, lifting it, and I catch sight of the man’s bleeding eye sockets, nostrils, and mouth, spread wide in horror. As the Shade reaches my hand, it disappears.
Into my skin.
A tingle forms against my other hand, the one behind my back. The first priest barely hits the floor before the second spasms behind me. Another grunt, and this time something warm and wet strikes the back of my head.
The second priest falls.
Henderson cradles Abigail against his chest, his eyes wide as he takes in the dead men, my shadow-wreathed hands.
I can’t help but follow his line of sight to my palms, shocked by what just happened.
What I just did.
Because…that was me.
That was the result of my rage. My will.
“What the hell are you?” Henderson’s voice quavers, and now he has the good sense to raise his sword in earnest.
“Let me pass,” I say through my teeth.
“You’re…” His expression twists with disgust, and he lowers his mouth to Abigail’s throat. She cries out as he sinks his teeth in, and I take advantage of his momentary preoccupation to run past him. My feet fly beneath me, as fast as my racing pulse. I charge out of the jail, down the street, my mind whirling to comprehend the chaos in my head, my heart, my…my fucking body.
I don’t get far before pain strikes my lower back. My legs give out, and I tumble to the ground. I roll onto my side, twisting one arm behind me to wrench the blade out. It’s the same knife I threatened Abigail with. The same Henry stabbed me with. My hand shakes too hard to keep hold of it, and it slides from my grip.
I scramble back as Henderson closes in, his sword blazing with astrotheurgical light.
Abigail follows just behind, her legs unsteady, her palm pressed to her puncture wounds. Her expression burns with scorn as her eyes lock on mine.
Too soon, Henderson stops before me, the tip of his sword mere inches away. I freeze. Everything inside me blares with warning. Deadly. Deadly. Deadly.
So why doesn’t he cleave his weapon through my neck?
“There’s never been one like you,” he says, voice trembling with terror and awe. “You…you’re worth more than I thought.”
Abigail reaches us and gathers the knife off the ground before leaping a few steps back. She brandishes the blade. “We have to kill her. There’s no hope for her now.”
“No,” Henderson says, eyes alight with fire and greed. “This is something the church will want to study. Carve apart. See what it’s capable of.”
Abigail looks at him like he’s lost his mind. “We can’t—”
“Carve a diagram,” he says in a rush. “We’ll trap it in light and surround it in silver. We have silver bricks in the wagon. We’ll line the perimeter of the diagram with that. Then we’ll send for the church.”
Trap it…
Trap me…
In light and silver?
There’s no doubt now what they think I am.
WhatIthink I am.
Abigail reluctantly obeys, crouching on the ground and tracing lines on the dirt road. I’d be surprised Henderson taught his Summoner an astrotheurgical diagram if I wasn’t so focused on what he said.
He thinks he can trap me in silver and light?
Me?
