Solach.
He turned and ran, but footsteps hammered the dirt behind him. Despite the knife in his leg, the man was faster. He grabbed August’s cloak and threw him to the ground. August’s bound hands flung out automatically, cushioning his fall as he landed flat in the grass.
“Felix!” The name tore from his throat in a desperate plea as he rolled onto his back, and he loathed himself immediately for it.
The man crashed down on top of him, spindly fingers clamping over his face and slamming his head against the ground. August clawed at skin—hands, arms, face, anything—but the man was strong. Unnaturally strong.
The knife.
His fingers, clumsy and frenzied, searched for the blade embedded in the man’s leg.
Stupid damned rope!
The man seized August’s wrists, pinning them to the ground above his head with one hand, while his other yanked the knife free and spun it so the point was against his chest.
No no no! Not like this!
The sudden, sharp prickling of needles in his fingers as his power offered an escape. But it was useless with his hands bound.
“What willyourmagic give me?” The man’s voice creaked like an old floorboard.
“You don’t want it! Trust me.”
A sudden jerk and the crack of bone, then the man went still. The knife fell from his hand.
August’s heart thrashed inside his chest, a wild thing trying to tear its way out. One side of the man’s head was caved in, and a ruined eye bulged grotesquely from its socket. But he was still upright. Still pinning August to the ground.
Felix raised a hammer and swung again, arcing down to crush the top of the skull. The man crumpled forward, and August caught him before his face dropped too close, the rope digging into the skin of his wrists. Blood oozed from the fractured skull, dripping onto his cheek with a sickening warmth.
“Ew, no!” he bellowed, shoving the man off. “Gods!”
With a bored expression, Felix tossed the hammer aside. “You’re welcome.”
August scrubbed frantically at the blood with the rough fabric of his cloak.
“If you’re done fraternizing with the locals, we should go.” Felix nudged August with the hard edge of his metal foot. “Come on now. Get up.”
It took considerable effort for him to get to his feet, and when he finally made it, Felix was leaning casually against the side of the house again like nothing had happened.
August met his unsympathetic gaze with a bitter scowl. Felix saved his life, and he could feel the smugness over that emanating from him.
With a subtle head tilt, Felix said, “You’ve got a little something on your face there.”
August’s scowl deepened, and the corner of Felix’s mouth lifted in response.
When August looked past him in search of Lottie, his gaze caught on a small stone outbuilding. A woman stood framed in the open doorway, dressed in a buttoned blouse and ankle-length skirt.
Not Lottie.
His expression fell. Felix understood at once. He shoved off the wall, drawing his pistol as he followed August’s line of sight, and Marlow stepped forward, shoulders squared.
“Hold on now,” the woman said. “I’m not one of those.”
Nobody moved.
The woman looked warily between them, then at the man’s body on the ground. “I thought nobody would ever come. I locked myself in. The others . . . they . . . ” A sob swallowed the rest of her sentence, and she teetered, on the verge of falling.
Marlow rushed forward to meet her. Felix didn’t budge, didn’t tell her to stop, but August could see his fist tighten around the gun, his knuckles going white.
