No sound came towards us. No lantern parted the gloom of the vault.
“Either we have just been locked in,” Lewis murmured. “Or whoever that is needs no light.”
“Mr. Wake.”
“Or Moran.”
“I dislike both options.”
Lewis took my hand and tugged me in the opposite direction of the door. I did not protest, the artifact heavy in my pocket as we stepped behind the huge, veiled frames.
As one we crouched, he on one end of the frame and I the other. He nosed the veil aside with the mouth of his pistol and I held my blade low, peering through a narrow gap between a fraying tapestry and the wooden structure.
Before long, a shadow moved at the edge of the lanternlight. A figure, prowling. Surveying the tables, but not committing themselves to the light.
I blinked. From one moment to the next the figure was gone, as if the shadows themselves had consumed him.
A hand seized the back of my neck. I screamed, throwing my elbow back and twisting.
Fingernails dug into my flesh as an awful, bone-aching sensation overtook me—familiar and dreadful. My visionsparked and I felt a nerve, somewhere at the base of my skull, begin to spasm.
“I will kill you,” Mr. Wake said. “Where is the artifact?”
“Look for it yourself,” I managed.
He tightened his grip and shook me, then looked at Lewis. The Bronze was poised, a predatory calm in his eyes.
“Where is it?” Wake repeated.
“How am I supposed to know?” Lewis growled. “Let her go.”
Grey washed over me. My saber barely dangled from my fingers, and one nudge from Wake sent it clattering to the floor. He reached then, patting my pockets. Looking for the artifact.
My focus narrowed. Wake’s one hand, moving towards my pocket. His other, on my neck, warm and crushing. Flesh to flesh.
Flesh to flesh.
I shoved one hand into my pocket and grabbed the stone.
Ethereal power roared through Wake’s and my connection. I saw a mother’s face, soft with love, then cold with death. I saw an angry boy in the shadows, one with bloody knuckles and a mouth full of curses. I saw Moran. He was dressed in hunting leathers, with the boy at his side.
The boy was Wake. He kept pace with Moran with a rifle at his hip and his face angled away. Still in the vision, the muscles of his neck strained as if my power were a physical force, forcing him to face me.
In this world of vision and memory, Wake was fighting back.
We broke apart. I snatched up my saber with all the grace of a drunkard and rounded on him.
“What is Moran to you?” I bit out.
Wake stepped backwards into a shadow and wholly disappeared.
“Where—” I cut myself off. Time for memories and connections to Moran later. Clearly Wake was no simple Silver. Moving through shadows was a Moonless ability—or should have been.
As this realization and its ramifications careened through my head, a gun cracked. I felt the bullet rush past,punching through a hanging right where Wake had been and was no longer. Beyond, there was a sound of exploding pottery.
“He is Moonless—watch the shadows!” I warned Lewis. I retreated towards him, the hangings around us no longer a shelter but a trap.
We reunited.
