“Moran!” Wake bellowed.
The hold on me released and I hit the floor on my hands and knees. Mr. Moran spun, something between horror and resignation flooding his face.
“He. Is. Mine.” Wake advanced with a sword levelled. “Move, Rushforth.”
Pretoria vanished in a skew of time. She reappeared beside me just as I found my feet again.
“Get Madge, I’ll get the artifact,” I panted. “This is going to get bloody.”
She nodded and asked no questions. Instead, she squeezed my hand. “To the hunt.”
“The hunt.”
We closed the remaining space between ourselves, Madge, and the artifact as Wake and Moran faced off. There was a fresh breaking of glass, and Moran levelled a saber at Wake. The very same sword that had slain Empress Alessandra.
“Do you all know what he did?” Wake bellowed, his voice taking up every corner of the hall and crashing back upon us in echoes. “Do you know what he wants that for?”
He threw out his free hand at the artifact, lying in the glittering glass and the ever-shrinking space between me, Pretoria, and Madge.
“Baffin thinks he can changethem, the Lusterless, the mundane, intous,” Wake spat. The intensity of his hate was staggering. “But all it truly does is turn us into monsters.”
Moran hurled a skew of time and physically charged. The skew distorted Wake’s words but could not stop them, echoing, repeating, and embedding in our ears as the older man threw himself at the younger.
I would not grasp what Wake had said, nor its implications, until later on. Just then, Madge finally found her feet and made to intercept me.
We reached the artifact almost simultaneously. I seized it and dodged. Madge howled in fury and snatched at me, just as Pretoria tackled her.
At the same time, every light in the museum turned on, momentarily blinding the lot of us. I rolled, panting and clutching the artifact to my aching chest. I glimpsed Pretoria dragging Madge away. I saw Lewis, hobbling into the fray as Wake chased Moran—straight towards me.
I lunged to my feet and took off towards the other end of the hall.
“Ottilie!” Pretoria shouted as I passed. She had Madge by the arm, but with her free hand, she tossed me a sword.
I snatched it from the air and bolted through the doors to the next exhibit.
Statues surrounded me. I darted around them, skirting busts and fragments of motifs, a statue of a profoundly naked young man, and threw myself behind a broken façade ofwarriors in profile. I peered through its painstaking carvings just as Wake sprinted into the room. He held a newly acquired sword, and Moran did not follow.
Was he dead? What of Madge, and Pretoria? What of Lewis?
Wake vanished behind a pillar. I froze, taking stock of the shadows nearby.
Too late. He lunged from a patch of darkness not a pace away, sword flashing—a fine, long rapier.
I batted the lighter blade aside and backed off, my own saber crooked casually between us. Its grip might be unfamiliar but this moment, this confrontation, this I knew.
I slipped the artifact into my pocket and attacked. I moved quickly and sharply, casting aside finesse in favor of driving him back, away from the shadows and into the light, where he might be trapped. He parried every thrust and cut, clearly taken aback by my ferocity. He managed a twisting thrust—I stepped off line and dropped the tip of my blade, catching the other side of his weapon and charging in.
Our hilts met, forearms braced. I held for a skull-pounding moment, then hooked my crossguard under his hands and drove the hilt of my saber into his face. He staggered and I sidestepped past him, already slashing for his exposed back.
He followed me with his blade, dropping it over one shoulder to protect himself as he turned.
I delivered a quick thrust to his sword arm.
The blade, for all its quality, was dull with age. It pierced the sleeve of his coat but only just. I twisted my wrist, snapping the blade down at his forearm instead and beat a swift retreat.
He dropped his rapier. His mouth bloodied, bellowing with pain and blind with rage, he grabbed a delicate bust from a nearby pedestal and hurled it at my head.
I dodged. He snatched up his sword again and delivered a long punch of a lunge. His mouth was crimson, teeth lined with blood, and I was sure in that moment that I had never seen an expression so freely malevolent, so utterly grotesque.
