Lux flinched as her upper arm smarted. She glared down at the sensation.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t want to pinch you, but you looked—I mean youfelt…What did you see?”
“I saw—” Lux blinked. Over and over. With each, the apparition faded a little more. When it finally vanished, her shoulders drooped. “It’s gone. It’s all in my head, at any rate.”
“You were so terrified,” said Cecily, her own voice shaking. “It scared me to feel it.”
“I’m sorry I frightened you.”
I shouldn’t be around anyone,she thought. Most of all, a girl like this.
“And now you’re angry and sad. I shouldn’t have screamed and forced you to save me.”
A bit of that anger flamed higher. What she didn’t need was someone relaying her emotions back to her. But Lux bit back any scathing remark. Instead, she dragged a deep breath into her hurting lungs, and said, “You absolutely should have screamed. More of us should scream.”
Cecily wiped at her eyes, blinking away tears. Then she nodded.
“Maybe I can trick that footman, Manphry, into finding me some sort of tool. He’s been helpful.”
“No! He’s empty too.”
Lux frowned, her hand on the rough door. “Who else?”
“Everyone I’ve met except the collectors.”
Devil below.
“Okay. We’ll manage on our own. There must be a carriage house outside the gate.” Lux glanced along the iron fence, where it disappeared into darkened cliffs. There was certainly no going around.
Cecily sniffed. “Probably.”
“Stay hidden in the garden. I’ll gather the money and whatever else I can.” Lux surveyed the girl’s soiled and torn stockings. “Shoes for certain. It shouldn’t take me long.”
“And if it does?”
“Then wait a little longer. If it becomes really dire though, then I suppose go with your original plan. Make for the forest.”
Lux pushed through the garden door. She hated that the girl absorbed every bit of the trepidation coursing inside her.What a miserable brilliance. I would die from it.
But she supposed that was why it wasn’t gifted to her. She was perfectly suited to death: an emotionless state. For the one dead, at any rate.
They crept along the garden path. Lux gave up on her sodden skirt and spent her energy hauling up her drooping bodice instead. The moon was high now. It lit the tower’s pinnacle and every beast’s wing with a cool glow. And she decided she hated the look of Mothlock; its presence so like that of a hulking creature lying in wait in the dark.
Then its mouth opened.
The dim light of the courtyard’s lampposts became overwhelmed at the manor’s opening. Cecily stilled like a startled mouse when Lux dragged her knife free.
One. Two. Three.Four.Four collectors swept out onto the stoop. And she knew at once what they wanted. Their hoods shifted as they scanned the garden; both she and Cecily sank to a crouch.
Voices rose amongst them, growing louder. Two hurried down the stairs. One of those turned onto the far garden path. The other made straight for them.
“Devil’sowntits,” hissed Lux. Because there was nowhere, quite honestly nowhere, for them to go. “You’re going to have to run for it, after all. As much as those shackles will allow you.”
She heard Cecily’s shuddering breath and felt the girl begin to rise.
“But give me five seconds first,” said Lux.
She tucked away her knife. Then she burst to her feet and screamed.
