“Oh,Mother of Mercy,” I breathed. It took every ounce of my strength not to fall apart, to instead begin ripping the hem of my dress apart while screaming for Jon, Aliena, Larch, or anyone else who might still be close enough to hear me.
“Stop…” Devil croaked, putting a hand over mine as I tied a makeshift bandage around a long gash on his thigh.
“Stay still,” I begged him. “Please, stay still! I can’t heal you with my magyk…”
“May…” What little strength he had left, he used to grab my jaw and force me to look him in the eye. “Locksley…”
Everything inside me froze, and the pit of horror in my stomach grew tenfold. My hands began to shake and shadows poured out, unbidden.
“What happened?” I managed to gasp.
“The Iron Fist,” he groaned. “You must go. They…need you.”
There was a terrifying roar from downstairs, and I heard Aliena calling my name. A moment later, she appeared in the doorway, breathless and somehow paler than usual. Helena trailed behind her, looking fearful, and stood in the corner.
“Gods above, what happened?!”
“Ican’t heal him, Aliena, please!” I cried desperately, trying to ignore the tears sliding down my cheeks. She was there immediately, tearing any piece of fabric she could find to bandage Devil’s wounds.
“May,” he panted, “you must go…”
“I’m not leaving you like this!”
“You cannot heal me! They need you!” He drew a deep, rattling breath and closed his eyes.
“Who needs you?” Aliena asked.
“He said…t-that Locksley was attacked,” I sobbed as I tied another bandage onto his arm. “By the Iron Fist. Oh,gods, Aliena, my gift doesn’t work on him!” I ran trembling hands over my face just as Jon came up the stairs, now fully human and partially clothed.
“Jon,” said Aliena sharply, “you have to get her to the Abbey. May, look at me. Look at me! There is nothing you can do here. Go and help your Sisters.”
“But what if—”
“Tuck was there,” grunted Devil, then his eyes slid over to Jon. “Will too…they were…fighting…”
I stood and backed away from the bed, shaking like a leaf as Jon let out a bellow of rage. While Aliena continued ripping apart her own shirt to make more bandages, he seized my upper arm and pulled me toward the stairs.
“We’re going,” he snarled, then looked at Helena and barked, “Make yourself useful!”
I could hardly think as we rushed down the tree and through the den. Outside, we just looked at each other and gave a resolute nod before joining hands. In my panic, I accidentally landed us much farther from Locksley than I’d intended, but I knew it hardly mattered when we saw smoke and flames pouring from inside the walls. The battle was over, and Locksley was burning.
Jon instantly shifted, and the bear’s furious snarl broke through my senses. He dropped his shoulders and looked at me expectantly, so I pulled myself onto his back, grabbing onto two fistfuls of thick fur. It was much worse than the few times I’d tried riding a saddled horse, and my thighs began to cramp from how hard I had to squeeze his ribcage just to stay on. When we got close enough for me to run on my own, I slid down and stumbled forward on weak legs.
I was in a nightmare now, surely. The iron gates of Locksley Abbey hung from their hinges, smoke billowing out as flames illuminated the crowd of boatmen evacuating the Abbey’s inn. I called out my shadows and used them to conceal Jon and I. When we entered the Abbey grounds, the first thing I noted was the deafening silence. There was no fighting, no screaming, no sign of the Iron Fistanywhere. Just a haunting quiet, accompanied by the rush of the fire and distant, clamouring shouts from the boatmen.
“Find Will,” I told the bear. He snorted and turned away as I ripped one more piece of cloth from the bottom of my dress and tied it around my face. I had no idea where to even start, but I remembered once when I was a child, Sissi had told me the story of how Locksley survived the final battle between Johar and Rykard. The details were hazy, but I knew the Sisters had barricaded themselves inside the chapel, so that’s where I headed first. The fire seemed to be concentrated in the garden and out on the grounds, where there was more fuel, but smoke still hung thick in the corridors, and I had to walk hunched over just to see and breathe. The first body I came upon was a man, lying face down in a pool of dark blood, wearing a scarlet, gold-trimmed doublet—the Iron Fist.
“Tuck…” I murmured as I stepped around the corpse. “Please, I need you.”
The next body was not so easy to pass by. Her gray linen dress and wimple were soaked with blood, but it was Sister Anna’s wide, unseeing eyes that nearly sent me into a fit. Clutched in one of her wrinkled hands was a heavy, iron candelabra, sticky with the blood of whichever man she had used it on. I forced myself to keep going, fighting down the wretched sickness that tightened its grip on me with each corpse I found littering the corridors.
At least a dozen Sisters had died trying to defend Locksley. They had taken some of the Iron Fist with them, but not enough. Not nearly enough. When I finally reached the chapel and saw the doors closed, my heart jumped with a little burst of hope. I ran forward and pulled at the heavy handle, hoping to find it locked, but it swung open just enough for me to slip through. It was silent and cold inside. The flames out on the grounds illuminated each stained glass window, lighting the chapel with an ambient, eerie red glow.
“Sissi?” I called out, as loud as I dared. “Jazmina? Is anyone here?”
A spluttering cough from the front of the room answered. I approached the altar, only to find the center of the stone table smashed and a body lying on top. Without her wimple, I did not recognize her until she turned to look at me.
“Sissi,” I whimpered, stumbling up the steps and wrapping my arms around her shoulders. “No, no, no. Here, I’m going to get you down. Hold onto me.” I tried to pull her off the altar, but she cried out in pain just as my arm scraped against something hard. She was pinned, I realized. Someone had driven a massive pike clean through her stomach and down into the top of the altar, shattering both her body and the stone. Still trembling uncontrollably, I placed my hands on her torso, sending a thread of magyk out, searching for a way I might be able to heal her.
