“Hunter,” Nolan barks out from behind a closed door.
“Stand back. I’ll knock it inward.” I pause, hoping he’s listened, and then lift a foot to kick in the door. The only way that’s possible is Hunter strength.
Inside the door I meet Nolan’s eyes and say, “Rylan?”
He nods toward the wall where, through the acrid haze, I see my sister trying to pry open a window with Anders’ help. Nolan and others were pounding on the door. Others are bashing on a window. Rylan has a dagger, hilt aimed at the locked shutters, hammering on it.
She’s knocked several slats off the shutters, but it’s not enough.
I glance at the other window and see much the same. That one has fewer shutters removed.
Several small fires are smoldering in the room, but no visible flames remain on any of them.
“She threw that in and locked the door,” a soldier says.
I don’t ask who “she” is. Instead, I ask, “Human shaped or fur and claws?”
“What? The duchess. Theduchesstrapped us,” Nolan says like I’m daft. He starts coughing, as if the air in his chest won’t allow quite so many words.
“I know. She’s the monster,” I tell him. “She shifts forms.”
His eyes widen, and his coughing worsens.
“Get him out.” I point.
Some of the soldiers are on the floor, under the worst of the smoke. Lowell helps Nolan toward the staircase, but it’s full of smoke still from the burning pile at the base.
As I watch, several soldiers stand and switch with the pair hammering ineffectually at the other locked window.
“Everyone out,” I order, motioning to the stairs. “Get everyone out.”
Rylan is still at the other window, hammering on the heavy shutters. Anders is gently tugging her arm, but Rylan shrugs her off.
I step up to my sister and touch her shoulder. “Ry.”
“Mother,” Rylan says. “She took—”
“Move back, Rylan.” I grab my sister’s arm this time, holding her still.
Once Anders pulls Rylan away from the window, I punch my sword hilt through the shutters. The heavy metal pommel shatters the window, and glass rains down outside, but the sharp edges still in the glass frame slice the back of my hand. The fresh air from the open stairwell door and the broken window start to clear some of the smoke out, working together to create a cross breeze that will start to air the garrison out.
Rylan sounds pained as she says, “ShetookMother.”
“Was Mother alive? Walking? What do you know?”
“Mother cried out in pain, and none of us could get out of the garrison.” Rylan looks stricken and sooty. “That foul woman asked me to carry linens in because she was weak. It was all a ploy. She followed me, tossed those burning rag heaps in, and bolted the door. A little while later I could hear Mother yelling.”
“I’ll find her,” I promise. I can’t decide whether it’s better or worse to tell Rylan, but I need the soldiers to be aware. “The duchess is the Beast of Brimmond.”
Rylan gapes at me before saying, “What?”
“Get my sister out of here,” I tell Anders. “I’ll be right down.”
Anders scoops my sister up in a cradle carry and walks toward the door. I do a search to be sure that no soldiers remain—and that my mother is not on another floor of the smoking building.
By the time I descend, the squadron ofWächtersoldiers has filed out the door in an orderly fashion. Most of the women already have their hands on the hilts of their swords, and their red-shot eyes arescanning the area. Coughs and gagging are the only sounds other than one woman’s retching.
Outside, Alain is slumped on the ground. Nolan is beside him, alternating between coughs and issuing orders. He sees me and says, “The steward says the monster goes to her husband’s tomb several times a day and at night. If she’s not there, Alain says that the duke’s study in the castle is where the woman can be found. There or in the duke’s bedroom.”
