Chapter 13
Thirteen
We sat with Tay until he fell into a heavy, exhausted sleep.
When I was sure he wouldn’t wake up soon looking for us, I stood. “Let’s go to the magic shop.”
Lidi’s face lit up, and she took my hand as the two of us made our way out of the ward.
The magic shop sat at the edge of the square, wedged between a tavern that never closed and a bakery with a window full of cakes we couldn’t afford. Lidi didn’t even look twice at the cakes, which I used to obsess over when I was a kid.
Inside, the smell was wild: spice and acid and something that reminded me of cider that had dwelt too long in the root cellar. The shelves were packed, floor to ceiling, with jars, bottles, and cages for inanimate things that shouldn’t need bars to keep them from moving.
Lidi darted in ahead of me, making a beeline for the glass dragon perched on the front counter.
It was bottle green, but its wings were obsidian touched by rainbows, and its eyes were little golden beads that seemed to track every move.
I touched its cool, smooth head between its horns, feeling a strange pulse of longing.
Orx grinned when he saw us, but didn’t stand from behind the counter. As usual, he was rolling dice, over and over onto a smooth piece of felt beside his lockbox; it seemed to be his compulsion.
“If it isn’t the most dangerous girl in town,” he said, nodding at me.
“Don’t believe the gossip. There’s nothing dangerous about me,” I said, and he snorted a laugh.
“I’ll pretend to believe that, since I think maybe you do,” he said. He looked at Lidi. “And the little starling. Come to liberate the dragons?”
Lidi didn’t answer, just ran one fingertip over its glass snout.
The mark on my back was starting to burn. Was it because Fieran had just come into my mind?
Orx gave me a long, measuring look. “You’re not here to buy, are you?”
“I’m buying if you have what I need.” And if by some miracle I can afford it.
He laughed, and the sound filled the shop. “Buying? Or plotting?”
“That’s quite the accusation. I’ve never stolen from you,” I said, though I’d thought about it, a dozen times.
He leaned in confidentially. “But we both know you consider it every time.”
I waited until Lidi had disappeared down a row of shelves, though that was nerve-wracking in itself. Gods knew what damage she could do in this place of things that were as fragile as our finances. “Do you have anything to help Tay? To buy him real time.”
He shook his head, slow. “Not for that. I don’t cross the Fae. And even if I did, you couldn’t afford it.”
“You don’t know that,” I disagreed.
He gave me an amused look. I turned my back on him and moved down the row of aisles, looking for Lidi. She was standing at the end of the third aisle, staring up at something high on one of the shelves.
“Lidi,” I called. “We should go.”
“We just got here.” She frowned at me as she turned, but whatever she saw on my face changed her mind.
As she skipped toward me, I closed my eyes and prayed to gods I didn’t believe in that she wouldn’t break anything. She and I seemed to have inherited the same sense of grace.
Orx reached for one of the candy jars behind him as Lidi melded herself to my side without costing me a small fortune in breakage. “Take some candy for the walk home.”
The thought of walking home and leaving Tay behind with the healer hurt.
He offered one to Lidi, who took it and popped it into her mouth. Her eyes went wide, but she didn’t spit it out.
“It’s sour and sweet by turns, just like life,” Orx promised. “If you don’t like the flavor now, just wait a moment. Nothing sour lasts.”
“Nor the sweet either,” I muttered.
“Take one.” He shook the jar at me. “I know you have a sweet tooth, even though you won’t admit to wanting anything for yourself. Not even candy.”
“That’s not true.” I took it.
He scoffed. “If I didn’t embarrass you into eating it, you’d save it for your sister.”
I rolled my eyes and popped it onto my tongue, even though he was right. It seemed to burn, sharp and hot, then softened into sweetness.
If he wanted to play with metaphors, I could use some softening like that in my life.
Lidi stood in the doorway, and she turned back to me. “Cara…”
There was a note of fear in her voice that stirred me into action. I peeked out over her shoulder.
The square was chaos.
People ran in every direction, shoving each other aside in their desperation. At the center, near the well, a shape tore through the crowd, all claws and teeth, moving too fast to track.
I ducked back and pulled Lidi after me.
She looked at me, her face white. “Monsters again.”
I thought of Tay, in the healer’s back room, helpless. “We have to help Tay. Protect him until the shifters come.”
My heart pounded, but Fieran would stride through this chaos like a god. We just had to last until the shifters arrived.
Orx shut the door and dropped a bar across it. The shop was suddenly dim and close, the outside noise muffled but constant. Orx started moving around, pulling shutters tight, setting traps at the windows. “Burrowers. I read about ’em, hoped I’d never see one.”
“Do you have a weapon I can use?”
He gave me a worried look. “Worried they’ll break through? They won’t get inside here.”
“Call me crazy. I want a world without monsters, but if there must be monsters, I want to fight.”
He reached for something under his desk and pulled up two crossbows. He thrust one at me, already turning back to pull out a small case full of darts. “You know how to use one?”
I nodded, even though I’d only fired one in archery class in the schoolyard. Once. “Point, pull, pray.”
“Good enough.” He knelt and checked Lidi’s face. “You all right, starling?”
She nodded, but she was shaking.
I should have comforted her, but I had to get to Tay. I reached past them and scooped up a handful of bolts for my pocket, then another. “I have to go.”
“No.” Orx shot to his feet. “Cara, it’s deadly out there.”
“The shifters are here.” I pointed out the window. “I just need to keep Tay safe until they can get rid of the monsters.”
His face said that my faith was misplaced. “I’ve read that burrowers steal magic. Even shifters fear them because if they lose their magic, they can’t shift—”
“Orx. Thank you for the lesson, but I’m going.”
He stared at me, looking horrified. “Keep to the alleys. Leave your sister with me. We’ll be locked up tight.”
It would be far easier for me and far safer for Lidi to leave her here, but Orx had never struck me as the paternal type. “Thank you.”
He shrugged at the obvious relief in my tone. “Don’t bother coming back until the shifters have put those monsters to bed. If they can. I’ll be locking every door and using all my wards. You understand?”
“Yes.” I wanted to hug him, but I never would. I still had the candy in my cheek, and now it was leaking sweetness onto my tongue. “Thank you.”
I knelt in front of Lidi. “Listen, you stay with Orx. You don’t go anywhere unless he says. Understand?”
She nodded, but tears were starting to leak down her face.
“I have to go get Tay,” I said. “He’s alone.”
She hugged me so hard I could barely breathe. “Take care of him.”
“I always do.”
Orx walked me to the back door, so he could lock it behind me. “Don’t be a hero.”
“I don’t know how to be a hero, no risk there,” I told him.
The door closing behind me felt painfully final.
Halfway there, I caught sight of the shifters. They moved through the street fluidly as they fought in tandem, a blur of wings and scale and blade as they shifted. Back and forth more easily than I would’ve shed my cloak.
As I ducked into the next alley, heartbeat thumping so loud in my ears that I could barely hear anything, the healer’s bell sounded, ringing wild and off-key. They were calling for help or issuing a warning or both.
I ran for Tay, hoping my luck would hold.
I hit the healer’s back door hard, then swung it open, my hands clumsy. I moved rapidly through empty rooms. Where had everyone gone?
Inside the front room, Ana was dragging a desk against the front entrance, her arms slick with sweat and blood. She turned and when she saw me, she nodded. “I thought you’d be back for your brother if you knew. I could use some help.”
The door splintered, throwing the table back toward us. Ana and I scattered.
The first burrower wedged its snout through, snapping at the air.
I fired, the bolt thunking into its shoulder. It screamed, a horrible, human sound.
Ana hit it with a broom, catching it in the eye. It reared back, but another one slammed into the door behind it, cracking the frame.
The two monsters both tried to surge inside, slammed into each other, and began to roll over each other, fighting and snapping.
I fumbled the reload. Ana screamed at me to hurry.
Then a third shape loomed behind them. A copper dragon.
He tore the burrower’s head off. For a second, it was in his mouth, before he popped it like a berry. The second monster turned on him, but he snapped it in half.
Then he shifted back. Brown hair, gathered in a ponytail, and an angular, handsome face.
Ander.
He reached over his shoulder for his sword, golden light suffusing the doorway as the sheath appeared by magic. When the light died, he had his sword in his hand and the leather straps of his sheath were over his powerful shoulders.
“Who else is in here?” He moved swiftly into the ruins.
“There’s my brother, the old woman…” I looked at Ana.
“That’s all. Everyone else ran.”
“We need to get them out of here,” Ander said.
“Follow me.” Ana’s eyes were wide with fear, and she jumped at every sound from outside, but she didn’t hesitate to run for the infirmary.
Inside, Tay was struggling to sit up on the edge of the bed. He tried to stand, and his legs collapsed beneath him.
“I’ve got you,” I told my brother, stooping to slide my arm around his waist. I got him up, the two of us staggering together.
Ander gave us an uncertain look and made to sheath his sword. But he couldn’t carry Tay; we needed him to fight.
“Get us to safety,” I told him. “I’ve got my brother.”
He nodded. Respect lit his dark blue eyes, but he said, “Safety may be hard to find.”
Tay’s breath rattled in his chest. My knees almost buckled under his weight as I headed for the back door, but we kept moving. Where could we go? Not the magic shop; Orx wouldn’t open those doors, and I was grateful for it. What buildings would be open?
Ander cut in front of us before we could reach the doorway. I glanced back over my shoulder; Ana followed behind me with the old woman hobbling with her. I wasn’t sure which pair of us was in worse shape.
Ander looked outside carefully, then gestured us out. We stepped into the alleyway, and he moved swiftly down it, his sword ready.
Beyond, the main street was a battlefield. The shifters were everywhere, tearing into burrowers with a hunger that was almost joyful. The sounds were panic-inducing: the roaring of the dragons, the shrieks of dying burrowers, the chaos of collapsing stone.
The ground heaved beneath our feet. I stumbled to one knee, barely keeping my grip on Tay’s waist, and he let out a gasp of pain he tried to smother. It was harder to get him up now, and I almost fell again, the ground shaking.
Then the burrower exploded out of the upheaved ground. I stutter-stepped back in my terror, yanking Tay up with strength I didn’t know I had. He groaned in pain and tightened his arm around my shoulders, reeling with me.
“Keep moving.” Ander moved steadily toward the burrower that writhed across the ground toward us, its mouth gaping eagerly. “I’ll be right behind you.”
I looked around desperately. Ana and the old woman were already gone, and I wasn’t sure where. The world was a blur around me as I sought refuge.
Behind me echoed the sound of blows, the screech of a dying burrower.
Then Ander was back at our side. “Where are we going, Cara?”
He sounded so calm and confident that some of my terror cleared. I pointed toward one of the buildings on the square, the three-story mayor’s hall. “If we can get in there, it’s built for emergencies.”
“Good plan.” His gaze cut toward me just as I started to stumble under Tay’s weight. Before I could react, he caught Tay out of my grip and threw him over his shoulder, gripping him with his left arm.
“Don’t worry,” Ander promised me, holding the sword out in front of us steadily. “I can still fight.”
“I don’t doubt it,” I said, after seeing him in battle.
When we reached the mayor’s hall, there was a fight raging across the rooftops across from us. A burrower slid down one roof, pursued by a dragon; the building’s rooftop buckled under the weight of their combat. There was a terrible groan from the building.
One of the dragons rose in the air, carrying a burrower with it. But there were so many of them.
“Ander!” someone shouted in the distance. “Burrower got me—can’t shift—”
Ander kicked the door of the building in. “Go. All the way to the top. Close every door between us to slow them down in case they get past me. I’ll seal you in.”
He eased Tay to his feet inside the doorway. I slid my arm underneath Tay’s shoulder, feeling his weight fall on me.
Ander studied me briefly. “You’re tough, Cara. You’ll make it.”
Then he was gone. But his words lingered. My heart was beating a little more calmly, despite the chaos outside.
My knees buckled, but I kept Tay and me upright as we staggered up row after row of stairs, sealing every door between us and the monsters.