Chapter Twenty-Four
Alora couldn’t help peering beneath the rim of the driver’s wide-brimmed hat. The man was an Urchin. He must be.
His face was unmasked, however, revealing a large mustache and a narrow jaw, and his nose appeared as if it’d been broken and reset more than once.
He stared back at Alora in a challenge, his eyes light and cold.
He wasn’t the captain; she was sure of it.
The desire to prove himself rolled off him in waves she’d not felt while in the other Urchin’s presence.
He turned his head away to scowl once more at the lane, and she thought, Fetching wood and rugs isn’t helping his ego any.
Her fingers knotted beneath the hem of the golden cloak, and she used the jostling of the fine wagon to put a little more distance between herself and the driver. She didn’t know whether he’d do anything if she bumped into him, but she certainly knew he wouldn’t appreciate it.
She settled back with a sigh. It hadn’t crossed her mind to add cushions to her own cart, as she never took it any great distance, but the gold cushions in the otherwise white wagon were comfortable enough that she made a mental note to commission some at her next opportunity.
But the horses she would forgo, never mind they were fine and white and looked to have been carved from the same mold.
Master Merridon and his appearances. She rolled her eyes skyward.
“I’m sure this isn’t how you wanted to spend your morning, but thank you all the same.”
A brief scoff stirred the air beside her. “Please, Miss Pennigrim, don’t speak to me.”
Alora’s mouth fell wide as she twisted her torso to stare at him. Of all the rude—
The thought disintegrated to dust. Alora peered into the silver-edged ferns lining Opulence’s lane and thought surely, surely, they weren’t staring back.
“Specter wolf,” she murmured.
A large body, gray and silver, with eyes like pale orbs, tracked them through the shadows.
The morning was cool yet, but nowhere near cold enough to cause the chills racing along her spine.
When the creature focused on her, teeth bared, Alora lost her breath.
Without thinking, she reached out to grip the driver’s arm, her opposite pointing across his chest and into the wood beyond.
“There’s a wolf following us!”
A flash of indignation crossed the man’s face as he shook himself free of her. “Save your hysterics. It’s daylight.”
Which only meant this specter wolf was especially powerful. Or hungry. Or both. Alora would know; she’d finished the entire book of Rare Creatures of the West.
“Quit your arguing, Urchin, and look!”
Alora wasn’t sure if it was her furious desperation or the fact she’d let slip she knew his true occupation, but the Urchin narrowed his gaze at her before doing as she bid and glancing into the trees. Only then did she feel him tense beside her.
“What in the blistering hell is that thing doing so close to the lane?”
He called the creature a thing like doing so might make it lesser, but Alora could feel the fear rolling off him in abundance. Despite the man’s attempt at an ample mustache, he was clearly younger than her. And he obviously knew nothing of specter wolves.
“They are drawn to enchantment.”
“But I’ve not got much to speak of. I can sense emotions, that’s all.” When the quiet grew weighted, the Urchin fixed her with a glare. “Unless you—no, this makes much more sense to me now.”
The wolf weaved among the ferns, disappearing from view now and then to reappear later. All the while, it watched her.
“What does?”
“I’d been given strict orders to see you safe to the gate.”
“By Merridon?”
He sneered at her as if she were a burden he’d rather toss off. “One of them.”
Alora emitted an incredulous sound at his admission. “Will they attack the horses?”
“They can’t sense the horses.”
Had she read that? Fine, perhaps he knew a little more than she thought.
Her pulse thrummed, and she yearned to stifle it. To squash the enchantment churning in her blood before the creature decided it would no longer wait to make a feast of it. “Should we increase our pace?”
“Would you— I don’t know, all right? Just quit prattling a moment so I can think!”
Alora glared at him, thinking about how much she’d like to add another bump to his nose, when he said, “They were supposed to be exterminated. What is it doing here?”
Exterminated? As far as Enver was aware, the entire forest crawled with them.
A brief flash of memory, of the Urchin captain telling her the threat of the woods was exaggerated, and she realized there likely hadn’t been a specter wolf sighted in a long time.
A break in the foliage revealed the true size of the creature and Alora gasped. “It’s fed on a lot of enchantment.”
A pitiful sound left the Urchin when his eyes found what hers did. The wolf rivaled the height of George. “Increase our pace, it is.” With a snap of the reins, the horses leapt into a run.
Alora’s back met the cushions with a jolt, and she hung onto the side of the wagon with all her strength.
The trees blurred past her, the horses’ ears flattened to their skulls, and she wondered, somewhere in the background of her desperate thoughts of survival, if they would lose all the lovely wood trim she’d commissioned from the carpenter. She wouldn’t have time to get more.
“Nearly there,” said the Urchin like a prayer, at the same moment Alora said, “Oh my heavens, there are two of them.”
“What!”
“There’s another on my side. Not as big, I don’t think, but I can’t be sure with how fast we’re moving.”
“You better be hanging on, because I won’t come back for you.”
Alora believed him completely as he snapped the reins again, and the horses hurtled faster yet. She could hear, and feel, the trim bouncing all around, and knew for certain that most would be cracked if they made it through at all.
A clattering thud drew her attention as a shorter piece was flung from the wagon. If she weren’t so frightened of dying, she would have shouted in dismay.
They rounded the corner, the wagon pulling up onto two wheels before smacking down, and she saw it, the gate, and could have wept in relief. The Urchin saw it, too, and leapt from his seat, standing and waving as he shouted, “Open it! Open the gate!”
But it didn’t open. It remained closed, and the horses were careening toward it, snorting and wild. And Alora saw that it couldn’t be opened—because there was no guard.
“Stop!” she screamed.
“I CAN’T!”
The Urchin dragged on the reins, the horses fighting the momentum carrying them forward, but it was too much. She could see it plain as day, her skull fracturing on the gold-wrought gate, her blood spilling as a feast for the wolves hurtling alongside them.
Alora squeezed her eyes closed and covered her head. She fiercely imagined a branch breaking from the boughs above, swinging down at just the right angle to meet the lever, shoving it forward. A sharp crack rent the air, dragging a curse from the man beside her, and then a shout of surprise.
Alora peeked open her eyes to find topiaries on either side.
They’d made it. They were on Opulence’s grounds.
She was flung forward as the horses skidded to a halt, their sides heaving and slick with sweat, and she spun in her seat to the gate, her mouth gaping when she found it wide open. Just outside it, two specter wolves prowled forward along the lane, hackles raised.
No! she almost cried. I’m supposed to be safe.
“Where is the guard?” she shouted instead and flung herself from the wagon.
The Urchin didn’t answer, and when she looked back, she cried aloud, as she saw he’d been tossed into the front of the wagon and was unconscious. Idiot! You should have hung on!
She’d two choices. Run to the mansion or run to the gate, and neither were ideal. But one subjected every enchanted performer—and the helpless Urchin—to the wolves, and the other subjected only her so really she chose what only made sense. She raced for the gate.
The wolves seemed to hesitate, seeing their prey barreling toward them, her teeth bared like theirs, but once they remembered they outnumbered her two to one, they growled a challenge. With measured steps, they stalked toward her.
Alora made it to the gate before they did, gripping the bars and wrenching.
But all that seemed to dislodge were her joints from their sockets.
The gate didn’t budge. She swore beneath her breath, realizing she would need to release the lever.
But when she managed to locate it beneath the branch she’d broken, it looked mangled beyond repair.
A choked sound emerged from her throat, because she saw him then. The guard. Or at least his boots. Those curled, golden toes pointed to the sky from amongst the ferns. The wolves had gotten to him first.
She would need to imagine it repaired. She would need to imagine the branch burned away and then—
A low growl huffed against the side of her face.
Alora froze. Not even her lungs moved. Perhaps her heart even stopped beating. She couldn’t feel it anymore.
The wolves were upon her.
One on either side, they stared at her, their orb-like eyes drinking her in, their nostrils flaring at her scent.
They wanted her terribly; she could feel their yearning hunger, but it was no basic sort of need.
This kind fed on enchantment with a boundless greed, and they’d done this many times before.
Specter wolves didn’t grow so powerfully brave otherwise.
Terrified tears tracked down her cheeks, and she did the only thing she could think of, even if it might reveal her and damn her, all in one moment. You are stone, she thought.
The wolves shuddered and halted. Where growls and breaths had ruffled her hair, there was now silence.
Alora stared upon their faces and felt fresh tears fall against her own.
Their stone forms had kept every detail, down to singular strands of fur, but she knew if she were to press hard enough, they’d break apart in her hand like needles.