Chapter Seventeen
SEVENTEEN
Vesper stared at the bird in horror.
“Evans, run!”
Maximilian’s voice brought her back to her senses. Vesper gathered her skirts and began to sprint as fast as her heeled boots would allow. She didn’t dare look over her shoulder, but she still saw a dark shadow forming ahead of her, growing larger as it drew closer.
“Get down!” Maximilian shouted.
Vesper threw herself forward and flattened her body to the ground.
A rush of wind passed overhead, knocking her hat from her head.
The teratorn screeched in fury as it rose back into the air.
Her mind began to race as she tried to put the pieces together.
The only exit was locked with just the two of them inside.
That on its own might have been a mistake by a careless footman.
But the teratorn’s enclosure should have been closed. That could only mean—
“It’s circling!” Maximilian was flat on the ground beside her.
Sunlight caught the teratorn’s blood-colored wings as it angled slightly to change direction, and in a strange, detached way, she found she could almost admire the grace in that motion.
An earsplitting shriek tore through the quiet, jolting her back to reality again.
Vesper pointed to a cluster of monstera a few feet away. “We need to get some cover!”
Maximilian jumped to his feet at the same time Vesper did, and they ran together.
She heard the flapping of the bird’s massive wings and the sharp click of its hooked beak.
The second time they dove, she heard a ripping sound.
The bird’s talons had caught on several of the plants around her and ripped them out of the ground.
She and Maximilian tucked themselves more deeply into the foliage as the teratorn arced upward again, showering the aviary with dirt and torn leaves.
All around them, the rest of the birds were squawking with terror. Maximilian turned to her, tie askew.
“What should we do?”
“Me?” Vesper glared at him. “Why do I have to come up with a plan?”
Maximilian looked affronted. “I hired you to act as my private investigator—problem-solving is supposed to be one of your fortes!”
The teratorn screeched again and Vesper cringed. “Didn’t you go to university and get some fancy formal education?”
“In arcanic studies!” Maximilian snapped. “Not ornithology!”
“Can’t you use an incantation to stop it like you did to the horse at the polo match?”
Maximilian shook his head. “Not with it flying all over the place like that.”
Vesper racked her mind, trying to remember Professor O’Gilvie’s words about the teratorn from earlier. Something came to her. “We need to tire it out and then find a way to escape.”
Maximilian stared at her. “What?”
“The ornithologist said that teratorns were apex predators, but because they’re so big, they tire quickly.” She pointed above. “That teratorn has been in an enclosure for who knows how long, so it stands to reason that it would tire even more quickly, because it wouldn’t be used to flying.”
“So we, what, just sit here and wait for it to get sleepy?” Maximilian asked.
“No.” She massaged the bridge of her nose. “The professor also said that teratorns rely on sharp eyesight to capture prey quickly.” She looked away for a moment, then back at Maximilian. “I think I have a plan, but I’m going to need your help.”
Maximilian nodded. “What can I do?”
“I need you to use sorcery to make it darker here.”
A look she didn’t understand passed over the sorcerer’s face, but as quickly as it was there, it was gone. He nodded again, looking more stoic.
“I can do that,” he said. “How much time do you need?”
Vesper stared up at the aviary’s dome. “I just need a few minutes.”
“Got it.”
She launched herself out of their hiding place and started to run.
In the distance, the teratorn shrieked. She imagined the bird changing course and soaring directly toward her the way she’d seen owls hunt mice at night.
The shadow of the teratorn covered her completely, and she watched it get larger as the beast descended.
Then, abruptly, the shadow was gone. The entire aviary darkened, and the wind picked up.
Vesper looked over her shoulder and jumped.
Maximilian was now standing in the foliage.
Both of his arms were raised high, and he was staring upward with complete focus.
Iron-gray storm clouds were swirling around him, growing larger and darker as the seconds ticked by.
The teratorn was now entirely concealed in them.
She’d reached the door. Distantly, she remembered a lesson Stettner had once taught her.
Generally speaking, police officers were trained to breach doors with a battering ram, but those tactics worked for wooden doors, not glass ones.
“Evans!”
Vesper didn’t look at Maximilian, but she could hear the strain in the sorcerer’s voice.
Above, the clouds were already beginning to dissipate and rays of sunshine were beginning to pierce through.
She picked up a medium-sized rock and hurled it as hard as she could at the door.
A tiny fissure appeared. She picked up the same rock and struck again; this time, a hole the size of her fist appeared. She breathed relief.
“Evans!” Maximilian sounded closer now, much closer. Vesper looked over her shoulder, and was surprised to see the sorcerer running toward her.
“I’ve got a hole in the glass,” Vesper said. “I can make it bigger, and then we—”
“No time!”
Vesper looked up. “What—?” The breath was knocked from her body as Maximilian wrapped his arms around her waist, then threw them both through the door.
Vesper screwed her eyes shut. Glass shattered, and she felt a rush of cold air.
The glass fragments should have been cutting her everywhere her skin was exposed, but the pain never came.
Instead, she heard a rush of wind, as though she was standing in a large tunnel.
She cracked one eye open and saw that there were fragments of glass everywhere, but they appeared to be swirling all around them, reflecting off the sun. Understanding dawned on her.
Maximilian has used sorcery to wrap us in some sort of cocoon, to protect us.
There was no time to register anything else.
In one moment, Maximilian held them suspended slightly; in the next, Vesper heard him exhale sharply before they crashed to the ground hard.
Vesper sat up, stunned. They were now surrounded by tiny glass fragments that almost reminded her of snowflakes.
For a few seconds, she simply sat there, stunned. Then:
“Good heavens!”
Several people were running around the house down the hill, with Mrs. Belver and Professor O’Gilvie in the lead.
For one frantic moment, she thought about the teratorn, still flying around the aviary, but when she turned, the bird had perched itself on a tree branch.
It was still looking at her, but showed no apparent interest in moving.
It seemed the professor had been right about the giant bird tiring easily.
“Miss Evans!” At last, Mrs. Belver reached them. Her cheery disposition was gone. In its place, her face had gone white. “Are you all right? What on earth happened?”
“Mr. Kite and I got locked in the aviary,” Vesper explained. “And someone set the teratorn loose. It was attacking us. We had to break the glass to get out, but really I’m fine.”
“Miss Evans.” There was a new sternness in Mrs. Belver’s voice. “You are most certainly not fine. Look at your hand.”
Vesper looked down. It seemed one large piece of glass had made it past Maximilian’s defenses and sliced right through her glove and into the meat of her right palm. Now that the adrenaline was beginning to wear off, it was starting to sting. She tried not to react, but winced.
“Miss Evans?”
Vesper turned. In the ensuing chaos, she’d nearly forgotten Maximilian.
She stiffened. The sorcerer was lying down and looked even paler than he’d been that morning.
Nicks and small cuts covered his face, a few of them bleeding, but his eyes were on her injured hand.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I thought I—”
“You both need medical attention,” said Mrs. Belver. She signaled to two footmen who were running across the grass. Together, they carefully got Vesper to her feet. Upright, Vesper now saw that several more servants were quickly trying to cover the hole in the aviary.
“I’m going to take Mr. Kite and Miss Evans up to the house to be bandaged,” said Mrs. Belver.
“If it’s all right, I’ll have my footman attend to me,” said Maximilian. He winced, then sat up. “Please, prioritize Miss Evans.”
Vesper felt a pang of something she couldn’t quite name. Gratitude? Guilt? In truth, Maximilian looked like he needed far more immediate attention than her, but the sorcerer was already shaking off the Belvers’ attendants.
“Come, dear.” Mrs. Belver gently took her by the arm. “Let’s get you inside and cleaned up.”
Vesper only got one more look at Maximilian before Mrs. Belver led her away from the destroyed aviary and toward the house.
There was something about the way the sorcerer had looked at her, something about the remorse she’d heard in his voice, that she found she couldn’t stop thinking about.
She thought of all the cuts on his body compared to only one of her hands, and new understanding dawned on her.
He shielded you. He deliberately took the brunt of the glass to try to protect you.