Chapter 17 #2
Antonin. His last name. Another part of himself he hadn’t shared freely. But it wasn’t the first place I’d come across that name. Where had I heard it before?
“Not until you let her go,” he warned. Something sinister returned to his gaze, reminding me of the night we met. He didn’t look at me like that anymore, thankfully.
The Commissioner shoved me to the side and into the arms of one of his officers, forgetting he’d only clipped one of my wrists. I was pulled across the gangplank toward the docks while I watched Max defend himself.
“Hands up!” A copper approached him with a pistol trained, but Max became a blur, closing the distance between them to knock the weapon flying before striking his palm into the guard’s face. The copper stumbled back, but Max snatched him by the uniform and tossed him into the open hatch.
He spun, coat flaring at his knees, grabbing another guard who was trying to apprehend him from behind.
Somewhere between the first guard and the next, he snatched the end of the crane’s hook, slamming it into the guard’s face.
The blow was enough to disorient him, but Max took the cord attached to the hook and looped it around the man’s neck, shoving him forward over the hatch to suspend over the cargo.
While the other guards ran to the crane room to assist their comrade, Max shouted at me. “Run! I’ll find you!”
Gate Fourteen.
Cassien was starting toward Max, gun in hand, but turned back to me when he realized we were working together.
I slammed an elbow into the guard’s belly, catching him by surprise. His grip loosened around my arm, and my foot kicked back at his knee, bending it sideways unnaturally. He grunted beneath his helmet, cursing me to the blackest hell.
Capitalizing on his poor judgment, I used my free hand, still fisted around the die, to shove him off the gangplank and into the harbor. He made an impressive splash.
I didn’t turn back to check on Max or Cassien, instead darting into the crowds that thronged the docks and turning toward the shipyard.
My boots and trousers were quickly soaked from running across puddled cobblestones and dodging carriages still picking up cargo from the incoming ships.
I sprinted down a darkened alley between two warehouses that led to a yard full of cargo.
Disoriented, I leaned against the brick wall for support, finding a quiet place to think for a moment.
A flicker of movement drew my attention across the yard, where the bony remains of galley boats were under construction. The figure was gone before I could be sure I’d seen someone.
I blinked the thought away, returning to more pressing matters.
I was lost among the organized chaos of the docks.
Moonlight outlined the smokestacks from metal factories lining the distance on one side of the canal, the skyline resting behind the wall.
The yard was busy, me with guards checking cargo and otherwise standing between me and my escape.
Only one way out… The fourteenth gate Max had mentioned, but the coppers were everywhere. The cuff around my wrist glowed faintly in the dark, betraying my location.
Already the magic in my veins wavered like a flame against the wind. The poison on the cuff coated my skin, sinking into my pores to taint my blood. The stuff burned as it found my veins. I tried to pinch my arm to slow the blood flow, but it was useless without a proper tourniquet.
My illusion fell apart. The poison in the cuff and the fear in my veins stripped away the careful mask to reveal my identity. There was no choice left but to run—while Max was giving me a chance. I pushed off the crate, noticing a break in foot traffic, and headed toward the fourteenth archway.
“Not so fast.” A hand wrapped the nape of my neck, drawing me back into the shadow of the warehouse. That strong grip shoved me hard against the brick wall.
Cassien stood in front of me, looking furious in the glow of the cuffs. The light must have reflected against my own face, because his eyes lit up, realizing. “Nina… I had a feeling it was you.”
I blinked fast, trying to hide my tears. “Cassien, listen—”
“You had your chance to talk; now I’ll deal with you properly.” He sheathed the gun and went to clasp the other cuff, but I dodged his swipe.
Fear climbed from its settlement in my stomach to my throat. I was here without a name, without identification. He could take me to a quiet corner and kill me, dodging any consequence.
Two shallow breaths were all the time I had to decide how to respond. I spat in his face, stomped on his instep, twisted out of his grip. None of it did any good. The man was a head taller than me and made of stone beneath that fine crimson uniform.
He let go of one wrist to grab the dangling cuff, but instead of trying to pin my free arm, he snapped it over his own.
“There,” he sneered. “Now you won’t get away from me again.”
I glanced to where we were connected, at the thin chain that might as well have been a leash, then gauged the circumference of his neck. Perhaps…
“Do you realize who I am?” I asked then.
His mocking smile shrank slightly. “Of course I do. I made sure every constable and every enforcer in the city knows the face of the Crown Killer.”
He was too solid to tackle, but the right pressure against his windpipe would make him putty in my hands. “So you realize the mistake you made.”
I lunged, looping my cuffed hand around his head to drag him by the throat to the ground. He fell hard on his back, clawing at my forearm with his free hand while his boots scraped the cobbles. I pulled tighter the chain around his throat, my wrist bleeding from the force.
“Now that you’re listening,” I whispered. “I need to tell you something. I didn’t kill Therell, and I don’t know who did, but there’s someone buying dead bodies of Archetypes in the districts.”
He tried to take back the advantage and rolled us both, flipping our positions. I shoved my elbow into the notch of his throat, giving me something to push against as I kept the chain taut. His free hand found my neck, squeezing it just as tightly. But I knew I could outlast him.
It was a careful strangulation, just enough to cause minor hypoxia to his brain. I didn’t want to kill him, but neither could I let him drag me back to the Gatehouse.
“Find the buyer, and you’ll find who’s responsible for killing your Governor…” I forced the words out with the little air that remained in my chest. Just as the bones in my neck felt like they were going to crack from the pressure, he collapsed—on top of me.
As he did, the pressure around my throat loosened, and I took a small breath, but now the weight of his unconscious form on my chest was just as smothering.
I tried to wiggle from beneath him, to push him off, but he barely moved an inch.
The full moon above began to grow splotchy, and my head spun even though I was still lying on the ground.
“Oh, fuck you,” I cursed the Commissioner with the last slip of air in my throat. With one last, exhausted shove, I went limp beneath him.
He smelled like oranges. I hated that this was how it would all end for me.
“Need some help?” a soft voice asked.
“Please!” I begged, regardless of who I was talking to. I gained a glimpse of black hair flicking in the moonlight just as the Commissioner’s body was peeled off of me. The movement unwrapped the chain from his neck so that we lay side by side.
“I know you.” The voice belonged to a woman peering down at me, squinting. “You’re—”
“The Crown Killer. Technically, yes.”
“Technically?” A thin brow arched.
I slipped Max’s die back in my pocket safely. “Would you believe me if I said it was a vicious lie?”
She smiled. “After witnessing you strangle the Commissioner… No.” If she was unnerved by the idea of me being a notorious criminal, she didn’t show it. My savior ducked away then, and I lifted my head off the ground to see her patting down the Commissioner.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for keys. Unless you think you can slip out of those?”
I lifted my wrist and winced at the shock of pain. There were blisters on my skin around the cuff. Some of them had popped and oozed blood.
“Definitely not,” I choked out.
“That’s alright. I can work with this.” She swiped a blade from a thigh sheath and started working on the chain. I would have used the Forge die had the poison not protected the metal from magical influence.
“Who are you?” I asked.
She replied, “Elli,” just as three men in dark clothing ran past us.
“Are those your friends walking by, Elli?”
“They are,” she replied. “You’ve got nothing to worry about now, Killer.”
I huffed a breath. “It’s Nina.”
She grunted as she pressed the rest of the way through with her blade, the chain snapping in half. “There.” Elli reached a hand out, and I took it, standing to my feet with her help. “Every chain has a weak link.”
“Thank you, I—”
My thoughts fell apart when I saw her fully in the moonlight. She was familiar in a way that was undeniable. Short raven hair cut at the level of her jawline, but with a thick silver band framing her face. Her eyes, not quite as brazen or electric as Max’s, were a golden orange.
“You look like him,” I whispered.
“Like… who?” she asked, slowly.
“Like the man I traveled here with. He has silver hair and orange eyes, too. Never seen anything else like it until now.” I pulled out one of the dice without thinking, showing it to her like some sort of proof.
Elli smirked like him, too. “Put that away before someone jumps you for it.” She beckoned me to go with her farther down the tracks. “Come on. I know someone who can get that cuff off.”
“I can’t leave Max—”
“Maxence will find us sooner or later. Until then, you’re safe with me.” She placed a hand on the small of my back, pushing me forward at a brisk pace toward a covered cart. “But keep your hood on.”
“What about your associates?” I asked.