CHAPTER 23
Varian knew what he was doing, and he was just getting started. His provocation was calculated, meant to corner Reagan in the middle of the crowd, where he had no choice but to listen.
The motion was quick. Reagan stepped away from me and, in a blink, both of them were gone, disappearing with a whistle of fists and a crackle in the air.
Clouds darkened the sky.
People nearby either stared or hurried away. Gwinifer and Finn were at my side a breath later, scanning the courtyard for the two of them.
“Can you see him?” I asked.
Before they could answer, Varian’s voice carried across the courtyard. “I see your lord is making an appearance tonight.”
He darted between the pines. A surge of light revealed Reagan, only for him to vanish a second later.
Lightning cleaved the sky, followed by a crack of thunder.
“The idiot is chasing him,” Gwinifer said through gritted teeth.
Then she vanished, and the three of them were gone.
My mouth went dry.
I spun, only to have Finn’s hand secure me by the elbow. “Stay here. You cannot help him right now.”
He was right, but my heart thrashed inside my chest, and I wished I could humiliate Varian myself, strike that insufferable, hateful face with my own fist. Madness, surely, that I’d felt even a sliver of empathy for him tonight.
Cerridwen and Barracus reached us just as the place fell deathly silent. The music stopped; the murmurs faded.
The aurora lights disappeared, swallowed by grey clouds, letting darkness fall over the courtyard. The temperature dropped, as if the weather spells had faded, and a foul scent blew past on a gelid gust of air.
A scream tore through the darkness. Loud. Terrified.
Finn went unnaturally still beside me. “It’s an attack.”
Then, the courtyard erupted into a turbulent frenzy.
A chorus of growls and screams and cries muffled everything. The reek of rot, iron, and decay clogged my nostrils. People surged in from every direction, eyes wide, mouths open in shouts as they pushed toward the gates.
“Grims,” Finn warned, stretching his neck and pulling me out of the stream of citizens.
Barracus began barking orders. “I’ll set the squads in motion. Cerridwen, evacuate everyone.”
There was no time for an answer. She was already moving toward a cluster of guests.
Screams broke louder through the darkened courtyard, and feral growls sounded closer. Several of them.
“Come on. I have to get you out of here,” Finn said.
“No.” I halted, pulling Finn to stop. “You need to help them evacuate everyone.”
“I’ll just bring you to the Hall.”
I shook my head. “I’ll run. Go help them. Everyone needs to leave now.”
A banquet of food was overturned by the crowd. Before I could ask why everyone wasn’t flinging, I remembered Gwinifer once telling me that not every mage could.
Dread churned in my stomach, my chest tightening with each overwhelming heartbeat.
“Fine, then run fast and lock your room. Stay there until someone comes.”
I nodded and did as he said.
It wasn’t easy to flee against the tide of desperate faces.
Still, I pressed forward, guiding those in my path toward the gates.
My eyes kept darting towards the woods, half expecting the creatures to emerge at any second.
The growls layered over one another, making it sound as though there were countless of them.
Darkness closed in, people screaming and moving in frantic blurs, yet none appeared harmed. It wasn’t until I ascended the stone stairs leading to the castle’s entrance that I saw it. Them.
The horde growled from the eastern woods. Glowing red eyes and shaggy black fur sent ice coursing through my limbs. They were here, but not one of them attacked.
They couldn’t.
A thick, shimmering wall held the beasts at the edge of the trees. They thrashed and leapt against it, but the ward would not break. Reagan stood directly before them, hands spread wide, weaving the immense barrier that rose as tall as the pines.
My shoulders sagged when I saw him, then spotted Gwinifer, Cerridwen, and Finnegan leading the rest of the citizens out of the gates. Battle mages had formed two lines, securing a pathway toward the city.
I was almost inside the doors when I heard a sob. It was close, but not visible. Searching the gloom, I began descending the stairs, hoping the elven dust would work in my favour.
Along the castle walls, a brown-haired boy, likely seven or eight years old, lay face down, his legs caught in a tangle of roses. He sobbed, stretching a trembling hand toward the sharp greenery.
“Are you stuck?” I asked, kneeling in front of him, to draw his attention. “Let’s get you out, then we’ll find your mum, all right?”
He seemed to calm down at the mention of his mother, which helped me see what was holding him back. The thorns snagged on the fabric of his cloak and socks, mercifully not puncturing his skin, though they grazed my hands as I tried to shift the cloak.
“You’re almost free.” I stifled a hiss when a thorn sank deep into my palm.
“All right,” the boy whimpered.
Maybe it wasn’t even the thorns, but the utter darkness and screaming that terrified him. The rest of the cloak was finally free.
The boy slowly sat as I plucked the thorn from my palm. “I’m Jane. What’s your name?”
“Jack,” he answered.
“Nice to meet you, Jack. We’ll go find your parents, but it’s dark, so I’m going to ask you to hold my hand.” I extended one to him, and thankfully, he took it.
We returned to the front of the castle, the gloom too thick to ask him to find his parents in the crowd. No one seemed to be searching for a child.
“What are your parents’ names?” I asked.
“Daria and Onorio,” the boy murmured.
I recognised the names immediately. They belonged to the owners of the bakeshop. “Brilliant, Jack.”
Stepping deeper into the heart of the chaos, I searched for their familiar faces. Jack trembled beside me, his gaze locked on the glowing red eyes.
I knelt next to him, turning his back to the creatures. There was nothing I could do about the noise.
“I’ll put the hood over your head,” I whispered. “Don’t look there. Look at me.” I studied his reddened eyes, still glassy from tears. “Tell me,” I said gently. “Do you help your mum at her bakery?”
He nodded. “I do. But it isn’t a bakery. It’s a coffeehouse.”
“Ah,” I said with a small smile. “My mistake. And what sort of help do you give her?”
A memory flickered through my mind, one where I knelt in almost the same way, but it had been Joy in front of me.
Jack hesitated, then began talking about his mother.
The creatures were still trapped behind the ward, giving us time to move. I was considering taking him back to the Hall when a shadow surged before us.
“What are you doing?”
My heart lurched as I looked up, finding Reagan standing before us.
“Gods, you scared me,” I breathed, relief washing over me. “You warded the courtyard.”
Reagan’s eyes darted to the child pressing against my legs.
“He got lost,” I explained. “Jack is Daria and Onorio’s son, from The Wandering Cup.”
Reagan was breathing heavily, his face impossible to read in the dark. “I’ll take him, and you go inside now.” He crouched before I could so much as hesitate. “Hi, Jack. I’m Reagan.” The softest tone I’d ever heard him use. “Can I take you to your mum and dad?”
The boy glanced at me as I crouched. “You can trust him. He’ll bring you there quicker than me.”
The boy didn’t speak, but he took Reagan’s hand.
“Now go inside. Please,” Reagan asked.
I left the moment he and the child flung away, my gaze flicking over my shoulder at the mostly emptied courtyard.
Something streaked past me.
I spun, my feet tangling in the fabric of my dress, and fell to my knees. Cursing, I looked up, straining to make out the sky. Something had flown too close, but in the dark, I could barely see it.
My vision felt dull, less sharp than before, as I tried to distinguish the blurry shadows. Then, a shape hovered at the edge of the tree line, dimly illuminated by the light from the entrance.
I recognised it.
Even more horrifying in person. Its long, dark hair veiled half of its tattered body, impossibly long limbs stretching unnaturally, and its face . . . two empty sockets above a gaping, toothless black maw.
My arms prickled. My chest sank.
I knew I couldn’t fight it; only a spell could end the creature that sought to steal what it no longer had. Somehow, those hollow sockets stared right at me.
Wraith.
There was no one else near me. It probably couldn’t tell a mageborn from a human, but I didn’t want to find out if it could still hurt me.
I bolted for the staircase, refusing to glance back. The arched doors burst open, and I leapt.
◆◆◆
I paced around in my chambers, too agitated to sleep.
From my window, I couldn’t see the courtyard that held the Rite. There was only darkness and the howling wind. No sign of the battle mages, nor the castle staff within the hallways, who were probably still securing all guests in their homes after the attack on Mountheim Hall.
An hour passed before I went to bathe, the need to wash away the chill from the night pulling me toward the tub.
But despite the warmth of the water, despite sinking into the soft fabric of my nightgown, as I looked out of my window, I couldn’t quiet the worries in my head.
Couldn’t stop searching for a reason behind an attack of this scale.
Eventually, I stretched out on the bed. It was an hour, maybe two, before the faintest knock sounded at the door. Trepidation tightened my muscles as I slipped into my robe and padded toward the door.
“It’s me,” Reagan whispered.
I cursed under my breath, my hand moving mindlessly to my chest before I opened the door. He was there, his hair slightly damp, his clothes different from before. Clean.
He had rid himself of the gruesome stench of Grim.
“You all right?” he asked, a faint tightness to his lips.
I stepped into the doorway, scanning the hallway for anyone else, but found it empty. “Yes . . . Is the boy all right?”
“Fine. Back with his parents.”
My relief was instant. “Is anyone hurt? Finn? Gwinifer?”