Holland was still staring at Ojka’s corpse. The bruises on her skin. The cloth wrapped tight around her throat. As if Osaron felt the weight of that gaze, he turned his stolen face toward Holland. “Are you not happy to see your knight?”
Holland’s anger had never burned hot. It was forged cold and sharp, and the words were a whetstone along its edge. Ojka had been loyal, not to Osaron, but to him. She had served him. Trusted him. Looked at him and seen not a god, but a king. And she was dead—like Alox, like Talya, like Vortalis.
“She did not let you in.”
A tip of the head. A rictus grin. “In death, none can refuse.”
Holland drew a blade—a scythe, taken from a body in the square. “I will cut you from that body,” he said. “Even if I have to do it one piece at a time.”
Fire sparked across Lila’s knives.
Blood dripped from Kell’s fingers.
They had shifted slowly around the shadow king, circling, caging.
Just as they’d planned.
* * *
“No one offers,” instructed Kell. “No matter what Osaron says or does, no matter what he promises or threatens, no one lets him in.”
They were sitting in the Ghost’s galley, the Inheritor between them.
“So we’re just supposed to play coy?” said Lila, spinning a dagger point-down on the wooden table.
Holland started to speak, but the ship gave a sudden sway and he had to stop, swallow. “Osaron covets what he does not have,” he said when the wave of illness had passed. “The goal is not to give him a body, but to force him into needing one.”
“Splendid,” said Lila dryly. “So all we have to do is defeat an incarnation of magic strong enough to ruin worlds.”
Kell shot her a look. “Since when do you shy from a fight?”
“I’m not shying,” she snapped. “I just want to be sure we can win.”
“We win by being stronger,” said Kell. “And with the rings, we just might be.”
“Might be,” echoed Lila.
“Every vessel can be emptied,” said Holland, twisting the silver binding ring around his thumb. “Magic can’t be killed, but it can be weakened, and Osaron’s power might be vast, but it is by no means infinite. When I found him in Black London, he was reduced to a statue, too weak to hold a moving form.”
“Until you gave him one,” muttered Lila.
“Exactly,” said Holland, ignoring the jab.
“Osaron has been feeding on my city and its people,” added Kell. “But if Tieren’s spell has worked, he should be running out of sources.”
Lila dislodged her dagger from the table.
“Which means he should be good and ready for a fight.”
Holland nodded. “All we have to do is give him one. Make him weak. Make him desperate.”
“And then what?” demanded Lila.
“Then,” said Kell, “and only then, do we give him a host.” Kell nodded at Holland when he said it, the Inheritor hanging around the Antari’s neck.
“And what if he doesn’t pick you?” she snarled. “It’s well and good to offer, but if he gives me a shot, I’m going to take it.”
“Lila,” started Kell, but she cut him off.
“So will you. Don’t pretend you won’t.”
Silence settled over them.
“You’re right,” said Kell at last, and to Holland’s surprise—though it shouldn’t have surprised him anymore—Lila Bard cracked a smile. It was hard and humorless.
“It’s a race, then,” she said. “May the best Antari win.”
* * *
Osaron moved with a fraction of Ojka’s grace, but twice as much speed. Twin swords blossomed from her hands in plumes of smoke and became real, their surfaces shining as they sliced the air where Lila had been a moment before.
But Lila was already airborne, pushing off the nearest pillar as Holland willed a gust of wind through the hall with blinding force, and Kell’s steel shards flew on the gust like heavy rain.
Ojka’s hands came up, stilling the wind and the steel within as Lila plummeted down toward Ojka’s body, carving a path down her back.
But Osaron was too quick, and Lila’s knife barely grazed the shoulder of his host. Shadow poured from the wound like steam before stitching the dead skin closed.
“Not fast enough, little Antari,” he said, backhanding her across the face.
Lila fell sideways, knife tumbling from her grip even as she rolled up into a fighting crouch. She flicked her fingers and the fallen blade sang through the air, burying itself in Ojka’s leg.
Osaron growled as more smoke spilled out of the wound, and Lila flashed a cold smile. “I learned that one from her,” she said, a fresh blade appearing in her fingers. “Right before I cut her throat.”
Ojka’s mouth was a snarl. “I will make you—”
But Holland was already moving, electricity dancing along his scythe as it cut the air. Osaron turned and blocked the blow with one sword, driving the other up toward Holland’s chest. He spun out of the way, the blade grazing his ribs as Kell attacked from the other side, ice curled around his fist.
It shattered against Ojka’s cheek, slicing through to bone. Before the wound could heal, Lila was there, blade glowing red with heat.
They moved like pieces of the same weapon. Danced like Ojka’s knives—back when she had wielded them—every push and pull conveyed through the tether between them. When Lila moved, Holland felt her path. When Holland feinted, Kell knew where to strike.