The little novice craned her head, staring up at the pale sky. Bruised skin ringed her fingernails and drew dark lines up her cheeks. “The king is calling.”
“Is that so?” asked Lila, cheating a step toward the garden.
The mist was thickening around them, swallowing the edges of the world. And then, out of nowhere, it began to snow. A flake drifted down, landing on her cheek, and—
Lila winced as a tiny blade of ice nicked her skin.
“What the hell …”
The novice giggled as Lila wiped her cheek with the back of her sleeve as all around her, snowflakes sharpened into knifepoints and came raining down. The fire was in Lila’s hands before she thought to call it, and she ducked her head as the heat swept around her in a shield, ice melting before it met her skin.
“Nice trick,” she muttered, looking up.
But the novice was gone.
An instant later a small, icy hand slid around Lila’s wrist.
“Got you!” said the girl, her voice still filled with laughter as shadow poured from her fingers, only to recoil from Lila’s skin. The girl’s face fell.
“You’re one of them,” she said, disgusted. But instead of letting go, her hand vised tighter. The girl was strong—inhumanly strong—black veins coursing over her skin like ropes, and she dragged Lila away from the garden, toward the place where the Sanctuary ended and the marble fell away. Far below, the river stretched in a still black plane.
“Let go of me,” warned Lila.
The novice did not. “He’s not happy with you, Delilah Bard.”
“Let go.”
Lila’s boots skidded on the slick stone surface. Four strides to the edge of the platform. Three.
“He heard what you said about setting Kell free. And if you don’t let him in”—another giggle—“he’ll drown you in the sea.”
“Well, aren’t you creepy,” snarled Lila, trying one last time to wrench free. When that didn’t work, she drew a knife.
It was barely out of its sheath when another hand, this one massive, caught her wrist and twisted viciously until she dropped the weapon. When Lila turned, trapped now between the two, she found a royal guard, broader than Barron, with a dark beard and the ruined remains of her mark on his forehead.
“Have you met the shadow king?” he boomed.
“Oh hell,” said Lila as a third figure strode out of the garden. An old woman, barefoot and dressed in nothing but a shimmering nightgown.
“Why won’t you let him in?”
Lila had had enough. She threw up her hands and pushed, the way she had in the ring so recently. Bodily. Will against will. But whatever these people were made of now, it didn’t work. They simply bent around the force. It moved right through them like wind through wheat, and then they were dragging her again toward the precipitous drop.
Two strides.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she lied. At that moment, she wanted to hurt them all quite badly, but it wouldn’t stop the monster pulling their strings. She scrambled to think of something.
One stride, and she was out of time. Lila’s boot connected with the little girl’s chest and sent the novice stumbling away. She then flicked her fingers, producing a second knife, and drove it between the joints of the guard’s armor at the knee. Lila expected the man to buckle, to scream, to at least let go. He did none of those things.
“Oh, come on,” she growled as he pushed her half a step toward the edge, the novice and the woman barring her escape.
“The king wants you to pay,” said the guard.
“The king wants you to beg,” said the girl.
“The king wants you to kneel,” said the old woman.
Their voices all had the same horrible singsong quality, and the ledge was coming up against her heels.
“Beg for your city.”
“Beg for your world.”
“Beg for your life.”
“I don’t beg,” growled Lila, slamming her foot into the blade embedded in the guard’s knee. At last his leg buckled, but when he went down, he took her with him. Luckily he fell away from the ledge, and she rolled free and came up again, the woman’s thin arms already winding around her throat. Lila threw her off, into the approaching novice, and danced back several feet from the edge.
Now, at least, she had the garden behind her and not the stone cliff.
But all three attackers were upright again, their eyes full of shadows and their mouths full of Osaron’s words. And if Lila ran, they would simply follow.
Her blood sang with the thrill of the fight and her fingers itched to summon fire, but fire only worked if you cared about getting burned. A body without fear would never slow in the face of flame. No, what Lila needed was something of substance. Of weight.
She looked down at the broad stone platform.
It could work.
“He wants me to kneel?” she said, letting her legs fold beneath her, the cold stone hitting her knees. The fallen watched darkly as she pressed both palms to the marble floor and scoured her memory for a piece of Blake—something, anything to center her mind—but then, suddenly Lila realized she didn’t need the words. She felt for the pulse in the rock and found a steady thrum, like a plucked string.
The fallen were starting toward her again, but it was too late.
Lila caught hold of the threads and pulled.
The ground shook beneath her. The girl and the guard and the old woman looked down as fissures formed like deep roots in the stone floor. A vicious crack ran edge to edge, severing the ledge from the garden, the fallen souls from Delilah Bard. And then it broke, and the three went tumbling down into the river below with a crash and a wave and then nothing.