“There is only one question remaining,” I say. “The most important of all.”
“Oh,” Lord Thomas says. “You have an actual question, girl? You are not simply going to chatter on like a magpie, preening at your own cleverness.”
“Am I wrong? About any of it?”
“I do not need to answer to a girl.”
“You are correct, Lord Thomas. It’s not a question, but a statement.” I turn to Jenkins. “You have done so much more than kidnap and connive on your master’s behalf. You have killed for him. Killed a boy whose ghost I presume you have frightened off or otherwise suppressed from speaking to me.”
“I killed no one,” Jenkins growls under his breath, too low for Emily to hear. “The boy spied on a conversation he ought not to have overheard, and Lord Thomas needed to be sure he would not tell anyone.”
“By killing him.”
“I never killed—”
“You did something worse. You thought to keep your own hands clean, and so you locked him in the pantry and barred the door and let nature take her terrible course. Did you think that would save your soul? Oh no, sir. You aredamnedfor what you did.”
I spit the words and have to rein in my rage before I can continue. “You are damned, and this old man has damned you. He made you do it so that he would not need to. He thinks that keeps his soul clean, but it does not, as he is about to discover.”
I turn to Lord Thomas. “Do you know what happens when I name you both as Andrés’s killers? The boy is free, and you are damned. Tell me that is all right. Tell me your conscience is clean enough that you do not mind me doing so.”
Lord Thomas lunges at me. I feel a sudden slap of cold dread, chilling me to my marrow. Darkness yawns before me. Endless darkness filled with grief and regret for everything I have done and have not had time to do.
I pull back, gasping and blinking. The darkness wants to fade, to disappear from my memory, leaving me only with overwhelming dread.
I leap up, yanking free from the bonds I have been working on while I talked.
“Yes,” I snarl at Lord Thomas. “That is exactly what you face. An eternity of grief and regret and emptiness, and I am pleased to be the one to send you—”
A movement. That is all I see. A movement that stops me short and sends my heart into my throat before I even comprehend what I have seen. I think it must be Lord Thomas and another of his ghostly tricks.
It is not. I am busy facing off against the ghost, and Nicolas has turned his attention back to Rodgers, and Jenkins takes advantage of our distraction, pulling a pistol from his jacket and spinning toward Nicolas.
33
“Nico!” My scream and the shot shatter the air at once.
Nicolas dives at the last second. The shot passes him and hits Rodgers, who stands against the wall as if frozen there by shock. The shot strikes him in the throat. His eyes widen, hands going to his neck, and perhaps later I will wish I had done something to help him, but in that moment, I do not care. I cannot care. I only care that the shot passed Nicolas, and he is safe. Jenkins will need to reload, so there is time to disarm him. I run at him, gladius raised.
Jenkins points the gun downward and rotates a lever. Then he’s lifting and pointing it again. It is already reloaded? How is that possible?
What matters is that itisreloaded, and Nicolas is still scrambling out of its path. There’s movement behind him. Emily, lurching from the captain’s quarters, her hands still bound. She’s right behind Nicolas, and that gun is rising.
My blade strikes Jenkins in the arm. His gun still fires, but the shot veers to the side. It hits Nicolas in the forearm, sending him staggering back. There is a gasp. A gasp that is not from Nicolas. Emily stands behind him, her hands going to her chest, blood seeping through her fingers.
For a moment, no one moves. Then Emily is slumping to the floor, clutching a bloody spot on her bodice, and Nicolas is dropping beside her.
“You shot your daughter,” I snarl at Jenkins. “Your own daughter.”
He stares at Emily. He blinks. Then he blinks harder, pulling back, and then lowering his gun and opening the chamber. It takes a heartbeat for me to realize what he’s doing. To comprehend what he’s doing. His daughter is on the floor, shot, and he is reloading his pistol.
With my sword, I strike Jenkins’s arm again, and I would sever it if that would make him drop the gun, but the blow hits wrong, the broad side striking the first wound. He cries out, and the gun drops, and I race between him and the weapon, forcing him back at sword point.
He goes for his sword, and a better fighter might know how to stop him before he draws it, but I am half in a panic, hearing Emily gasping, seeing Nicolas wounded, thinking only of getting Jenkins farther away from them so that Nicolas might tend to her.
Before I can speak, Jenkins’s sword arcs toward me. I parry, but I do it wrong, and the reverberation rings down my arm.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Nicolas reach for his own sword, his gaze on Jenkins’s, his muscles poised to leap up. I also see that he’s reaching for his sword ... as blood soaks the sleeve of his forearm. He can fight, but he should not fight, especially not when he is needed so much more where he is.