CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
e left the balcony hand in hand. I took the lead, running down the corridor and then toward the smaller, plainer door that led to stairs. We ran down one flight of concrete steps, stopped short at the sound of fighting down the stairwell, and went through the doors to another corridor.
This corridor held, in one direction, another gold-carpeted stretch filled with doors that led to hotel rooms, and, in the other direction, a balcony with a flight of stairs that led down into the lobby. And to escape. I went that way, and Carwyn crept with me.
There were more sounds of danger this way, the clash of weapons and the ring of raised voices. I approached with caution.
The balcony we were moving toward had a marble flight of stairs on one side. On the other end of the balcony was a small bar.
Every instinct screamed at me to dive for the stairs. Carwyn’s hand tugged me that way. But the burning in my veins said something different.
I ran for the bar, yanking Carwyn along with me with such force, I must have almost pulled his arm out of its socket. I landed crouched down on the carpet, behind a glass case full of bottles, and he crashed into me, on his hands and knees, with our clasped hands a hair’s-breadth away from the vicious edge of my sword.
“What are—” he began, outraged, and I dropped the sword and covered his mouth with my hand.
His mouth was open against my palm for a moment. I met his eyes and shook my head fiercely once. He lowered his eyes, eyelids pale and lashes dark in the scintillating light of the chandelier, and it seemed like a gesture of submission.
“I’m running out of magic,” I snapped. “If they look, they might be able to see us!”
I removed my hand and grasped the sword hilt again. Carwyn stayed quiet.
The sans-merci seemed to be trying to subdue what was left of the crowd, to capture rather than kill. We watched a little group being herded below—watched Gabrielle Mirren break free and run up the stairs directly toward us. A man with a knotted scarlet and black band around his arm gave chase.
The man drew a sword from his belt.
It was not like the sword in my hand, one of the swords of the Light Guard, the sharp, singing blade containing light within the steel and catching every gleam.
The man’s sword looked made of thorns and darkness. I had to stare at it for a long moment before I realized what it reminded me of: the strange sharp hooks and wavering shadows that seemed fused with the metal. What had been the fading nightmare of memory was brought back to life, like a shadow with real teeth: the sword reminded me of the cages in Green-Wood Cemetery.
That long moment of my memory was the rest of Gabrielle Mirren’s life. The rebel brought the sword down to the sound of a wail and then to utter silence.
Carwyn and I stayed crouched. I prayed that the man would go down the stairs, that he would do anything but look toward us. I prayed to the light of the sun on down to the light of my own rings.
Prayer did me about as much good as it usually did. The rebel lowered his nightmare sword, its shadows seeming to claw the air and murmur to each other, and his eyes fell directly on our huddled forms.
We had been seen, and there was not a minute to lose. I leaped up—trying to leave Carwyn behind, but he held on to my hand—and I raised my sword, meeting the man’s swing with a clash of sparks and splinters of darkness. The man wheeled around us in a slow circle, wary since I had a weapon and seemed prepared to use it. But he wasn’t afraid. He knew he had us.
Carwyn lunged forward and sank his broken bottle into the meat of the man’s thigh, and the man screamed, stumbling against the low balcony rail and then toppling backwards, arms outstretched and scrabbling for purchase. His arms stayed outstretched as he fell, as if he thought he could fly. He could not. He hit the floor with a thud and a crack.
At the sound, the other members of the sans-merci turned.
The rebels looked up from herding the ball guests, saw us, and stopped in surprise. They were so still that the scene became a tableau.
The ceiling of the lobby was like a wedding dress, white silk-smooth lines and gold in the same patterns as lace. The floor was mosaics of huge flowers and twining vines. Blood was smeared across one flower, lending vivid crimson to a rose. The chandelier was like a wedding cake made of light, tier on bright tier. Everything was bloodstained luxury.
I pulled away from Carwyn for a moment, lifted my hand, and felt the rings on my fingers humming to the magic in those lights. My veins were stinging as if the blood in them were literally burning, but I let what seemed like my last burst of magic glitter and glow and then sent it flying to its target. It hit the chandelier and was amplified by the chandelier’s own magic.