Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles (23 page)

If he thought me useless with only my left hand, he misjudged. As glass shards peppered us both, as he reached again for me, I cocked my fist and landed a blow to his cheek that snapped his head to the side. The skin at his cheekbone whitened, and the tic just beside it went a long way to soothing my stinging pride.

It still did nothing for the pain I suffered, but I had long known that Hawke would always be a source of it.

Damn it all,
I
would not call it love
. “Stop protecting me!”

The door behind him splintered.

Jaw clenched tight, Hawke caught me about the waist. “Go,” he ordered. I realized his intent the moment my head rose level with the window.

It was too small for Hawke, but I could fit.

Another splintering crack told me the door wouldn’t hold for a third. Much as I despised knowing it, Hawke was right.

Only one of us would escape this—and he had no intentions of allowing me a choice.

What would I do?

Exactly what he demanded of me. I had no other choice.

The bastard.

“I will return,” I vowed.

“
Go.
”

Grasping the ledge with one hand, I braced my feet against his shoulders and wiggled through the narrow frame. Glass caught at my arm, but it was an insignificant pain compared to the burning fury of my heart—and the agony he’d forced into my shoulder.

I had suffered this injury before. It was common enough among those of us who made an art of contortionism. I knew how to set the joint without help, but it would ache for days.

Fitting.

The last I heard as the door fell apart was Hawke’s final order.

“Do not disappoint me.”

If he and I survived this night, I would murder him myself.

But not before I forced him to grovel at my feet.

Chapter Twenty-Two

There was no time for tears. Feeling sorry for myself would have to wait. I barely cleared the narrow window, flesh stinging where the glass had not let me pass through without argument, before loping into a staggered, awkward run.

Behind me, a narrow rectangle of blue light bloomed like a second moon.

The voices I imagined must be raised did not trickle past the ground that swallowed them.

The bit of smoke I’d taken in wasn’t enough to keep me floating in bliss for long. I didn’t know when the smoke had worn away, whether it had come before or after the blistering moment shared between Hawke and I, but I no longer floated. My body ached, my shoulder screamed in excruciating pain, and over it all, my anger fulminated.

It was enough to keep me warm in the cold March night, though I remained markedly underdressed for it.

The beauty of the Menagerie was such that few might consider me out of the normal element. The coins that had not torn loose jingled and flashed in my wake, unusual enough that I could be simply a working girl beneath notice. The sweets that worked the grounds were often dressed the same, or wearing less, and as long as none offered me coin, I might escape unremarked.

Of course, this might have held true were it not for the sudden howl, hellishly ragged, that rose like a beastly symphony through the pale lantern light.

I had never heard its like before, not even when the dogs of the blackened streets lifted noses to the sky. Only the lions in that dingy cage came close to the primordial awareness that shuddered through me—an arrow of fearful panic surging into the forefront of my mind.

Run.

Whatever made that sound, whatever godless creature had been unleashed upon the Menagerie, I did not want to meet it.

Cradling my arm, I followed the same path I’d taken when last I’d escaped the Veil’s interrupted attempt at punishment. Every step jarred my shoulder, until ragged fingers of bloody crimson flickered at the outset of my vision, but none had come to stop me. I thought it odd, at first, until I stumbled between two market stalls left empty and barren and fought to catch my breath.

The lanterns did not lace through the small square, as if to remind attendees by way of looming shadow that it was not meant to be a market night. On warmer evenings, such shadows might prove a welcome relief for those seeking darker corners, but here in the cool damp, the skeletal stalls looks angry and unwelcoming.

A fitting enough place to take a respite.

I panted, teeth gritted tightly, and staggered to lean against the thick support beam of the nearest stand. Fitting my throbbing shoulder against the grainy wood, I sucked in a sharp breath and threw the whole of my body weight in and up.

The stand did not so much as creak at my awkward assault, but the loosened joint crackled wetly and snapped into place. I could not entirely silence my warbling shriek of pain, but at least I didn’t scream outright.

A small victory that meant nothing when another eerie howl lifted in answer.

It seemed closer, as though it followed my trail, and I remembered again that moment when Hawke had come from nowhere to roll me into the mud. I’d thought him beastly then.

No less so when his flesh filled mine; it frightened me how much I welcomed it.

I knuckled at my eyes with a shaking, tingling hand. My arm hurt like the very dickens, but I could move it again in the manner it was meant.

I pushed away from the beam supporting my weight, flinched when a flash of hurt echoed from shoulder to wrist. Beyond the luminescent sea of glowing orbs wrapped in elegantly patterned Chinese paper, the circus remained a distant marker.

As I aligned my sense of direction to it, a shadow slipped between the lustrously illuminated paths.

I had no reason, no evidence to explain why the hair on my nape suddenly stood on end, but the gooseflesh I suffered bit deep. Squinting hard, I searched the shadowed expanse of ground for a better glimpse.

It came, but not in the direction I stared.

A flicker of movement to my right forced me to turn. My heart slammed against the overly tight corset I hadn’t removed, and I flattened a hand against my bosom.

Something hard, cylindrical ground into my sternum, nestled firmly between my breasts.

Keeping one eye on the drifting dark, I tucked two fingers into the corset’s band and plucked free a phial.

It was warm from my body heat, filled with liquid a color I could not discern. It did not slosh as particularly diluted fluid might, but oozed sluggish and thick.

When? How?

Yet the instant I thought it, I remembered the feel of Hawke’s hand against my chest, and the cold slide I’d thought had come from the pain of my dislocated shoulder.

Do not disappoint me.

That bloody-minded fool. Had he given me this in lieu of his company?

Of course he had. He’d meddled again, ignoring my wants entirely—all for the sake of what
he
thought must be done. It was almost worth screaming over, but for the fact I’d rather he be present to suffer through my insults.

My fingers folded over the glass phial.

I glimpsed two more shadows skulking across the lawn.

For all I knew, Hawke suffered now beneath a lash, chained in his cage or dragged before the Veil for once more placing himself between me and the forces I did not yet wholly understand—but as I tucked the phial he’d forced on me back into my corset, I resolved to unravel the riddle.

He’d provided me a method.

All I had to do was lose my peculiar pursuers.

I turned and sprinted away from the dark market, into the lit paths where less patrons strolled than I expected. The wager I made with fate was that even the Veil would not send its altered Ferrymen into the light where they might be seen by just anyone.

Of course, this would only matter if I could make it to a place occupied by more than just those of Menagerie employ.

My feet knew the paths, my head remained focused through the dull ache of my brutalized shoulder, until it all became a groaning refrain:
run
,
run
,
run
.

No figures fell into line behind me, proving that my wager was at least partially correct. The ground shifted beneath me, from well-traveled path to soft grass and again to tamped earth, and as I approached the private gardens—gated, now, for use by patrons willing to pay more coin for it—a lyrical strain of a violin lifted from the deeper shadows beyond the first row of hedges.

Whatever followed me, they must have realized my intent.

All hope of stealth faded. Footsteps pounded upon the earth behind me, underscored by snarling, panting; a monstrous cacophony culminating in an excited, rasping scream. “Take her!”

It was both a man’s order and a guttural grind, overflowing with a hunger that demanded blood and flesh for the table. For all I might have likened Hawke to a hungry beast, this one put that overblown metaphor to chilling shame.

I looked back over my shoulder to find three figures tear from the dark—men, they were, yet half-stooped and lumbering. All were large, gangly in the sense that their limbs seemed too long for the trunks that loped and staggered between them, but it wasn’t the shape of them that caused such panic within me.

The eyes of a cat in dim light often startled them what weren’t paying attention; gold and green, white and sometimes red, they reflected light like a monster crawled from hell.

Three sets of eyes glowed hotly on me.

The hair on my nape threatened to tear free and flee. My flesh crawled, and my heart beat hard enough that I feared for its place in my breast, and still, I could not stop to gain my breath.

I was quarry again, but this time, I only partially recognized what chased me.

The Veil had twisted the Ferrymen, of that I now had the proof, and I remembered in grisly, colorful detail exactly what these monsters had done to the Bakers.

If I would die, I refused to do it torn limb from limb.

I eschewed the gates entirely, and the craggy-faced footmen in black and green who watched this parade with less surprise than I expected. Also Ferrymen, then, like the others.

Hell and damnation.

The creatures following me were faster than I, eating up great strides of ground. Unfortunately for them, I’d years of experience to call upon—I’d gone through the hedge more than I’d ever gone through the gates, and I was wearing less tonight to snag.

The branches I threw myself into stung as they scraped at wounds collected and aggravated by sweat. Flinching, I pushed through the sharp twigs, tore free when my bustle caught. The draft this caused slipped under my too-stretched bloomers and earned a muttered uncivility. I wasted precious time to ensure the knee-length fold of fabric did not remain behind in the bushes.

I had precious little room for embarrassment, but I could not stomach the thought of escaping whilst my nakedness be flaunted for all to see.

A lady, thin as my claim to the title, deserved at least that much.

I fell into open air, torn leaves whirling in my wake. As luck would have it, there were no patrons in my path. Running along the mazelike hedgerows suggested there were less still than should be.

All attention remained on the circus, which was not how it should have been. Were there more lower class in the line I’d waited in with Ashmore? I couldn’t recall, and dared not waste the energy trying.

Twigs snapped, a body barreled through the narrow hedges separating the paths, and I drew up short and a long-limbed man fell gracelessly into my path. He had only just hit the ground when his knees bent in a manner that should not have been possible.

Gristle popped, his jaw unhinged and the roar he belted loose blasted through my ears.

I did not stop to think. I simply hitched my stride and caught him square in the chin with the top of my booted foot, snapping his too-wide mouth closed and shattering more than a few teeth doing it. I leapt over him as he fell backwards, fingers like claws tearing at the air.

If I searched him with
Eon
, would I see in him the same blue thread I hypothesized belonged to Hawke?

If so, where did the phial he’d given me fall in this mad scheme?

I overshot my leap, had to crouch to achieve a balanced landing, and darted into another hedgerow. This game continued for an eternal minute more as I dodged the rustle of my pursuers, and forced each to loop again and again.

The violinist whose music I followed did not stop playing.

When I spilled into a small and delicately appointed courtyard, it was not as empty as the paths had been. A man I recognized waited within. A hat was pulled over his dark hair, and a grizzled kind of care had left deep lines into his features.

He wasted no time on introductions, beckoning to me with frantic hurry. “This way,” he hissed.

The sound of it jarred a memory loose from the sweat-stained panic riding me.
Nye.
The name came to me in Maddie Ruth’s voice, and I realized then that I’d seen him before on my way to the circus. I’d never met the man direct, but I remembered his voice as he tended to the same mechanical apparatuses that Maddie Ruth had done.

My throat was parched from all my panting, and I flattened a hand over my chest to wave at him in wordless greeting.

As a man used to the nooks and crannies of the pleasure garden he maintained, he reached into shadow and a door latch unhinged. The hedges behind him were shrouded in deliberate dark, as though a perfect corner for a tryst, but I didn’t realize what they hid.

His eyes, bleak and weary to the bone, met mine. “How’s Maddie Ruth?” he asked me, voice strained near to breaking.

He did not let me pause to answer, but seized my uninjured shoulder in a shaking grasp and propelled me into the hidden portico while I struggled to shape the words. “She’s well,” I managed, a dry croak. “She’s healthy and safe.”

His smile did much to alleviate the careworn lines furrowed into his aged features. Relief and no dim shade of gratitude shaped his expression. He cared deeply enough to risk his all, then. Maddie Ruth was much admired.

He squeezed my shoulder, said quietly, “Pass on our love, aye?”

My heart went out to him. “I will.”

The gratitude he wore deepened, and what I thought might be apology. “Don’t turn back, now.” He forced the door closed before I could answer.

I heard his footsteps thump away from the panel. “Come an’ get this, y’bleedin’ mongrels!” A faint shout, but an angry one.

The tremors he had been unable to hide filled me as I realized just what sacrifice Nye had made. The growling fury of the monsters I’d whipped into a hunting frenzy spilled out from the courtyard behind the heavy door.

Behind me, louder than I ever recalled it, the wailing dirge of a violin painted a haunting accompaniment to Nye’s subsequent screams.

I wept openly, but I could no more forge back into that courtyard than I could force an alchemical victory from my limited toolset. Nye, knowing full well what awaited him, had ensured I could escape.

The phial tucked into my corset demanded I do so.

Fury welled up from wounds both real and emotional, scars I resolved that I would never forget.

I could not linger. Much as it plucked at my conscience, screamed for redemption, Nye’s sacrifice could not end here.

I hurried down the corridor comprised of wood paneling and the odd lamplight until it opened into a round chamber studded by similar halls.

A man stood in the center of a ring carved into the wooden floor, a single stand with a small tea set upon it. His hair was long—a curly mass of burnished bronze as it swayed over his shoulders with every dip of his bow. The violin he held to his chin gleamed like an instrument well cared for, and while he wore the formal shirt and jacket of fashionable demand, it was a kilt in blue, green, yellow and red that sat upon his waist.

He was sharp-featured and kind-eyed, and though the notes he drew from the instrument did not so much as waver, his gaze slid from where I stood to a plain, unmarked door set between two arches with similar corridors beyond. He raised his eyebrows in silence.