lame leg, they knew what they had to do.
They ran.
85
Inis
“You will have to remove the cloth from your heart,” Sil explained, rolling up her sleeves to reveal her delicate hands. They were graceful and lithe, without a hint of callus. “And I will have to do this quickly.”
“So Morien doesn’t kill me the moment the cloth’s off,” Inis said.
Sil nodded sadly. Inis took a deep breath and shut her eyes, mouthing the words: Do it.
What she hadn’t expected was to be knocked unconscious first.
She came to, not sure how much later, to chaos, an aching lump on the back of her head, pain blooming in thorned vines throughout her chest, and Two breathing steadily beneath her. Carrying her. Herding the fae children ahead of them, while they carried Rags.
Fresh air. They weren’t underground anymore. The sky overhead. Looking up at it, rocked by the barest jostling of Two’s silver muscles as his chest swelled and narrowed, made Inis’s vision go black with agony.
Sorry to wake you. Two’s voice cooled some of the bright explosions of pain, but not enough. Not nearly enough. Had to. We’ve got a bit of a situation. Ideally, you’d get days to recover, but this isn’t ideal.
Inis squinted to see what had happened, what was still happening, through Two’s eyes.
Our Shining One, the Enchantrisk, removed the mirror from Rags’s heart, Two explained for her benefit. We were nearly interrupted, so she had to rush the slivers in his hand.
Through Two’s eyes, Inis saw the Queensguard flooding the tunnel and forcing the hapless band of runaways lower, into the sewers.
Hope, the big fae who wasn’t Prince Shining Talon, paused only once—to gather Sil into his arms.
It was too much too fast. For the first time, Inis heard sorrow tinge Two’s voice. She is young, one small Enchantrisk against many sorcerers. That put us down another fighter. We ran, in order to add to our numbers.
Inis felt Two’s hope then, as surely as if it were her own. If they could regroup with the others, they’d have a chance.
A shitty chance, but better than none.
Halfway toward the sewer exit they’d been joined by Uaine and a boy Inis didn’t recognize, barely older than fourteen and newly missing three fingers. From there, they had chased the smell of fresh air.
Emerging from underground, Queensguard close on their heels, they found themselves in the middle of the castle courtyard where the Queensguard trained.
Where countless fresh Queensguard stood now, awaiting them.
This was when Inis had awoken and rejoined the picture. She slid out of Two’s mind and back into her own.
Rags was unconscious, his right hand looking like it’d been attacked by carrion birds. Inis was barely awake. The fae children were unable to fight, in need of protection, and now holding a too-pale Sil in their arms so Hope could stand alone between them and hundreds of armored Queensguard. The fae warrior bled from countless slashes, some mere grazes, some deeper. Not nearly enough to prevent him from fighting for his life, for all their lives, but eventually he’d be taken down, no matter how fast he was, no matter how strong and determined.
Inis stumbled to her feet.
Join me, she told Two. Do the—whatever it was you did. Make me stronger.
We probably shouldn’t, Two replied. Grinned. Doesn’t mean we won’t.
Silver flooded her, filled her, surrounded her. It made her so much more powerful, not erasing the pain but allowing her to ignore it. Her fingers shone as she leaped forward, joined Hope in the fray, tore Queensguard apart with nothing more than her hands.
Their hands.
Every blow glanced off their skin. Queensguard toppled, screamed—kept coming, but they were beginning to falter. Inis lost count of how many they’d felled, went through each motion before agony had a chance to catch up with them. Two laughed, howled through Inis’s throat, as they battled.
They might have made it, might have killed every last Queensguard, if it hadn’t been for the reinforcements.
With Morien, robes torn and redder with his blood, at their head.
He shouted, held up his arms. The skies opened. Rain and lightning licked across a sudden roiling of black clouds. A bolt lanced through the air and caught Inis at the back of her neck, shocking Two into separating from her. Silver melted, sizzled. Inis screamed and hit the ground. The fresh surge of Queensguard swarmed Hope, and he disappeared amid their armor and weapons.
Sil. Where was Sil? And what about the children? Not older than Ivy. They needed protection.
Inis tried to rise