who got in her way. Yet with him, her face was soft, her words softer, and they meant all the more for that. She ran a thumb over his lips, and he kissed it.
“I know what you’re doing,” she said. “Stop me thinking on it, on the bond, that’s your stupid plan.” She reached up on tiptoe and the kiss almost stole the last drop of his breath, almost pulled his heart through his mouth. Long and soft and full of want, aching sorrow and a searing need he’d never thought she’d show him.
“That’s why you love me, right?” he said when she pulled away, but she only smiled before she went to the grille and called to Skrymir to make sure he was still alive.
* * *
Holden stared at Ilsa, barely even saw Rillen pull his gun. The way her face had fallen when she’d seen Holden was here gave her away. He’d found the lady. Everything sounded muffled and odd as he stared.
A gun went off behind him—Tallia grappled with one of the guards and the bullet whipped past and shattered a statue. Still Holden could only stare. What had happened to Ilsa to make her do this?
Rillen raised his gun, aimed straight at his heart, and everything came at him in a rush—the noise of Tallia and the guards, her quick gasp of “Holden!”, the way Ilsa’s face changed as she looked at him, a pleading there, a need for him to understand. The gun, the black hole of the barrel pointing straight at him.
He moved as Rillen pulled the trigger, dove sideways and rolled. The bullet flashed past him and embedded itself in the chest of one of the guards. The man fell like a stone, blood washing across the tiles in a sick tide.
Tallia took the opportunity of the other guards’ sudden shock, wrested a gun from one and used the butt in the face of another. She grabbed Holden’s shoulder and pulled him to standing as Rillen strode toward them, sword out and murder on his face. He shook off Ilsa’s hand, her pleading voice, and came for Holden.
Tallia shoved a sword in Holden’s unresisting hand and leveled her stolen gun at Rillen. “One more step, and I’ll shoot you. Right in the face. You know I will.”
Rillen stopped and cocked his head. “I suppose you would. You always were a vicious bitch, Tallia. But you won’t get out of this palace alive, I promise you that.”
Tallia said nothing else, but jerked her head at Holden, indicating a close passageway.
“But Ilsa—”
“—got Van and Josie locked in those cells, ready to hang. Go on!”
Holden scrambled blindly for the passage, Tallia close behind, the gun always pointing at Rillen. Holden’s last glimpse was of Ilsa, her chestnut hair shining, her new dress looking drab now against the planes of her face as they crumpled. Then they were round a corner and Tallia pulled him to a window, deep-set to keep out the harsh sun. They clambered out into a sweet-scented garden surrounded on all sides by the palace, striped with lamplight from the windows.
Sound followed them. The reception on one side, the buzz of conversation, hiccups of laughter, clinking glasses. On the other side, where they’d just come from, a low murmur, gradually rising. Rillen’s voice spiked through it, ordering, hectoring. It wouldn’t be long before the guards swarmed the palace looking for them.
“Come on,” Tallia murmured.
“Where?”
“I know a few places where they won’t look. Follow me and keep quiet.”
They slid past aromatic bushes, keeping off the gravel path. Holden wished they could still their bells, but that would be tempting fate, tempting the gods and Forn in particular. Tallia led them away from the hubbub of guards behind, at an angle to the sounds of the reception. Holden caught a glimpse through a window of a fat man on a dais, red-faced and sweating. Behind him, a sight that made him jerk to a halt with a jangle of bells.
Remorian mages, three of them, hunched and glittering mountains. Holden fancied he could smell them from here—unwashed skin, greasy hair, and the stench of the crystals themselves, of curdled magic, of power used for the sake of power. Mages had ruled his life for many years. He’d gone through so much to end their reign of terror, and here they were, bonding people again. He gripped the sword hard enough that his fingers went numb.
Tallia stopped beside him, her mouth wide as she looked inside the