The Queen's Secret (The Queen's Secret #2) - Melissa de la Cruz Page 0,85

a drawing-in,” I say, shaking, and only when Hansen asks me what I’m talking about do I realize I’m speaking aloud rather than thinking. “You create a circle of enchantment to trap your prey. But the danger is that you have to stand within it, as well, and it’s likely you’ll be attacked before the magic works. If the magic works.”

“Ridiculous.” Hansen drums his fingers on the glass. “If he wants to kill crows, he should just use an arrow or a slingshot, like a normal person.”

“There are too many crows for arrows,” I tell him, standing on my tiptoes to look for Cal, my heart racing. I spot Rhema first, with her blaze of hair, and then Cal next to her, both poised to spring forward, by the looks of it. They know enough to stand back from the circle. Crossing it mid-enchantment would be too dangerous. There’s nothing they can do for Jander.

“Look—they’re all falling to the ground,” Hansen says. “Whatever he’s feeding them mustn’t be the right kind of thing for birds. It’s like that time I gave my hound honey-covered sweetmeat, and he vomited it up all over my shoes.”

“He’s poisoning them.” One by one, the crows are gobbling the poison laid around the circle and staggering beyond it. Why he’s doing this, I don’t know.

“In the name of Deia!” Hansen shouts again, clutching at my arm. “An Aphrasian!”

Neither of us can believe our eyes. Each dying crow erupts, feathers flying, into the form of a hooded man.

“So this is how they’ve been getting into the castle!” I say, my breath tight in my chest.

Black lightning slices through the clouds, and feathers paper the courtyard like black snow. I’m sick, nausea surging through me. Not again. Not this again. A demon creature of claws and whirling blackness, cutting through something living. It whirls up above the pile of bodies, its face human. Not Jander—please, not Jander. I know that face, but it’s so hard to make it out in this black fog of feathers.

“Why is nobody doing anything?” Hansen demands. I don’t understand either. Why are Cal and Rhema just standing there, holding their swords but not moving? What are they waiting for? The creature to slash everyone to pieces?

They’re completely still and unmoving. Their poses are unnatural, I realize, as though they’ve been frozen in place by a dark spell.

“By Deia, it’s Daffran,” says Hansen, “the Chief Scribe. That’s him—with the claws!”

Hansen’s right. Daffran’s face is giant, spitting with anger. All those times we saw him feeding the birds.

“This is how they got into the tower,” I say, face pressed to the glass. “In through the high windows. Inside, he could transform them.”

“But he told us about them!” Hansen protests.

“So we would never suspect him,” I say, and then we both recoil. Daffran’s form grows until it almost reaches the windows, a towering man, two or three times as tall as anyone in the courtyard. His body is cut from blackest obsidian, his face ugly with rage. I know that face. It’s in a painting that I used to see every time I visited Violla Ruza, a portrait that hung in the grand entranceway.

King Phras. The old demon himself.

Hansen jumps back from the window. “This is not happening,” he says. “Tell me, please, that I’m seeing things.”

“Everyone around him is frozen,” I say, pointing at the guards below, their spears still. “Everyone who was touched by the falling feathers.”

“We must send more guards!”

“There’s no time. The demon will kill Jander. It will kill Cal and Rhema. It’ll kill everyone.”

“Rhema,” Hansen repeats. Now this means something to him. The crack assassin, the only one he trusts. The demon picks up the nearest guard by his frozen spear and flings him against a wall.

I want to scream Cal’s name. I want to save him. The demon is laughing now, a demented caw that cuts through the wintry day. His eyes are yellow, like a beast’s.

“Here,” Hansen says, hitting me with something. “Here!”

I glance at him, mouth open, my heart skipping with fear. He holds my bow and the quiver of arrows that he tore from the wall. He thrusts the bow at me and pulls out an arrow.

“You have one shot,” he tells me. “I’ve seen you train. I know you can do it.”

“Light the arrow tip,” I say. “There, in the fire. Go!”

I fumble with the bow, moving it to my left hand. I need the demon’s attention. I need for him to look up here.