to keep her eyes turned away from the fallen body of her mother.
‘It’s dawn. That means it’s all over, doesn’t it?’
‘Until nox comes again,’ muttered Kelpie, still pawing through the books. ‘Gives us time to breathe. Regroup. Read.’
Isangell could not take her eyes off the city below. As the sky lightened, she could see straight down the hillside. There were fires in the Forum, and she could see damaged buildings from the River Verticordia all the way across to the Lucretine.
‘We can breathe,’ she said softly.
Bolts of blazing light streaked through the early morning sky and blasted the Church Bridge into pieces. Isangell gasped.
Kelpie dropped the books and came to join her at the window, her shoulder pressing firmly against Isangell’s. ‘Oh, hells,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Not that.’
They stood there for some time, watching the sky hurl bolt after bolt at the city as it faded from black to pale grey and then a soft winter blue.
Day was here, and the battle continued.
52
Via Silviana was too far away. They weren’t going to make it. The streets were too long, and the devils and angels were getting stronger. Velody’s muscles ached as she fought her way down Duchessa’s Avenue, heading south. She had been in chimaera form too long and the battle rage had died into something dull and hard.
She had lost track of everyone. Macready and Delphine were together, using their swords to keep the devils at bay, and she could feel Ashiol’s presence nearby. But Poet and Livilla (if that really was Livilla) and the salamanders could be anywhere by now. She hadn’t seen Crane for some time. Rhian. She couldn’t think about Rhian or the panic would overwhelm her.
Warlord flew with them for a while, but then the storm took him and his courtesi, dragging them back into the maelstrom of rain and light and battle, and Velody did not see them again. Shade remained, looking around sometimes as if hoping Poet would join them soon. The boy, Zero, flew at his side, and Lennoc stayed near enough to keep an eye on them both, though not so close as to make Shade angry at him.
We protect those whom we love first, Velody thought guiltily, well aware of how many people she hadn’t saved today.
They had to make it to the dawn. Aufleur was holding fast. They had another day’s grace, surely. The city was not yet tearing itself up by the roots as Bazeppe had done (though when Bazeppe had gone it had been fast, so breathtakingly fast).
Home drew her like a lantern in the darkness. Dawn came, finally, and Velody felt as if she could eat that light with a spoon. Light. Morning. Home. Safety.
The skybolt burst the street in front of them into pieces of stone and rubble. Velody hit a wall, shaping back into her own form in the shock of the blast, and blinked blood out of her eyes. The sentinels had leaped clear of it.
A rolling wave of animor swamped her before she even saw clearly who had been hit. Lennoc’s power surged through her blood and, as Velody was gasping from the aftershock of quenching him, Zero’s power swiftly followed.
Blinking away tears, she saw that Shade was on the ground, alive still. He resisted as she tried to draw him to his feet.
‘It’s morning,’ he muttered. ‘It’s supposed to be over.’
Oh, saints, he was right. The sky was lightening and there were still deadly bolts raining down on the city. Velody choked back a sob.
‘Keep moving,’ she told him. ‘Just … keep moving.’
He gave her a desperate look and she grabbed him around the wrist, pulling him away from the bodies of Lennoc and Zero.
Dawn was here and the battle continued. How could she pretend they had hope now?
Someone was screaming her name.
Velody stumbled through the dust and rubble to find the familiar curve of her alley. Delphine stood by the gate, yelling.
Ashiol swooped down from above, shaping from chimaera to Lord form as he dropped out of the sky. ‘Get inside,’ he ordered roughly. ‘The nest should protect us, for a while at least.’
Her home was a nest now. Velody nodded dumbly and turned into the gate, still pulling Shade behind her.
Macready was the first person she saw. ‘Where’s everyone else?’ she asked him.
‘This is it,’ Ashiol said grimly.
The kitchen felt wrong as Velody stepped into it. Rhian was not here. Several children huddled in the corner, some still falling in and out of salamander shape. An