Enslaver duke to bring down.”
Monpress gave him a surprised and disappointed look. “You’re actually going through with it? Have you forgotten everything I taught you?”
“I know, ‘the best revenge is a clean getaway,’ ” Eli said. “But this isn’t about revenge, old man, not entirely. It’s about principle. Not letting the tyrant win.”
Monpress shook his head. “Since when are you a man of principle?”
“Since always,” Eli said, getting up. “My principles were just never anything you cared about. Anyway, I didn’t volunteer you to come. Isn’t it about time for you to make a quiet exit?”
“Past time,” Monpress said, standing as well. “But I just lost ten thousand gold standards worth of stolen art trying to save your neck. I’m not about to let you go off and ruin my investment completely.”
Eli rolled his eyes. “Thanks for the fatherly concern.”
Monpress nodded graciously. “So, I assume you have a plan.”
“The beginnings of one,” Eli said, scratching his chin. “Can you still throw a clawhook and line two stories?”
“Of course,” Monpress said, insulted. “I’m old, not infirm.”
“Good,” Eli said, starting toward the bridge. “Then this just might work. Come on, I’ll explain on the way.”
Monpress shrugged and jogged after him, moving silently over the glowing river and toward the cowering city.
CHAPTER 21
Nico crouched, panting. Sted was walking toward her, panting as well, but his sword didn’t waver. They’d been going around the room for what felt like hours, neither able to land a finishing blow. Nico was too fast, and Sted was, so far as she could tell, uninjurable. He didn’t even defend when she leaped at him, but always went on the offensive, and the maze of long, bleeding cuts running across her body was all she had to show for her efforts.
But it wouldn’t last much longer. Already she’d dipped too deep into the demon’s power. The blackness was swimming over her vision, and she could feel her eyes burning, which meant they were glowing with the unnatural light. She was getting very close to the edge.
Normally she wouldn’t be concerned. She’d gone over the edge and come back before, and it was worth the risk if it meant she could do what needed to be done. But this time was different. This time there was no Josef waiting to bring her back. She slid between the shadows, watching as Sted circled in the dark, racking her brain for a way to finish this quickly, when a voice whispered deep in her ear.
Why not let go?
Nico froze midstep. The words echoed in her mind, but the voice wasn’t Sted’s. It came from inside her ears, from the dark blotch deep behind her conscious mind.
Embrace what you really are. We could crush him like a bug in one blow, him and that rabid dog sword of his.
Nico began to breathe heavily. The voice was cold and soft and somehow nostalgic, but she couldn’t actually remember hearing it before. In answer to that thought, the voice began to chuckle, and Nivel’s warning came back to Nico in a cold rush of sudden understanding: Never listen to the voice. Never acknowledge it.
Nico fled the shadows and dropped to the ground behind a crate, slamming a wall down between her mind and the voice. It was happening. She was losing control, just as Nivel had said she would. But Josef was relying on her. She had to hold on, had to beat Sted. Now was not the time to go soft.
As if to prove the point, the boards on the other side of her hiding place began to creak. Sted was moving toward her, dragging his sword along the crates, methodically breaking up every hiding place. Nico crouched in the shadow, examining her options, but any way she came at it, the situation looked hopeless. She’d matched Sted strength for strength, bashed his skull hard enough to crumple it to dust, but even after her best blows, Sted was uninjured. His skin was still whole and without so much as a bruise. Nico bit her lip. He couldn’t be unbeatable. No one was unbeatable, but she’d tried everything.
Everything? The voice chuckled. You haven’t begun to try. What are you doing, anyway? Dancing around in circles, trying the same things over and over, like they’ll somehow come out differently this time. How stupid.
Nico slapped her hands over her ears, but unbidden, driven by a force other than herself, her eyes flicked to Sted’s shoulder and the narrow sinews bending under his impenetrable skin.
Nico closed her