Fragments of sound. Motion. A voice. “Elisabeth.” The voice belonged to Nathaniel, tight with barely controlled emotion. “Elisabeth, can you hear me?”
His face hovered over her, a pale, blurry smear against the dark. Soot marked his cheek, and green embers swirled through the night behind him. He was cradling her with one arm, the other gripping her hand, squeezing it desperately. Her breath caught when she saw her fingers, shriveled and leached of color. But as she watched, the Malefict’s touch receded. Sensation returned to her hand in a rush of pins and needles.
Nathaniel helped her up when she struggled to stand. Around them, devastation. Emerald flames licked over the battlements and danced along the empty uniforms scattered across the rampart. A lone cannon boomed, and a shriek reverberated through her ears—the Malefict. Nearby, the Director was barking orders, trying to rally the remaining wardens.
“I’m all right,” Elisabeth said, adjusting her grip on Demonslayer. “I’m ready.”
Nathaniel had a peculiar look on his face. He glanced meaningfully at Silas, then took a step backward. A protest rose to her lips even before he spoke. “I’m going to draw it away—”
“No.”
“I have to. I’m the only person who isn’t affected by its magic.”
“Wait,” she said. “You shouldn’t. The voice—you might not be able to resist it.”
“Don’t worry. I have an idea. There isn’t time to explain, but . . .” He was already turning, a fiery whip unraveling between his hands, its light transforming him into a tall, slim silhouette. The last thing she saw was a hint of a smile. “Trust me.”
Ahead of him, the Malefict finished raking its claws through a tower and turned, chunks of masonry tumbling down its shoulders. Though it resembled the moss spirit they had seen in the Blackwald, the bark that made up its hide was darkened and decayed, split in places to reveal an inner green glow. Nathaniel looked impossibly small walking toward it, his whip a mere thread of light.
Elisabeth wasn’t going to stand by and watch. She shoved Demonslayer through her belt and dashed toward the nearest cannon, its previous operator nothing but a uniform and a pile of dust. Sweeping the remains aside, she climbed onto the gunner’s seat.
The device was a far cry from the medieval-style cannons she had read about in books. Like the rest of the Great Library’s mechanisms, it was a complex instrument riddled with gears and pistons. She seized a wheel and experimentally wrenched it to the left, its metallic chill biting into her fingers. Machinery rumbled to life, shaking the seat so violently that only her grip on the wheel prevented her from being flung off. With a protesting groan, the cannon’s barrel swung several feet to the left. Now, up. She heaved on an adjacent wheel, and the barrel rose. All that remained was a lever beside her hip. That had to be what fired the cannon.
Nathaniel’s whip spun out, readying to strike. But he didn’t follow through. He stood still, gazing upward as the Malefict stooped over him. Her heart skipped a beat, remembering the transfixed expression on his face in the vault. Move, she urged. Fight.
In the silence, the forest exhaled a breath. Wind swirled over the rampart, fetid with decay, as though issued from the mouth of a corpse. Boughs bent. Branches creaked. And a voice whispered, “Thorn . . .”
“Don’t listen to it!” Elisabeth screamed. Her pulse throbbed against the collar of her coat as she rammed the lever down.
A rattling sound came from within, like chain links winching upward. The barrel shuddered, its mouth glowing red-hot. Then the cannon bucked in recoil, rattling her teeth and numbing her arm to the elbow. Somehow, she didn’t let go.
There came a thin, high whistling, and then a thud. She stood, clutching the wheel for balance. Green light roiled around a metal ball embedded in the Malefict’s chest. Elisabeth knew the cannonball must be huge, but against the monster’s colossal frame, it appeared no larger than a marble.
The Malefict had barely reacted. She began to wonder whether this had been a foolish idea. Then, the cannonball exploded.
The Malefict shrieked as splinters of its barklike skin went flying. A white cloud puffed around the crater left behind—salt. The cannonball was an iron-coated salt round.
Far below, Nathaniel shook his head as though trying to clear it of cobwebs. His shoulders tensed, and he swept his whip through the air, the flame sizzling as it wrapped around one of the Malefict’s wrists. Jerking the