evidently Prendergast’s magic hadn’t been able to transport something as large as the Malefict’s entire body between dimensions—only the head had come along with them. As its muscles relaxed, its tongue lolled from its mouth, glistening on the carpet like a giant slug.
A teaspoon dropped. The women sat stunned, ink splattered across the fronts of their silk dresses. None of them said a word as the head began to disintegrate, spouting embers onto the wainscoting.
“Excuse me, ladies,” said Nathaniel. He bowed, which dislodged a trickle of soot from his hair. Then his eyes rolled up, and he collapsed face-first onto the floor.
Shrieks filled the air. Teacups went flying. As the women fled from the room, tripping over the carpet’s fringe, Elisabeth dropped to her knees at Nathaniel’s side and rolled him over onto her lap. Soot blackened every inch of his exposed skin. His charred coat was still lightly smoking, and the fire had singed his eyebrows. At some point he had gotten a cut on his forehead—she didn’t know when, or how, but it had covered his face in blood. She pressed her fingers to his throat, and relaxed when she felt the steady rhythm of his pulse.
“That was his plan?” she asked Silas, pointing at the Malefict’s head. As though being pointed at were the last straw, it slumped into a pile of ashes.
Gazing down at Nathaniel, Silas sighed. “Truth be told, miss, I suspect he did not possess a plan, and was simply making it up as he went along.”
“Ugh. Where are we? Has anyone a clue?” Nathaniel opened one gray eye, startlingly pale against his soot- and blood-covered face. He looked around dubiously, as though he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to wake up yet, and then slowly opened the other, focusing on Elisabeth’s face. “Hello, you menace.”
She laughed, weak with relief. As she stroked his hair back from his sticky forehead, an unbearable tenderness filled her. “I love you, too,” she said.
Nathaniel’s brow furrowed. He turned his face to the side and blinked several times. “Thank god,” he said finally. “I don’t think unrequited love would have suited me. I might have started writing poetry.”
Elisabeth continued stroking his hair. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“I assure you, it would have proven more unpleasant for everyone than necromancy.”
She laughed again, helplessly. A weightless, sparkling joy filled her, like the sunlight of a spring morning after the rain had stopped and the clouds went scudding away, and the world felt new and clean and bright, transformed into a better version of itself, heartbreaking in its beauty. The immensity of the feeling made her ribs hurt. She swiped her knuckles across her cheek, conscious of Silas watching them.
Nathaniel looked at her sidelong. “Scrivener, I know I cut a devilishly handsome figure lying here on the floor all covered in blood—which I hear some girls find quite appealing, strangely enough, and if you’re one of them I’m not going to judge—but please stop crying. It’s only a flesh wound. I’ll be back to fighting evil any moment now.”
She sniffed loudly. “I’m not crying. My eyes are watering. You smell awful.”
“What? I never smell awful. I smell like sandalwood and masculine allure.” He lifted his head to smell himself, and gagged. “Never mind.”
“Perhaps you might consider not setting yourself on fire next time, master,” Silas said, pointedly.
A clatter came from the hall. A pair of footmen crowded the doorway, one of them clutching an antique sword that looked as though it had been torn down from a mantelpiece, and was now trembling violently in his hands. “Surrender peacefully, sorcerer,” he declared, after an encouraging look from the other, “and we won’t hurt you.”
Nathaniel squinted at him. “You look familiar. Are we in Lady Ingram’s town house?”
I hope so, Elisabeth thought. The ink stain on the carpet looked permanent.
“Er,” said the footman with the sword, uncertainly.
“Excellent.” Before Elisabeth could stop him, Nathaniel hoisted himself to his feet and cast around, wobbling alarmingly. She took one of his arms, and Silas the other. Not seeming to notice that he couldn’t stand on his own, he started for the doorway, explaining, “I aimed the spell to let us out near the Royal Library. We’re only a few blocks away.”
Elisabeth recalled the map of Austermeer, where Katrien had drawn a question mark beside the Royal Library at the center. “That’s where Ashcroft is going to finish his summoning,” she realized aloud. “It’s the middle of the pentagram.”
“Precisely. I’m hoping that I’ve managed to botch the