Adam realized it as well.He tensed, readying himself for a leap—even though it would almost certainly mean suicide.
Forgotten at Jacobs’ side, Neil whipped out his sword.
Jacobs whirled at the movement, but Neil was already slashing the blade down, even as flames still bloomed up Dyrnwyn’s length.The weapon sliced through the barrel of the Winchester, and the front half of the rifle dropped to the ground with a clang.
For a moment, all five of them stared at the damage with shock.
Neil snapped back to himself, swinging up the sword.
Jacobs recovered faster.He threw the rest of the gun at Neil, forcing him to flinch back.
With a grunt of muted agony, he ripped the bow from his shoulder—and fitted the arrow to the string.
Unearthly light flared up around the bolt in swirling threads.All the air in the room pulled toward it, setting the dead leaves spinning once again.
Jacobs pointed the arrow at Neil, who gripped Dyrnwyn’s silently flickering length in his hands.“Drop it.”
Adam raised his hands, pleading.“You can’t use that thing on him.”
“I’ll use it on whoever I bloody like,” Jacobs snarled in return, threads of silver and gold painting the harsh lines of his face.
“But it only works once!”Ellie insisted desperately.“What about Aldbury?”
“I don’t need an arcanum to kill Aldbury,” Jacobs snapped.
Ellie stepped toward him, willing him to understand.“You know who you’ve been searching for now.It doesn’t have to be like this anymore!”
Fresh blood streamed down Jacobs chest, fingers of it staining the black lines of his tattoo.His body was rigid with wild, conflicted energy.
Too much had changed for him, far too quickly.The contemptuous lash of Borthwick’s whip.The shocking revelation of the identity of the man he’d been seeking for most of his life.The blazing, terrible power he held in his hands.Jacobs was wrenched taut with all of it.
One impulsive blaze of fury could see all of them destroyed.The arrow, after all, could hit a collective target as easily as a singular one.All that stood between Ellie and death was the question of exactly how Jacobs would process the maelstrom raging through his heart.
He moved around them until the arrow pointed through them toward the door.
“Outside,” he ordered thinly.“All of you.Now.”
Adam took her arm and guided her back to the entrance of the temple, watching Jacobs warily.Neil and Constance followed.
Ellie squinted as they emerged back into the light of the sinkhole—and then froze at the sight of a ring of rifles pointed at her chest.
“There you are,” Colonel Charles Borthwick declared smoothly.
Grass whispered around his boots with the breath of a warm breeze.Singh Rao stood to his right, stoic and unreadable.Sepoys framed them, weapons steady in their hands.
The stairs to Sita’s cave lay beyond, a distant black promise in the impenetrable wall of red stone.
Jacobs lingered in the shadows at Ellie’s back.The cold glow of the astra dimmed to a simmer as he moderated his grip on the weapon—but she still sensed the threat it posed.The danger encompassed all of them—her and Adam, Neil and Constance.Singh Rao and his men.Borthwick, who eyed them with a triumphant contempt.
The feeling was like a lit fuse hissing in her ear.An explosion was coming—but she found she could not begin to guess where it would be directed.
Borthwick hadn’t seen Jacobs yet.His gaze was locked on Adam.
“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you would turn up here,” he commented mildly.
Dawson popped out from behind the soldiers.“I knew these people weren’t trustworthy!They are a bunch of unqualified riffraff!”
Constance opened her mouth for an indignant protest.
