“Correct.”
“Is he in bed now?”
“The last I checked.”
I pondered his words as I considered our options. They greatly outnumbered us, and though we had the element of surprise, it wouldn’t last.
With the duke asleep, they would most likely stay away from the dungeons for a while, but they would discover us missing eventually. Once they did, they’d rip the palace apart.
After the rebellion at the earl’s castle, the first place they’d check was the servants’ passages and quarters. They’d note Samael’s absence, and the duke was aware the sheriff knew this place well.
We had two options… either kill that monster or leave.
The second option was the saner choice, but it wasn’t the one I wanted.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ellery
The earl’s grown sons were much quicker to kill and far less messy. One of them was awake when I sent a bolt of lightning into him, and the second was sleeping, but since I couldn’t kill a man who had no idea we were there, I gave him a chance to wake first.
Once he was fully functioning, I took the time to question him about where the children were. While we didn’t have much time, I had to at least ask before killing the man. Before splitting up with the others from the encampment, we’d all agreed to try to get what information we could gather without endangering ourselves.
The earl’s oldest son wasn’t amicable to my questions, and since I wasn’t one for torture, I opened the window and called for Indon. When the gargoyle appeared in the window, the earl’s son started sputtering, but he couldn’t avoid my lightning as I herded him toward where Indon perched on the sill.
When the man was close enough, Indon grasped his sleep shirt and pulled him out of the window. They vanished into the night, leaving only the remnants of a scream and a flutter of wings.
Another scream followed a few minutes later, and Indon returned soon after. When he perched in the window again, I didn’t ask what became of the earl’s son; I already knew, and I felt no regret for forcing the man into Indon’s grasp.
I wasn’t sure what that said about me, or what I was becoming, but I was beginning to feel every bit as much of a monster as those we destroyed.
“Are you okay?” Scarlet asked before we could crawl outside.
“Yes,” I muttered.
Scarlet’s doe-brown eyes burned with desperation as she seized my wrist, halting me before I could walk to Indon. She’d twisted her bright red hair into a bun that now hung askew. “Lery?—”
I rested my fingers over hers and squeezed. “I’m okay.”
“What we’re doing is necessary, and Luna and I bear the guilt of their blood as much as you do.”
Luna’s blue eyes were haunted and her pretty face pale when she met my gaze. While she remained naked, we’d washed the blood from her, and I’d given her my cloak to shield her as much as possible.
She didn’t look as defeated as she had after killing the earl, but she was somehow hollower than she was before. She’d probably fantasized about killing that bastard thousands of times over the years, and her thirst for his blood was part of what drove her. Now that she’d succeeded in killing him, she wasn’t exactly sure what to do with herself.
I understood that completely.
At one time, the three of us all attended the school my mother created. While Luna was older than us and we’d never been especially close, we’d still play tag and hide-and-seek and run through the fields screaming with joy as we all raced each other to the lake on the last day of school.
Somewhere along the way, those three girls who’d been so carefree and full of joy had developed into the three women standing in this empty room, waiting to be taken away by gargoyles. Those gargoyles would fly us to another castle and another aristocratic family to slaughter.
Instead of screaming with joy as we plunged into the icy depths of the spring-fed pond beyond my family’s manor, we screamed over the injustices that had befallen us. Those innocent girls had transformed into hardened women.
What else would we become?
“Sometimes to kill a monster, you have to become a monster,” I whispered.
Luna remained unmoving before bowing her head in agreement.
