Dropping the rat, Noir caught them inches from his nose. “That is not how you treat the world’s most perfect fruit,” he snarled.
We pushed into the room and closed the door after us. Zane rammed him with the cart in a great clatter.
We moved in coordination. Zane’s shadows spilled from him, securing us in with Noir with a flick of darkness around the lock. I reached down my uniform pants. Finn tossed the bucket and mop aside.
I freed the spelled manacles from a thigh holster I’d rigged for them. The heavy iron cuffs clinked sharply against the short length of chain connecting them, the sound ringing out just as the dormant mage runes etched into the metal caught the light.
Still holding the bananas, Noir recovered from his surprise and headbutted Finn hard enough that I heardtheir skulls collide, sending my mate to the ground. Finn groaned and put a hand to his forehead. A few rats skittered free from their hiding places under his own baggy uniform.
Noir remained standing, though he reeled in place. “Let’s do that again!” he said with genuine-sounding delight. “I love the stars. They’re inside my skull now. Hello, little stars!”
“What the fuck,” Zane muttered under his breath. He lashed out with shadowy tendrils, securing one of the old assassin’s arms. Somehow, Noir’s left hand remained free, and he dropped the bananas and drew a serrated dagger as he took in the scene we made before him.
Wariness tinged up my spine. An odd smile split this stranger’s beard. “No thank you, ladies. No one ties me down.” He seemed to be talking to the shadows swarming him. He cut himself loose from the tendril around his wrist, then slashed at the other corporeal shadows closing in.
He dashed free of them and straight at me. I dodged the first thrust of his weapon but missed that he’d drawn a second dagger. It opened a line of fire across my ribs as its edge caught my uniform shirt and tore.
I pivoted and clapped his wrist in the spelled restraints. He jerked and whipped his arm around. Pain exploded across my cheek as the other manacle struck my face. I staggered backward and lost control of my null.
Noir lifted his palms. My next breath came as a gasp as the air thinned. The shadows scattered as Zane grasped his throat. Finn, who’d been leveraging himself up, trembled with a choking sound.
My vision fractured, the edges bleeding into jagged white sparks. I clawed at my chest, my nails dragging over my skin as if I could tear a hole straight to my lungs.
With a tsk, Noir pointed the tip of a blade at me. “Did thelittle queenie send you? Oh, I have to tell her about my island adventures more. Maybe she’ll send competent mercenaries next time!” He didn’t sound winded, even while I gasped for air like a fish on land.
“I admit, you almost had—” The old assassin had lifted his wrist and begun to jingle the restraint when he made a yelp of pain and lifted his leg. Boris hung by his mouth, fangs buried deep in Noir’s calf. The honey badger growled and moved his head back and forth to worsen the wound.
I took a proper breath with him distracted. Relief flooded straight to my head, replaced by a pinch of pain as I hit him with another null while he pried Boris off of him. Instead of being aggravated by being cut off from his magic, Noir laughed. He might’ve said something else strange, but Finn tackled his legs while he was off balance, sending the assassin to the floor.
One of his daggers went skittering across the carpet. I bent and snatched it up while Zane harnessed the shadows once more. Living darkness curled around Noir’s legs, holding him down. It crept up to his hips, reaching for his torso and arms next.
I grabbed the back of the assassin’s overly long hair, hauling up his head and putting his own dagger to his neck. Strain closed in around my temples from maintaining my null, but we had him now. All we had to do was secure the other manacle around his free wrist.
“The restraints,” I said.
“Finn’s got it,” Zane replied. His brow knit with concentration as he worked his magic.
Noir’s red gaze held an unusual glow as he inspected my expression. The fight had caused a necklace to come loose from where it hid under his shirt. The cord was unremarkable, plain leather, but a gold disk hung from itthat glinted with a massive ruby at its center. It, too, glowed.
He spoke softly with the blade to his throat. “Don’t worry. Part of you will live on. I’ll put your power to good use.”
A sudden mental force sheered away my null, piercing into my temples. A shrieking tone filled my hearing. My lips parted in a cry of agony.
Noir’s voice infiltrated my mind. He held my gaze with magnetic intensity. Despite the pain and panic inside of me, I couldn’t do anything but what he told me.“Stab. Stab. Stab!”
My fingers moved of their own accord. He’d willed me to turn the blade on myself, and that’s what I did. Smoothly I flipped the dagger around and buried it in my belly. And again. And a third time, twisting deep in my guts. Hot blood gushed around my fingers as I delivered my own mortal wound.
As Noir lifted his compulsion, the world slowed to a pour of chilled syrup. There was screaming. Zane, I realized. “Sidney! No!”
I stared down at the hilt protruding from my midsection.
My body tipped over. My limbs flopped around me as I didn’t react in time. I stared up at the ceiling as delayed agony shrilled through my body. Blood gushed from my gut wound. Even more burned my tongue with the taste of iron.
Manic giggling. And a silvery blur as Finn smashed the assassin over the head with a teapot.Thud. Noir was stunned just long enough for the redhead to secure his wrists behind him. The spelled restraints activated with a hum and a flash of white magic.
Zane roughly hauled him away from me. He threwour nemesis toward a patch of darkness, which engulfed him. “You bastard!” he snarled. “You’ll be lucky if I don’t fucking kill you in the slowest, most painful?—”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” the old assassin mumbled.
