Because the stable yard’s covered in robins. Dozens. Hundreds. And they all whip into a frenzy, wings flapping and throats cawing, taking to the air in heaving droves before slanting down and flopping about the ground.
I stare, stunned, eyes wide and muscles locked.
Darnley curses again and takes off for the estate. “Shield us!” he cries at servants who don’t move a finger to help him. He runs in a panic, arms waving as birds flurry around him. They aren’t attacking anyone. Just causing all kinds of mayhem.
Robins.
The signal from Southwark. That I told Alyth.
Robins mean danger.
But…what danger? Andwhy? Why would she warn me after what I’ve done, who I am? Is she sayingI’mthe danger? But what else could she—
My eyes follow Darnley to the house, a few yards off from the stable area and the carriage.
He blows right past something sitting next to the door: barrels.
More barrels stand along the house, damn near as numerous as the birds, wrapped around the building like a fence, vanishing into the darkness not lit by the stable yard’s torches.
The servants cry out to each other and pull deeper into the stables. The birds caw and agitate the air with their wings. I squint, making out the symbol stamped on the side of the closest barrel.
Gunpowder?
Enough to outfit a whole regiment.
Darnley’s never mentioned a thing about gunpowder in all his plans. That oddity settles in next to all the pieces that’ve stacked up, the great big knotted tangle of it.
Mary wanted rid of her husband.
He was leaving court before my attack on Alyth.
Did Mary send Darnley to this estate specifically?
With everything going on around Red Caps and fae magic, I nearforgot that other players are still having at each other in the game I originally came here to play. The game of life and death, power and control. It seems so small now, so obsolete, but in this moment, this small, obsolete threat eclipses all others.
Cold terror drives me into motion.
I dive out of the carriage, race through the robins who don’t care a lick for me. The servants have started to run back for the house now that their lord is gone, but I reach out, waving my arms, screaming,screaming—
“Get clear of the house!”
A few turn back. See me, frown at my shouting.
“Get out!” I make it into the stable. Through it, across a small path, is the main building, and more barrels sit next to the door there. My heart sinks low, a heavy stone taking up too much space in my chest.
“Get clear of the house!” I scream again, the birds screaming with me, and I point at the barrels. “Get clear of the—”
33
Alyth
Blinding white light fills the night sky over part of Edinburgh as an ear-cracking blast rumbles the earth.
The stag barely flinches, but it comes to a firm stop. I take the hint and dismount. In seconds, the massive deer melts into the shadows.
But my attention is focused on the smoke obscuring the stars.
I’m too late.
