Only a few have been freed.
I try to make quick sense of who. I don’t see Kate. I don’t see Lola Hayes. Harper drags an unconscious Ivy Winslow into the trees. Further behind, Twig carries Emma in his arms. Juniper, Lainey, and Griffin are unconscious and bound as Jude fires his blowtorch at the vines wrapped around Brady Keller. Caleb, Sienna, and Harrison are still here, too.
Naomi screams.
She backs away to the very edge of the water as a hound stalks toward her with bared teeth and a rumbling growl. She fires her blowtorch, but the beast only snaps at the flame. Then it pounces, tackling her to the ground.
Jude scoops up his bow, nocks an arrow, and shoots.
It streaks through the air and hits its mark.
With a keening wail, the hound falls.
I shout Jude’s name, hoping he will nock another arrow. Hoping he will turn and draw his bow and shoot at Vorat’s throat. But his eyes catch mine and before he can do anything, before he can even register the sight of me bound by shadow and Rafe, completely free, the ruby surges with brightness and Simon throws out his hands.
Everyone is blasted off their feet.
Twig crashes to the ground, the unconscious Emma tumbling with him. Jude is slammed into a tree, the bow knocked from his hand. Vines lash and whip, quickly snagging Jude, snagging Twig, snagging Naomi and Emma, too, while Vorat directs the chaos like a conductor. They are dragged into the vacant spots. Replacing Kate. Replacing Lola. And Ivy, who escaped with Harper.
I pray she doesn’t return.
A pair of screeching birds break away from the flock.
They dive at Vorat.
With another surge of brightness from the ruby, they are blasted into nothing, and something about Jude is lost. His form is vague and ill-defined, as though here, in this nightmarish world, the truth of his condition is laid bare.
Vorat has stolen too much.
“Please,” I beg. “Stop!”
Miraculously, he does.
The ruby goes dark.
The shadow releases my wrists.
He turns to me—sinister and slow—his face hidden beneath his hood once again as his hounds close in. I stumble backward, looking from one to the next, servants forced to do his bidding.
Which one is Lily?
Simon moves across the pond like shadow pulled through air. He stands inside the pavilion, but the tomb is no longer there. The cage of bones and the glowing orb is gone, too. The thorny nest remains. So, too, does the creature within, blinking its round, luminous eyes, and beyond it, the flickering filament trapped inside a vial. There is only one now. Two of the vials have been emptied.
The creature scrambles out of its nest. It scrabbles up the wall and snags the vial from its niche. It scurries to Vorat. It crawls up his arm, across his shoulders, and down the opposite length of him before returning to its home.
Vorat holds the vial.
He beckons Rafe closer with one long, sinewy finger.
The flickering filament thrashes wildly, beating against the glass as though stirred by Rafe’s approach.
“I am a man of my word,” Simon says, a trail of whispers following his proclamation. He opens the vial and holds it beneath Rafe’s nose like a snifter of cognac. “Your debt has been paid.”
The filament unfurls in a curl of smoke.
Rafe closes his eyes and inhales deeply.
The glowing string of gossamer slides up his nostril and the scars on his chest ignite. They burn like the sun.
