It made her heart sing to see it.
She had been right about her friend having something sweet for herself. A little secret love affair that she couldn’t wait to tease her about. In fact, she was only thinking of that, when she felt the sting over the back of her hand. The one that was still lifted to wave, and entirely exposed.
“Just to make sure,” she heard someone say and saw the sandy-haired boy, Sebastian, with his wand raised. Then she looked, and there was blood. He’d nicked her, just a little—to see if she was actually human under there, she assumed.No big deal, she thought,not exactly an attack.
But Harker moved anyway.
He put himself between her and Sebastian, and she saw his arm sort of jerk, just a little. Like he was hardly doing anything at all. And yet people immediately backed away, all the same. They started disappearing indoors, fast. And now Sebastian was looking at Harker aghast; he was clutching his hand.
Or at least, he was clutching the place where his handusedto be.
There didn’t seem to be anything at the end of his sleeve anymore.
It looked like he’d just tucked it inside, as a joke.
Except that nobody was laughing. In fact, she suspected Sebastian was so unamused that he wanted to do something more here. Retaliate maybe. Strike back somehow. But whatever expression was on Harker’s face seemed to persuade him not to. He took one look, then backed away with the rest.
Turned tail and ran into the crowd.
Leaving only her and Harker on the stone steps. Everything suddenly quiet, quiet, quiet. Everything suddenly dark. Someone drew a set of curtains over the closed glass doors, and it got darker. She turned to him through so little light she could only make out the shape of him.
Like that shadow, over Lilibet’s shoulders.
“You didn’t need to do that; it’s just a scratch,” she said, so caught up in the idea of Harker actually doing what he’d said he would—covering anyone else who tried to hurt her—that she didn’t really process how he now looked. He had gone very still and very quiet.
And when she put a hand on his arm, he didn’t seem to want to turn.
Instead, he said: “I can only give you a countdown from thirty.”
Then he covered his eyes. Both hands, she could see.
Like a little kid playing hide-and-seek.
At which point, it clicked—and so hard she felt her stomach drop right down into her feet. She got a flash of a passage from a book on being hunted in the Underneath, of how the childhood games played here were the things done for real there. If a human was caught and had no favor in the halls, this was what you got.
A head start before they sought you out.
Though, of course, none of that explained why.
She didn’t get it; she didn’t understand at all, until she remembered what had started this. She looked down at the back of her hand and saw the blood. Barely there, but barely there didn’t matter.
Because it was also on him.
She could see it between his cupped hands.
It had made a stripe, over his lips.
“Thirty,” he said. “Twenty-nine,” he said.
And then she ran.
She didn’t wait for her heels to hold her back. She kicked them off and went barefoot across the grass, huge dress hoisted into her arms, hair a black streamer behind her. Every part of her knowing she would never be able to outrun him to a place of safety. But all of her willing to try just the same.
And especially when she realized in a hot rush:
She didn’t have to make it to her room at all.
The only thing she needed was a door. A door through to Calabaraia—where she would now be safe, but he couldn’t even cross the threshold to. He’d bounce off it as surely as he would bounce off the iron barrier she had made for her bedroom. So really the only question was: Could she make one?
