“Ow!” I cry, a few half-burnt boards breaking my fall.
“Thanks.”
“Now what?” Kingston, wiping ash from his eyes. “Where do we go?”
He’s not looking behind us, not looking at Camlann at all. He’s looking at me.
“I think…” I gulp air, not that there’s much oxygen in it. “Give me a second.”
I close my eyes.
What I can see first isn’t helpful. Her face, her hair, the memory of her skin, how soft she felt in my arms the other day even as a volcano of pain was erupting inside me from touching her, how perfectly her hips fit my hands and how her heartbeat jumped in her neck under my lips.
God, I would die for her. Even if I didn’t have to. Even if I weren’t, actively, right this minute.
As if reminding me that time is wasting, my chest squeezes,burnslike someone’s running a cheese grater over my heart while wringing it like a sponge while also stabbing it through with a fire poker.
But that gives me a direction, at least.
I gasp, eyes open, and point.
“That way,” I say. “Campus, right? One of the buildings, or maybe?—”
A white streak flashes out of the curling smoke, whatever it is knocking someone to the ground—Cal.
Cal.I dart to his side and extend my arm for him to pull to his feet. He almost pulls me down with him, getting up, but I steady myself.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” He shakes his head. His glasses are flecked with soot, and without thinking, I lick my thumb and wipe them off, one-two.
“Better?”
“Guys!” Kai, again, roars at us from a few feet away, where he’s swinging his sabre left, right, left, clanging against another blade. “Move!”
Now I see what’s happening. One of them—no, two. More. The White Brothers. Must have been standing outside Camlann, I guess, andarmed, apparently—shit—and while Kai and Kingston are already locked in, they’re way outnumbered.
I scramble, almost fall to all fours on the uneven ground I can barely see beneath me, and jump in—some kind of ugly, clumsy flèche with both legs that I just aim at the whitish area wheeling against Kingston.
And it’s a hit. Dead center. My knee knocks into his chest with a heavy, hollowthunkthat splays his arms outward for balance. Torso open. In a split second, pure reflex, I whip my elbow around to slash at his side. We hit the ground together, hard, and before he can recover, I lunge and bury my blade as far as it will go.
I’ve never stabbed anyone before. The give of flesh is at once too easy and too firm.
I swallow my shudder and leap back in retreat, landing on my right heel and kicking his chest again with my left so he stays down. His faceless, hooded body peels down my blade, limp, ashe bleeds, heavily, a brilliant red circle pulsing into bloom across the white.
No. I can’t. I look up, away, just in time to see Cal clock another Brother square in the mask with his bell guard. He crumples to the ground, robe swirling as he falls.
“Nice,” I pant as I catch up, the smoky air acrid on my tongue. “Where are?—”
“There.” Cal nods, but he’s already rushing off, crossing over the footpath back to Camlann and running toward the edge of the nearest quad, where I can just see the others. Kingston’s whipping wildly back and forth between two of them—neither is fast, but they’re doubling him up—and Kai has a third pinned between his knees, blade forgotten on the ground beside them.
“You.”Smash.Kai rams his fist into the guy’s head, leaving bloody knuckle-smears on the mesh. “Mother.”Smash. “Fucker.”Smash.“You mother?—”
“Kai.” Cal gets there first and pulls Kai backward by the shoulder as he snarls.
The Brother on the ground is still.
“Fuck.” Kai shakes out his hand, kicking at the edge of his robe. “You were supposed to tell me where she was!” he roars.
