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“Nothing?” Jack asked, his voice suddenly hollow and cold. “He helped the maggots attack the Order. He helped them take the Delphi’s Tear and Newton’s Sigils. He tried to ruin me.” Jack’s eyes glowed unnaturally bright with glee. “Now he’ll pay for daring to cross me.”
“You’re insane,” the bride said, going suddenly still. It was as though she had only just realized Jack Grew’s madness.
Jack simply laughed. “I’m far from insane, Ruby. I am simply more than your feeble, utterly female mind could ever begin to imagine.” Jack gave the girl a cold smile. “I have taken possession of magic far more powerful than you—or your maggot friends—could ever hope to understand.”
Jianyu used the cover provided by their conversation to edge his way ever closer. Hidden by the light and the fog, he positioned himself near the creature. Desperately, he considered the way it was built, searching for some weakness. He understood he had only one attempt to bring it down before Jack realized and turned it on him as well.
“I don’t need to understand your pathetic false magic to destroy it,” Viola said, drawing Jack’s attention back to her.
Jianyu did not hesitate. Though he felt his affinity slipping away from him, he lunged. With a flash of steel, he plunged Viola’s knife into the smoke and tore the creature open. Where the slice of the blade created a gash, blue-gray flames erupted, immolating the beast with a burst of otherworldly fire.
At the same time, the last bit of his hold on the light slipped from him, and he knew he was exposed.
Jack Grew turned on Jianyu, and when he realized what had happened, his expression turned murderous. He charged at Jianyu as the other creature began to move toward Viola and the bride.
“Get Ruby out of here,” Theo shouted to Viola.
“I won’t go without you,” Ruby told him, struggling again against the hold Viola had on her.
As the two argued, Jianyu’s focus was on the creature that was moving steadily toward them. He could cut it easily with Viola’s blade, but with his affinity numb and impossible to reach, he no longer had the element of surprise.
By now the girl had torn herself away from Viola, but the other creature was already coming for her. Jianyu could see what would happen—the beast would reach her, and she would not be able to fight it off.
Jianyu leapt, trying to reach the figure of smoke, but Theo was faster. He put himself directly in the creature’s path, using a candelabra to try to fend it off. The creature only billowed larger, rippling with something that might have been laughter if the roaring noise it made had been anything remotely human. It towered now, fifteen or more feet in the air. Three times the size of a normal man.
Theo was not dissuaded. He batted at it again, trying to force it back, but the candelabra sliced through the fog of its body without touching it. In an instant, the creature had grabbed him by the neck and lifted him into the air.
“Theo!” the bride screamed.
“Take her,” Theo shouted, his face turning a sickening purplish red. “Viola! Get her out of—”
His words went silent as the creature tightened its grip, and the man’s body jerked, a terrible, lurching convulsion, before he went completely limp.
Jianyu felt as though the entire world had focused down to the image of Theo hanging lifeless from the monster of smoke that towered over them.
“Theo!” The bride was screaming and tugging against Viola’s hold on her, her face a mask of grief and horror that Jianyu felt echoed deep in his own bones.
The bride turned on Viola suddenly, clutching her by the shoulders as though she would shake the very life out of the assassin, who looked every bit as horrified as Jianyu felt. “You have to save him,” she begged Viola. “It’s not too late. Not for you. You can save him.”
Jack took a slow step forward, as though there was no urgency at all. As though the sanctuary around him was not swirling with chaos and terror.
“Oh, it was too late for Theo Barclay the second he aligned himself with maggots who would try to destroy the Order,” Jack said. “Or rather, I suppose it was too late for him the second his antics affected me.”
“No…” The bride’s moaning wail tore through the noise and confusion.
Jack looked almost amused. “He interfered where he should not have, and because of it, he nearly destroyed everything.”
“You’re a monster,” the bride said, her voice angry and hollow. “You won’t get away with this. I’ll make sure everyone knows what you are.”
“Take her,” Jianyu commanded, finally breaking through Viola’s shock.
She did not move, but simply stared at him, wide-eyed, as though she was unsure of what to do.
“You must take her from this place,” he told her. The girl would only get herself killed if she stayed making threats she could not keep, and Jianyu owed Theo Barclay too much to allow his intended to die like this. “Now. Go!”
“I won’t go!” Ruby screamed, tearing at Viola like a hellcat bent on escape as she tried to reach the creature still holding Theo’s limp body. Her face was stained with tears, and her voice was raw with grief and fury. “Not without him.”
“I wasn’t planning on allowing you to anyway,” Jack said, and as he lifted an arm, the beast lurched forward again. “Such a shame, isn’t it, that the maggots chose today of all days to attack your wedding? What a tragedy that both the bride and the groom were killed by their dangerous, feral power. Something really should be done about it.”
