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“After.” I knew better than to take chances with a Rosser. “I promise, Samuel.”
My use of his name hushed him. There was a heartbeat of silence, punctuated by boots approaching in the hallway.
“Mary Firth,” Lirr’s voice called. “It’s over, woman. Come out.”
Before I knew what was happening my legs moved forward, my will vanished into an all-too familiar haze, and I started to push the curtain aside.
Samuel threw out an arm, barring me from the mouth of the alcove and the danger beyond. He gently pushed me back towards the wall. “Mary, do not listen to him. He’s a Magni. Remember what he is, hold it in your mind. It will help.”
I bumped back into the wall. The cool stone jarred me and I rallied, clearing my head with a force of will. “Thank you,” I breathed.
He nodded but did not lower his arm, still guarding me from the hall and Lirr’s cloying influence.
“What do you want to do?” Samuel asked, and it was that question, even more than the sincerity in his eyes, that made me trust him. He was a risk, but so was every other option I had. At least with Samuel, I had his coin for leverage.
Gunshots broke the air, two, then four, followed by a shout that I knew came from Grant. Demery was making his move.
“There’s a smuggler's anchorage north of the city. Lirr’s ship may be there, with my mother.” I added impulsively, “Help me rescue her.”
“But Lirr is here,” Samuel countered. He looked torn. “I have to stop him.”
Disappointment made my throat thick. “Then distract him so I can escape.”
“You cannot go alone,” he protested.
I ducked under his arm and grabbed the curtain, letting a slice of light fall across our faces. I shrugged, knowing he was probably right, but I was unwilling to give up. “What else am I supposed to do?”
For a timeless second Samuel looked at me and through me, indecision written across his features. Then he nodded.
Before I could lose my nerve, I slipped outside and plastered myself to the wall. Lirr was tucked into another alcove on the other side of the passage, his pirates on the floor or hunkered behind benches and side tables.
Voices roared. I looked the other way and saw Demery and Grant charging towards us, Usti muskets abandoned for swords.
Lirr’s eyes pinned me to the periwinkle plaster. “Stay where you are.”
I felt a rush of compulsion with his words, and for the third time that night, my rationality fled. I thought I’d been prepared, but my legs locked, even as my mind screamed for me to move. I felt like an insect, impaled on a naturalist’s card. I tried to do as Samuel had said, holding in my mind the truth of what Lirr was, that this compulsion was not my own, but my body responded too slow. Too slow.
Samuel stepped out of the curtain behind me, leveled a pistol, and shot Lirr. No sooner had spark met powder than he threw himself across the corridor, cutlass in hand, and attacked. Lirr fired back, missed, and flipped his own pistol across his forearm as a shield as he drew his cutlass. He deflected a thrust to the chest and stabbed at Samuel.
Blades clashed and ground. Samuel slammed into Lirr’s chest and knocked his pistol flying.
Lirr’s power wavered as he hit the wall, and my consciousness reared. With invisible teeth and nails I tore at his control, shredding it and grasping the last untainted thought I’d had.
Run.
My legs released. I bolted, snatching up my skirts and leaping over a dead pirate. Another’s arm snaked out to grab my ankle but I dodged, nearly slipped in blood, and skittered around a corner.
I looked back, heart thundering in my throat. Samuel was obscured by half a dozen pirates, and Demery and Grant flitted through the melee.
Then, to my shock, the pirate hunter burst from the chaos and charged towards me. “Go, go!”
I took off, shouting over my shoulder as he caught up. “What about Lirr?”
Blood glistened on Samuel’s cutlass. He glanced back, indecision plain in his eyes, but he forced himself to look ahead.
“He’s wounded. Badly,” he said as we burst through an open doorway and passed a clutch of screaming servants. “You are more important right now.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I took it.
