Chapter 17 - Reap and Sow

Eda’s blood chilled.

The audience surged to their feet. They cried out, trampling over one another in every direction. Harsh daylight spilled in as the doors flew open. People were trying to escape off the street, and a ruckus broke out as those inside pushed them back.

Kit stood, expression grim.

Eda let him pull her up. “Is it another fiend?”

“Yes.” She didn’t know how he was so certain. “We can’t stay trapped up here.”

He pulled her close and stepped over the edge. Eda’s belly swooped. Kit grabbed the lip of the galley roof and swung them deftly inside among the box seats. A woman shrieked in alarm, falling out of her seat, but everyone else had already fled. Eda scrambled to check that the plans in her cloak were still there.

“Come on.” Kit pulled her down the stairs with a viselike grip. Alone, he could simply turn into a bird and fly away, but instead he cut through the crowd to make way for her, brutally shoving people aside. He was as unrelenting as a battering ram.

A man tried to elbow Eda out his way. Kit turned with a snarl and tore the offender off her so violently she heard a crack. The man yowled, falling beneath a flood of heaving bodies.

They carved their way to the main doors and stumbled into the daylight. Eda blinked, disoriented. It took her a second to realize she wasn’t seeing double.

There were two of them.

The fiends were as monstrous as she remembered. One hunched over the bloodied body of a man, maw dripping. The other stalked along the cobbles, head swinging back and forth as though it didn’t know who to run down next.

Kit pushed her in the opposite direction.

“This can’t be a coincidence,” she said, “the fiends being exactly where we are, like last time…Are they tracking us?” Are they tracking me?

Whatever Kit meant to say was replaced by a hiss as a third fiend emerged around the corner of the playhouse. Its mouth was bloody, bulging eyes roving over the tide of fleeing people before finding Eda. Its gaze pierced right through her. Kit tensed, but the fiend was quickly distracted by an unfortunate woman running by; it took off after her.

Eda grabbed Kit’s sleeve. “Help them.”

“What?”

“Help them. These people. Protect them as you would me.”

His nostrils flared. “They are not you. They are not my concern.”

“Please.”

“No.”

Eda shoved him in a sudden rage. “So you care for human art and music and fashions, but you draw the line at the people who made it all?” She shoved him again, vicious. “You absolute—”

Kit snatched her wrists. “Call me what you want, darling. You came to me. You made the Pact. You knew what I was, and you took my help willingly. Don’t be incensed now that you’ve decided you care for your fellow man. That isn’t why I’m here.”

She hated that he had a point. “You might be right about all the awful things Mr. Night has done, but at least he never pretended to be something he’s not. You do a fine job of playing human, but all actors have to take off the costume eventually, don’t they? I let myself forget.” Eda ripped herself from his grip. Mimicked his derisive sneer. “Thank you, demon, for the reminder.”

Looming over her, the glamour on Kit’s eyes fell; twin pools of magma seared her to the bone. “Watch how you speak to me.”

“Why? What will you do? Shove me in another river? I might be selfish, but at least I’m not a hypocrite.”

Dimly, Eda recognized the falsehood. Her venom was misplaced: She was the one who’d proclaimed that the fate of Blackbridge meant nothing to her. She’d wished only for her brothers’ safety, and damn the rest. But to witness Kit’s own disregard for this fresh horror was like looking into a mirror, and she did not like what she saw. If he was a hypocrite, then what was she?

Kit bristled, exposing white fangs—

“Stand back!”

Marching down the street came a contingent of Blades, resplendent in red and silver. And at their head…

Eda’s stomach dropped.

Bishop Florian Fane strode across the cobbles, past the people peering out their windows, clawing at locked doors. They stilled at the sight of him. “Stand back, all! This evil will know the Lordfather’s wrath.” He held his arms aloft; golden ring flashing in the wan light.

As one, the fiends turned. A woman crawled out from under them, legs bloody. They let her go. All three prowled toward the bishop like wolves cornering new prey.

Kit hissed, “We need to leave now.”

“Begone!” the bishop roared, commanding as a king. “Leave these people be, you creatures of sin!” The fiends shuddered and stumbled in place. Shook their heads. They backed up like cowed dogs. “I stand before you as a servant of the Lordfather. You will leave this place and return to the pit from whence you came. I command it.” Snarling, the creatures turned tail and fled. People were stunned, jumping out of the way as the fiends loped past. Florian turned to the Blades. “Follow the creatures! Cut them down!” They rushed forth with swords brandished.

Kit pulled at her. “Eda.”

“Wait.”

Fane’s eyes flitted about the street, as though searching for something. When his gaze passed over Eda and Kit in their shadowed doorway, Eda’s breath cut short. But he did not know Kit, and his eyes glanced over Eda altogether. The mantle was ugly and uncomfortable, but right then she could kiss Robin square on the mouth.

The crowd flocked around the bishop. They cried in thanks, kissed his hands, grabbed at his cloth. He let them. “Good people! The Lordfather has spoken to me. He has revealed that it is my sacred mission to rid this city of the plague upon it. The Faithlessness that has long ravaged Blackbridge brings these creatures upon you, but fear not. In two days hence I shall hold a grand sermon, and every evening thereafter. If you wish to share in the same protection granted to me by the Lordfather, you must prove yourselves Faithful servants to His will. Come to the Great Templehouse and make your pledge to Him. For the good of your children, you must come. If not, these creatures will only grow in number. Lordfather bless and keep you.”

The crowd surged forward, like moths to flame. The bishop knelt by an injured woman and helped her to her feet, seemingly heedless of the admiration heaped about him.

Eda’s anger hardened, magma crystallizing to blackest obsidian. Whatever the Lordfather truly was, he was real to many. Their faith was a comfort as it had never been to her, and Fane had twisted it to suit his own selfish purpose. He was making fools of them.

Kit did not have to pull her away again. Eda spun on her heel and marched against the flow of people. She didn’t much care if he followed. “I’m done wasting time,” she said. “The sermon, two days from now—that’s when we’ll get Ben and Lawrie back.” She was beyond politeness as she shouldered people aside.

Kit hung like a menacing shadow at her back. People saw him coming just fine and were quick to get out of his way. “What of the bishop?”

Eda’s mouth twisted. “I’m going to make him sorry he ever crossed our door.”

“I never agreed to help you with that.”

“I’m not asking for your help. Once I have my brothers and the mirror, our Pact is done. Then you and I needn’t ever see each other again.”

Eda refused to look at him. She expected him to say something belittling. To snipe, to laugh, to tell her she was mad. She didn’t feel mad. She’d never been so clearheaded in her life.

Perhaps Kit sensed that, too, for in the end all he said was, “As you say, darling.”