Chapter 13 - Reap and Sow

They followed the river back to Blackbridge, cutting through farmland to better avoid the steady stream of wagons on the main road. Eda wasn’t sure if the public knew to look out for a woman on a black stallion—it certainly hadn’t been mentioned in the broadside—but the Blades would. Until they neared the city, however, it was agreed that horseback would make for the swiftest journey.

Those five miles between Robin’s mooring and Blackbridge disappeared in an hour thanks to Kit’s long-legged trot. A few boaters cast curious glances, but otherwise their travel was undisturbed.

They’d been gone barely a week. It felt longer. Time moved like molasses on the Oriana, the bustle of city life so far away. Every passing hour weighed upon Eda as a reminder of Ben and Lawrie’s circumstances. Were they kept in some measure of comfort? Given basic amenities? Or were they shackled to a cold stone floor, beaten and abused? Eda had no way of knowing. She’d never seen the inside of Fell Keep nor the prison. She wanted to believe that the Blades were fair to their charges, but she remembered the way they’d struck Lawrie. How they’d shoved Ben to the ground like a corralled sheep.

Wait for me, she begged them silently. Just a little longer.

Kit’s power over his own gravity—and any he touched, it seemed—was unnecessary at their sedate pace. There was no need to pin her to his back as he’d done when they fled the Blades, but Eda was no rider. Even at a trot she vehemently wished for a saddle and stirrups.

She dismounted as soon as the city loomed close enough. “Thank you for the ride.”

Kit appeared sprightlier than the first time they’d made the journey, likely because he hadn’t wasted energy keeping her glued to him. His face was sly. “Of course. I doubt you’ve had better.”

Eda did not humor that with a response.

Joining the throng of traffic trickling into the city, demonic cat at her heels, her courage fled. They passed beneath one of the great overstreet bridges and were soon surrounded by dark stone and warped timbers, as familiar as Eda’s own reflection. But for the first time, Blackbridge felt foreign. Threatening. The rooftop finials were sharp teeth, the many closes and alleys fathomless, yawning mouths. Eda had always planned to leave the city one day. She thought she wouldn’t care if it ever became a stranger to her. And yet…

Besides those searing eyes, Kit looked like any other cat. He did not talk to her, so she assumed he couldn’t. It was comforting to have him at her side nonetheless as she carved a path toward the city’s heart.

Eda kept her hood drawn. It was hard to tell if the Mantle of Concealment was doing anything at all, besides irritating her with the lumpy way it sat over her jerkin and caught her hair. No one seemed to look at her, but that wasn’t unusual. Cityfolk were busy and Eda wasn’t outwardly noteworthy.

“How do I know it’s working?” she hissed.

Even as a cat, Kit’s expression was scathing. How should I know? she thought he might say. He trotted ahead, tail aloft. Eda was forced to speed up. His sleek body slipped deftly around pacing feet, under clattering wagons, and through groups of shrieking children. She was nearly jogging when she accidentally clipped a man’s shoulder.

“Oi,” a gruff voice snapped. “Watch where you’re…”

She turned, ready to apologize, but the man’s face slackened. Whatever he’d meant to say apparently failed him. Eda froze—he recognizes me, he’s going to call for the Blades—but the man’s eyes unfocused, like he was looking straight through her. He blinked and turned away as if she were never there.

Eda loosed a shaky breath. She wasn’t totally invisible, then, but perhaps the mantle made it hard for people to notice her. Like a mirage. A shape you could only see from the very corner of your eye. But what were its limits?

“Ah. There you are.”

Eda spun around. She recognized the mustachioed stranger at once: one of Lich’s men. He’d been casing Shaws’ Antiques for weeks, watching them from across the street. Beneath his feathered cap, his brown eyes wavered as though she were solid as mist. She’d never seen him up close before—had only ever known him as the ominous shade lurking about their shop in the early hours.

“Clever trick. We knew you must be with the shape-shifter, but I thought him alone at first. Lucky you bumped into that fellow.” He glanced at Kit, who placed himself between them with bristling fur. “Easy, demon. Just saying hello. I’ll let Lord Lich know how resourceful his new associate is, shall I?” He winked at her, put a cigarillo between his lips, and wandered off.

Eda watched him go. Lich’s people knew about her mad flight from the city, then. Knew about Kit. They were keeping tabs on her—were they in the countryside, too?—and this was a pointed reminder. She owed Lich. He wouldn’t let her forget it.

As if she could. Any life the Shaws might yet painstakingly claw back was forfeit if Lich didn’t get his Gateway. The crime lord had no need of magic to express his displeasure. People who crossed him turned up floating in canals or saw their businesses burned to the ground. Eda once heard of a local Crowgate man who returned from Alderport with two bloody stumps for fingers. Lich’s people had cut off the rest, one for each hundred marks owed. They took an ear, too—interest for making them hunt him down. No one could prove any of it was Severin Lich’s doing. But everyone knew.

Eda had no wish to test the man, and his underling’s sudden approach unnerved her. But at least she now knew that plowing into someone or talking to them was beyond the mantle’s ability to conceal.

Kit’s tail flicked in agitation.

“Guess it works after all,” Eda muttered. “Let’s go.”

They crossed the Waterway via Saint Leoric’s Bridge. It was the largest in Blackbridge, and here the whole river buzzed with the sound of sloshing oars and crowing traders below, wreathed in the smell of tobacco and oil smoke. One building overshadowed the river entirely, outshone only by the soaring belfry of the Great Templehouse.

Fell Keep. It was ancient, built as a holding fortress in the days of monarchs long before the city sprang up around it. The keep itself was a prodigious square building with four crenellated turrets on each corner, all ashlar stone and silverwork adornments. The Order of the Blade’s emblem flew high at each turret: a white sword and sun atop a field of red.

The fortress was surrounded on three sides by a bailey, walls seven feet high separating it from the city beyond. Besides the gatehouse entrance, arrow slits dotted along the walls were the only way to get a look inside. Eda stood on her tiptoes.

The courtyard was vast, much of it dedicated to training. Small buildings within were active with work—an armory, a smith, the stables. She fixed upon the huge portcullis guarding the keep’s entrance: a latticed iron grill inlaid with silver, gleaming and conspicuous against the dour stonework. The Alchemists’ Cloister crafted that gate, Ben once told her, like many of the fortifications here. Fell Keep was a building well protected against both mortal and demonic attack.

Standing before it, Eda felt incredibly small. Fell Keep was familiar. Ben worked here. How many times had she walked through its shadow? Yet now it seemed positively hostile in the challenge it posed.

A brush against her leg drew her from her maudlin thoughts. Kit met her gaze before slinking off.

“Hey!”

He led her along the bailey wall, tracing its curve until they came to the opposite side of the courtyard. There was another gatehouse here, smaller than the first. Eda knew it well. Ben came and went this way.

Peering through the silver-wrought bars, she observed the stables. Horses were being groomed and saddled. Eda wondered who was acting as Head Stablehand. If any of them wondered what had happened to Ben, or if they knew already. She hated the thought of them all whispering about him, thinking him some sort of villain.

The air behind her stirred. She turned and jumped. “Shit.”

Kit was practically breathing down her neck. “What?”

“Don’t just change like that. You’ll take years off my life,” she joked, but saying it aloud only depressed her. “What if someone saw you?”

“There’s no one around.”

He was technically right. The street ran narrower here, sandwiched between the bailey and the walls of the Botanic Gardens, where great waves of ivy crashed over the sides. There was no one in the immediate vicinity.

“Still. There are better places to magically shape-shift in broad daylight.”

“Let us skip the tiresome admonishments. You were the one that mentioned the eastern gatehouse, no?”

Eda pursed her lips. “Because the main gate is far too conspicuous, as I said. It only opens for official processions or diplomatic visitors. This is where most day-to-day traffic comes through, and with the mantle, it should be easy enough to slip in unnoticed alongside everyone else. Stablehands are always coming and going. Ben used to personally deliver new geldings and mares from the livery yards. You can take the shape of a horse, so I thought…”

Kit’s withering expression made her doubt herself. “I see. You mean to roll me out like a prize stud.”

“If it will get me into that courtyard, yes. I don’t know about ‘prize stud,’ though.”

He didn’t rise to the slight. “They’d realize I’m not an expected delivery.”

“That’s fine. I just need long enough to use the mantle and get inside.” She studied the towering portcullis. “But it’s pointless if the main entrance is barred. We need to figure out when it’s usually open—”

“What of those?” Kit said, gesturing at the great stone bowls atop each side of the gatehouse. They were big as bathtubs and dotted all along the bailey wall, crackling with merry fire. Each one supported a large cage, protecting the flames within from the elements.

Eda’s cheeks warmed. I can’t believe I forgot about them!

The warning fires were always lit. Fed with ash wood and powdered silver, they were blessed each morning by the Cloister. The fires were supposed to turn blue if demonic power breached the perimeter. Eda had never seen it happen. Demons were not exactly wont to go roaming into an Order stronghold.

Equine disguise or no, Kit couldn’t just trot into the courtyard without alerting everyone to his true nature. “Right. Yes. Those might…pose a problem.”

A flash of steel caught the sunlight.

It was a woman, resplendent in half-plate armor and scarlet doublet that reached her knees. Unlike the Blades who’d attacked Eda and Kit, she wore a breastplate inlaid with gold and matching scale-like epaulets upon her shoulders. She was pulling on bracers, strapping them about her forearms as she walked. A flustered young man struggled to keep up as he spoke to her.

Brown-skinned, with hair cropped close to her head and a razor-sharp jaw, she was at once striking and intimidating. Eda would have recognized her from her towering height and broad shoulders alone—she stood nearly six feet tall.

Eda pressed her nose to the gates in awe. “That’s Martine Tenelle, Commander of the Blades. Only Grand Marshal Tiernan ranks above her.”

Kit made a thoughtful sound. “She reminds me of our females back home. It’s still strange to me that you keep so many males in leadership here.”

“Why? Are your women stronger?”

“In some ways. Historically, they’re just better at holding on to power. Males granted authority tend to get excited and start chopping off heads or instigating civil wars, which makes for a short and bloody reign. My mother used to call it cock-blindness.” His smile faded. “Of the six archdukes currently in power, my brother is the only male.”

Eda studied his regal profile. The die-straight nose, the fine brow, and soft, artful cheekbones. She hadn’t considered until now just how incredible it was that he came from another world. Eda was unexpectedly ravenous to hear more: What Infernus looked like, what food they ate, what music they played. Did they have music? Art? Most burning of all: What was it like between you and Mr. Night? How did you end up here?

She made herself look away. Tenelle had stopped by the stables. She stood close to the young man at her side, as though trading secrets. “What d’you think they’re saying?”

“She’s telling the boy that the Faithhood are too meddlesome in the Order’s affairs. That he must continue to stay close to the bishop.”

Eda’s head snapped sideways. “You can hear them?”

“Just about.”

Excitement stirred. “They must be talking about Fane. What are they saying now?”

“The boy is part of the bishop’s retinue.” Kit’s eyes narrowed. He leaned close, said softly in her ear, “He’s telling her he will go wherever the bishop does. That he will not fail.”

Eda shivered.

The lad bowed deeply to Tenelle. He held his pointer finger flat to his brow; Tenelle returned the gesture before he made his way back across the courtyard.

Eda’s thoughts shifted to and fro. “Tenelle doesn’t trust Fane. Something he’s done must have made her suspicious.”

If nothing else, this meant the man was not infallible. The Faithhood and the Blades were supposed to work together as one harmonious unit, but they were not beholden to the other. If Tenelle had someone reporting back to her on Florian’s comings and goings, then a seed of distrust had already been planted. And if she ever found out what he was really up to…

She’d have the authority to condemn him.

Hope sparked like tinder in Eda’s chest, but she could not become distracted. The thought of Florian being exposed was a heady one, but Eda needed to get her brothers free—no more, no less. Clearing her name was not something she had room to consider.

“Unless locking away the bishop gets your brothers out, that’s of little use to us,” Kit said.

She wasn’t sure if she appreciated or disliked the way his train of thought so often followed her own. Ben and Lawrie were still guilty of owning a Gateway and killing a Blade, no matter what happened to Florian. His guilt would not entirely alleviate their own. But…

“If the bishop was exposed for making a Pact, everything he claimed would be under scrutiny. The accusations against me would have to be thrown out. Maybe Ben and Lawrie too.”

“Optimistic of you.”

“Might you try not being so—”

Someone screamed.

Eda jumped. Kit stepped into the middle of the street like a dog on high alert, spine straight as he looked back the way they’d come.

Another scream. Another.

Between the walls of the bailey and the Botanic Gardens, Eda saw only a sliver of the action at the entrance to the street. People ran past in a steady stream, tripping over themselves to get away from something. Saints, what was happening?

Cries of terror swelled into a shrill crescendo. A few people dove into the same side street as Eda and Kit, running straight past them.

“What’s going on?”

Kit stood silent and still. His head tilted, listening for something.

Suddenly, he spun, grabbed her hard enough to bruise. She was shoved back against the bailey. Alarmed, Eda made to protest, but the words died in her throat.

Among the running crowd at the end of the street, a young girl tripped and fell. A woman—her mother?—heard her cry. She turned back, but it was too late.

A hulking four-legged creature skulked into view, as if from a waking nightmare. It pinned the child down with a paw-like hand. The girl’s cry abruptly died, crushed beneath its weight. She flailed in terror. Her mother screamed.

Eda’s entire body ran cold. Lordfather, take me.

The creature was equal to the size of a man. Bigger. It reminded her vaguely of a huge starved dog. Its body was a study in repugnance: a curved, knobbly spine, sinewy torso, and backward-facing hock joints. But only moments of staring were enough to realize an even worse truth.

The thing had a human face. Or near enough—a round skull and deep-set eyes, pointed ears not unlike Kit’s. Despite a smattering of thin hair atop its back and buttocks, the creature was all grayish wrinkled skin. Its open mouth was wet, large canines exposed to the air. When it dragged the girl closer by its claws, blood bloomed through her little pinafore. Glittering eyes bulged in pleasure.

Eda gripped Kit’s arm. Without him, she feared she’d fall. Her legs had turned stiff with shock. Monster, a primal voice warned. Fiend, supplied another.

The girl’s mother lurched toward her child, but even as she tried to reach her, the fiend’s jaws clamped over the girl’s head. It shook the child like a dog with a bone, her arms and legs flailing, a human rag doll. Blood, blood everywhere, and the noise—

Kit cupped Eda’s head and pressed her roughly to his chest so that she couldn’t see. She gasped into his doublet. No, she thought, because there was nothing else to think of. No, no, no.

A horrid, toneless wail rose above the rest. The child’s mother.

“We’re getting out of here.” Kit steered her in the other direction.

Eda had the presence of mind to say, “Stop.”

“What?”

“The warning fires—test them.”

“Now?”

“Now,” she bit out, lightheaded, “while the Blades might still blame it on the fiend.”

Kit’s eyebrows jumped. He glanced toward the feasting creature down the street. “As you say, darling. Just keep that mantle on. Put some distance between you and the damned thing.”

He exploded in a ball of black smoke, twining up into the air as a large crow.

Eda watched him anxiously as she hurried along the street. Kit swooped low over the bailey, close enough that his tail feathers stirred the flames—but the warning fires continued burning a merry orange. Nothing.

She checked behind her. Her stomach flipped violently.

The girl’s mother knelt wailing over a bloody headless lump on the cobbles. Around her, people were crying, running, holding a finger to their brow to ward off evil. And the fiend was gone.

Where did it go?

Kit came back around and landed atop the bailey. At once, the nearest warning fire bled from orange to icy blue. All along the wall, one after another, each fire changed color in a perfect consecution. Somewhere among the turrets of the keep, a horn rattled the air.

So they do work.

The gatehouse screeched open. A flurry of Blades spilled onto the street behind Eda in two neat lines, Martine Tenelle at their head. The commander wielded a beautiful sword that glinted dangerously in the light.

She stopped dead at the sight of the bloody display at the other end off the street and barked orders to her men, sending them out in both directions.

Eda hissed between her teeth. She clutched at the mantle in clammy hands and turned back around.

Running nearly headfirst into the fiend.

Horror sent her skidding to a halt, wobbling on the stones. The creature had crawled down the wall of the Botanic Gardens on the street corner, leaping directly across her path as though to cut her off. Its black gaze was unwavering as it stared at her, seemingly unaffected by the mantle’s magic. It slunk closer. Shoulder blades undulated like a jungle cat preparing to pounce.

Eda’s every muscle locked in animal fright. Certainty of her own death fell over her like winter’s rain, her mind blank. She could not breathe.

Then, stiffly, the fiend lowered itself into a bow.

Eda stared.

…What?

When the fiend did not abandon its malformed bow of supplication, a dim sense of urgency finally broke through the fear. Eda found it within herself to backpedal—only to hit a hard chest.

An arm snaked around her middle. “You make friends everywhere,” Kit said against her ear. He swung her behind him. Telltale magic rippled over his skin, preluding the dismissal of his human guise. He planted his feet and rolled his neck, preparing for a fight.

But the fiend merely bared its teeth.

“Over there!”

Even halfway down the street, Tenelle’s eyes were distinct in their fury as they met Eda’s. If the mantle had been hiding her, Kit now guarding her front and the creature prostrate before her singled Eda out like a North Star.

Astonishment dissolved into mortification. All at once, she saw what Tenelle did: a monster bowing in supplication at Eda’s feet, as if awaiting her command.

Well, she thought numbly, shit.

“It’s the Shaw girl! Apprehend her, and bring down the beast!”

A great whoosh of air was the only warning Eda got—her hair stirred as the fiend leaped past them, charged headlong into the Blades. They scattered. Cries of alarm chased silver vials as they sailed toward the oncoming terror.

A stray vial overshot, smashing by Kit’s feet. Eda gasped. Kit’s snarl was pained as he hauled her out of range. “Now might we get out of here?”

The fiend was fierce, but Tenelle was relentless. The commander’s swings were swift and decisive. Her sword cut through the air with such force it was a mere blur, her footwork steady as she kept the creature at bay. Tenelle brought her sword down onto the fiend’s hindquarters. It snarled and spun on her, but the Blades swarmed it. Surrounded, it still managed to pull a man down and rip into his side before another powerful strike sliced it across the neck. The fiend screamed—a terribly human sound. Black blood ran down its chest.

“Yes,” Eda said, “let’s go. Please.”

They abandoned the fight while they had the chance, losing themselves among the city’s serpentine streets quick and quiet as shadows. But Eda could not outrun the memory of that hateful creature, bowing like a sycophant before its sovereign.