by Emma Savant
“Thought you’d trap us like animals?” Sienna said in a singsong tone. “Now you’re trapped. And there’s no way out.”
35
My stomach lurched, and I fought back the sudden need to vomit.
This was over. This was all supposed to be over. The wolves were being taken out of the maze. My sisters and Brendan’s pack were going home.
“Get out,” I said in a low, tight voice that didn’t sound like mine. “Get everyone you can, and get out.”
The brass dagger charm under my shirt flared, and I was flooded with a sense of panic as an image formed in my mind of palace law enforcement officers and Daggers trying desperately to break through the impervious wall. One of them was digging under it, but the silver barrier seemed to stretch far down into the dirt.
Mom already had her dagger out. The exhaustion that had blanketed her a moment ago was gone, replaced by the kind of instant fire that could only come from long years of Dagger training. It was moments like this that made me remember: she was the next Stiletto, the one who would come after Grandma.
All I had to do was try to keep up.
“Take anyone who can’t fight to the exit,” I said. “Put them in the center with the Burnside wolves and defend them.”
Clancy was already lifting one of the injured Wildwoods.
I turned to Rowan. “You should go.”
“I can fight,” she said.
The gash on her head was awful, but I knew head wounds usually looked worse than they were. Under the smears of drying blood, her eyes were bright and fierce.
“You have needles?” I said.
“Whole pocket full.”
Brendan crashed into the clearing. Alec followed, and then Cate and a handful of the other Wildwoods.
“I have people guarding the wolves at the exit,” Brendan said.
“Me, too.”
He met my eyes and nodded. I still wanted to strangle him for being here at all, but in truth, deep in my gut, I was glad to see him. There was no one else I’d rather have commanding armies beside me.
The silver mist above us rippled, and a dark human figure in a well-cut coat fell neatly through the apex of the smoky dome, Sienna clutching his waist and sneering down at us. Her hair flew as if in a high wind. An instant later, Alec tugged me out of the way. A gleaming, needle-pointed dagger vibrated where it had struck the earth.
Brick and Sienna descended from high above us, and so did more daggers. One of the weapons plunged into Rowan’s shoulder, and she yanked it out and screamed.
Pulling it out was the worst thing she could have done. A rose of blood bloomed through her shirt, and she swayed and put a hand on the injury to stanch the flow. Mom quickly brushed a hand over Rowan’s shoulder, and the wound sealed, but I knew the charm wouldn’t last long.
Brick landed lightly on the earth at the center of the clearing and let go of Sienna. She headed straight for me and stopped a few feet away, just out of the reach of my outstretched weapon. Then she turned and flicked another of her slender daggers toward the cluster of people still standing with their backs to the corn stalks. The dagger disappeared in between the plants as the small crowd scattered.
“You’re not a Crimson Dagger anymore.” I took a step toward Sienna. “Those weapons aren’t for you.”
Her eyes widened, and she put a hand to her chest. “I didn’t know Granny had trademarked itty-bitty swords,” she said. “Goodness, I never would have brought these if I’d known.”
I wanted to slap her.
Behind Sienna, Brick was standing still, observing the damaged band of witches and werewolves lined up against him.
We were a pitiful sight, and we didn’t have time or strength to waste.
I ran toward Sienna and landed a punch before she realized I was moving.
In an instant, everything was chaos. I stabbed and cut and did everything in my power to take her down, but she was strong—stronger than I remembered, faster than her shade had been, and not already fatigued from hours of fighting.
Blood pounded in my ears. I tried to match her blow for blow, but I was losing, and fast.
On every side, the others in the clearing were still as statues. It took me a moment to realize why, and then I saw the coils of silver smoke that obscured their feet and twined up their legs and arms. The charm held them to the earth as securely as gnarled tree roots could have.
Brick saw me looking and smiled.
I couldn’t afford to focus on him—on any of them. Sienna was right in front of me, and it took everything I had to keep up with her.
I managed to reach into my pocket for one of the needles, and she smacked it away so quickly pain sparked up my arm like electricity.
“I don’t like those,” she said.
I didn’t have extra energy to waste on trash talk, so I punched her instead. She recoiled from the blow and stumbled back. Before I could move in for another attack, she had spun around and retrieved a dagger from one of the sheaths at her waist.
She twisted and threw it, but not toward me. Instead, it sailed across the clearing and broke through one of Brick’s coiling smoke ropes.
The dagger hit someone square in the stomach, and curls of silver spiraled through the air.
Not someone.
Alec.
He doubled over. I screamed. He clutched the hilt of the blade, and Rowan wrenched her hand free from Brick’s bindings with a cry of pain and put a hand over his to keep him from pulling it out. The blood loss would kill him faster than the dagger itself, but either one would only be a matter of time.
His face went white and clammy. He crumbled to a seat on the ground, but his eyes looking over at me were clear and angry.
Get her.
He mouthed the word before his eyes fell shut, and then, in a lightning-fast motion I would have thought was beyond him, he ripped one of Sienna’s daggers from the ground beside him and hurtled it at Brick.
The weapon grazed Brick’s leg. It wasn’t enough to injure him, but it did surprise him, and his lapse in concentration was enough to allow the frozen figures all around us to break through his enchantment. As one, the rest of the Daggers and Wildwoods surged forward through the quickly dissipating smoke. The Wildwoods shifted as they ran, their skin giving way to thick fur and gleaming teeth.
Brick dispatched Poppy with a flick of his white-tipped magician’s wand. She clutched her heart and dropped to her knees. He flicked the wand again, and Rowan stopped dead and convulsed, her eyes rolling back and her mouth opening and closing like that of a dying fish. Another flick, and Cate’s giant wolf form seized up.
They were dropping like flies, and there was nothing I could do. Sienna charged toward me again, another of the slim daggers raised.
Our blades clashed together, and again I found myself in a blur of motion and sickly silver light. My muscles screamed for relief, but I didn’t dare catch my breath. My body knew these moves; it knew how to fight, and it knew how to push through the agony and fatigue that threatened to overwhelm me.
I knocked the weapon out of her hand, and she backed away, laughing.
“Go for her knee,” she called to Brick. “It’s been weak ever since she lost to a manticore.”
Brick flicked his wand at my mother. A crack split the air, and her leg twisted in an impossible direction.
Mom didn’t scream. She just fell to the ground, threw up both of her hands, and pushed a giant wall of fire toward her attacker. It was enough to singe the bottom of his coat, but nothing more. He tossed a jet of green light back at her. The curse hit her in the chest, and she skidded across the dirt before coming to a stop against a wall of cornstalks with her eyes closed.
How could Sienna do this? How could she turn on those of us who had been her sisters and her mentors? How could she destroy her family like this?
I flew at her with every bit of strength I had left. She twisted me into a headlock, and I froze as I scanned the patterns of energy and tension in her body
for the right moment to try to break the lock. My gaze caught on Brick. He was still in human form, and he was the only person left standing.
Everyone else—every single Dagger, every single Wildwood, everyone but Brick and Sienna and me—was on the ground. Even Brendan, still in his wolf form, had fallen.
Brick had seemed in control from the first moment I’d seen him here. Now, calm as ever, he crouched next to Rowan. He touched the injury on her forehead, then traced his long fingers down her neck and to the bloodstain on her shoulder. He picked up one of the daggers Sienna had thrown earlier.
I tensed and a scream rose in my throat, but Brick didn’t stab Rowan like I’d expected. Instead, carefully, as if savoring the moment, he used the tip of the blade to rip open Rowan’s shirt and reveal her barely healed shoulder.
I tried to yank myself free, but Sienna’s hold around my neck strengthened.
Delicately, slowly, Brick touched Rowan’s wound. He teased the skin apart, the weak charm giving way almost immediately under his sharp nails. Blood trickled from the deep gash, and he bent his head and licked the wound.
My stomach revolted at the sight, and the taste of stinging bile flooded the back of my throat.
I couldn’t save her.
I couldn’t save any of them.
All I could do now was keep fighting until I couldn’t fight anymore. It wouldn’t take long.
Sienna’s arm tightened around my neck.
36
“I know your weaknesses,” Sienna said softly in my ear. “All of them. Did you really think you had a chance against me?”
I swallowed. The sound echoed in my ears, and darkness crept in on the corners of my vision as she shoved her arm against my windpipe.
On the ground ahead of me, Brendan’s eyes opened, just barely, and fell closed again. Sienna didn’t notice; she was too busy looking at me. I watched the slits of his giant werewolf eyes twitch. One opened partway, slowly, as if the lids were sticky with glue.
His face was slack, and he seemed like he was only inches from death, but underneath all that, he was still sharp. His gaze connected with mine. He glanced at a dagger lying on the ground, then back to me.
“I can’t breathe,” I said.
“That’s the point, sweetie,” Sienna cooed.
She knew everything about me. She knew what I wanted. She knew who I loved. She knew that I often let my guard down when executing certain kicks, and that I didn’t always stay anchored in my stance.
She knew my weaknesses, all of them.
But, I realized, with the slow warmth of dawning comprehension, I knew hers.
“Scared to fight me head-on?” My voice croaked from the pressure on my throat, but I forced the words out. “Pick up your dagger and face me like a woman.”
She made a derisive noise and spun me around as she let go. One decisive step at a time, she backed up, then held her hands out and gestured for me to come at her.
She looked fresh even in the weak light of the dome, with only a sheen of sweat marring her beautiful face.
My own face was swollen, crisscrossed with cuts and marked with bruises. Every muscle quivered with fatigue, and the pain in my head had burrowed so deep I thought I might never get rid of it.
A loud snarl sounded behind me.
I dared to glance over my shoulder. Brendan had scrambled to his feet, and he shifted from wolf to man as I watched. His clothes were rags, and his face was smeared with blood and dirt.
“Don’t.” He stumbled toward Sienna, hand outstretched. “Stop. Don’t hurt her.”
Sienna’s eyebrows shot up, and she looked from him and back to me in delight.
“Do you have a rescuer, Scarlett?” She put a hand to her cheek, as if this was too wonderful for her to contain her glee. “I never knew Daggers required knights in shining armor. But I guess you were never that great of a Dagger, and that’s hardly armor.”
Brendan swung toward Brick. They were opposites, Brick still crisp and tidy and in control, Brendan barely able to stand.
“If you want to fight with someone, you can fight me,” he said. “Alpha to alpha.”
“She’s a Stiletto,” Sienna said.
He turned to her and shook his head. “She’s not,” he said. “And you know it. She isn’t as strong as you. She doesn’t have what it takes.”
The words sliced through me—not with pain, but with clarity.
I took a staggering step forward. “Yes, I do.”
My voice was weak, the words a pitiful protest. Sienna raised her eyebrows at me, and a tiny smile started at the corner of her mouth.
“That’s not a very polite thing for a boyfriend to say,” she said, and then she stepped toward him.
Away from me.
She didn’t even consider me a threat, not now that Brendan was here and begging for her attention. I let myself fall behind, and I crumpled to a crouch on the ground. Hair that had come loose from my braid fell to cover my face, and I turned away and hunched my shoulders, as if I could ever find the privacy to cry in this open, violated space.
“Scarlett is a second-choice Stiletto,” Brendan said in a low voice. “And your fight isn’t with her. It’s with me. I’m the one who told her what your pack was up to.”
I closed a hand around one of Sienna’s daggers.
“Nelly was angry, but she never should have put Scarlett in this situation,” Brendan said, his voice weak but fierce. “She can’t handle it. Let her go, and you can face me, leader to leader.”
There was a long silence, and I spied over my shoulder at them, the hair still obscuring my face. Finally, Sienna waved a hand at me.
“Get out of here, Scarlett,” she said. “Go hide with the rest of your Wildwood dogs.” She turned to Brick. “We’ll deal with them soon enough.”
So quickly my eyes couldn’t make sense of it, Brick shifted into his sleek werewolf body. His silver fur rippled over his muscles, and his bared teeth shone.
Brendan transformed, too, his skin melting to fur in an instant. He was smaller than Brick, rougher at the edges, and limping.
“Don’t,” I called weakly.
Sienna tossed me a contemptuous smirk, and I let out a sob and stumbled out of the clearing down one of the paths of the maze.
The sound of the wolves snarling at one another behind me was almost enough to make the bile rise in my throat again. I crouched in the cover of the corn stalks and watched through the gaps as Brendan buried his teeth into the fur at Brick’s neck.
The massive creatures wrestled and snarled. Sienna watched them for a moment, weighing one of her daggers in her hand. She backed up and threw the delicate silver weapon toward the fray as casually as if was testing to see if she could land the target. The dagger plunged deeply into Brendan’s shoulder, and he let out a yelp but kept fighting.
Sienna took another step backwards toward me and lifted another dagger. She waited, always the one to choose precision and timing over brute force, and raised her hand to launch.
I buried my blade in her back before I realized I was moving. I dragged the weapon through muscle and skin, then grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around. I lifted my hand, pressing the fingers tightly together to form a single unit, and slammed it into the side of her neck—the brachial artery, the subtle point that would take her from fighting to unconscious in a single heartbeat.
She collapsed to the dirt. I crouched over her.
“You know your weakness?” I said. “You get so focused on precision that you miss attacks from behind. Ironic, isn’t it?”
Just to make sure, I took one of the needles from my pocket and slid it carefully into the soft skin on the other side of her neck. Her already limp posture slackened into absolute relaxation, and I stood and turned to face Brick.
Brendan had him cornered, with Brick’s body far enough into the corn stalks that he was almost flattening them and couldn’t move backwards another inch. I advanced, my dagger in one hand and a poisoned needle in a
nother.
Brendan snarled, and Brick snapped his jaws. Then Brick saw me coming toward him, and his gaze darted around the clearing.
It landed on Sienna, and his already tense postured tightened even more.
“She’s out,” I said. “You can’t do a thing about it.”
His eyes thrashed wildly as he looked from me to Brendan to Sienna and back again, and then he let out a strangled howl. His body began to shift, rapidly melting back into the elegant form of a well-dressed man. Brendan growled and reached out a giant paw, but Brick dropped to the ground with his hands out toward Sienna.
I turned just in time to see the burst of silver smoke engulf her body. The magic curled in around her and then rolled outward in a burst of tendrils.
When it dissipated, she was gone.
Brendan slammed his paw down onto the magician and pinned him to the ground. I slid in underneath with the needle outstretched and plunged its tip into Brick’s neck. He twitched once and then collapsed, as soft as a rag doll in an instant.
The silver dome overhead dissolved. I heard shouting on the far side of the maze when the people there realized they could get out, and more shouting from the onlookers outside.
Around us, dozens of witch and wolf bodies lay as if they’d been discarded. One of the palace officers ran into the clearing, his sharp uniform at odds with the devastation around us.
“Go guard the entrance,” I ordered. “Don’t let anyone in.” I turned to Brendan. “Help me get the others. We need to clear this maze.”
I looked back at where Sienna’s body had been lying.
The battle was over, but Sienna—Sienna was gone.
37
Grandma wrapped her arms around my shoulders from behind. The gentle pressure hurt enough that my vision dissolved into stars for a second, but I leaned back into her anyway and silently wished she’d never let go.
Behind us, the tea kettle whistled. Rowan reached across the table to pour the steaming hot water into the mugs of whoever needed a warmup.
