“That should do it,” Miss Chen said. “Keep a tight hold on him.”
“How long will they stay that way?” Miss Rao asked.
“A day, I believe,” Miss Chen said, adroitly stepping over them. She noticed Mr. Shaw’s hand reaching out with faint clouds of smoke and seized it. “Oh, we missed this, Miss Kane.”
Emily floated Mr. Dunn down to render Mr. Shaw’s hand unusable. “What shall I do with him now?”
Miss Chen observed Shirin, waving from Beauchamp Tower. “I think they could use some protection.”
We followed George and his depowered friends to the tower, where he sent up a vine for Shirin to climb down. He was the only one with a power left. While I healed Shirin, Emily floated Mr. Dunn to George. He wrapped his vines around the man, holding him like a shield.
“Thank you for your help,” I told them. “We’re going to go get Captain Goode now. Make sure the other people you’ve restrained are no longer a danger. And stay out of sight of the White Tower.”
“How are you going to get to him?” Shirin asked.
“We have a plan,” I said.
Thunder rumbled as a storm churned overhead, and the clouds blocked the moonlight.
“Miss Rao, do you do those ominous rolls of thunder on purpose?” Miss Chen asked.
“Perhaps, destroyer,” she replied.
Thunder rumbled again.
In pairs, Emily floated us up into Beauchamp Tower, which provided a clear view of the west side of the White Tower. We climbed to the top, staying low and hidden in the shadows as we peeked outside. Light flooded the entire tower green area. Trees had been cleared, and there was nowhere to hide. No one stood in any of the three floors of windows of the White Tower, but I could feel Captain Goode watching, waiting to catch us.
After a minute, Miss Chen explained why. “Bastard’s put an illusion on the tower. I can’t do anything.”
“What do you mean?” Rose asked.
“He’s covered up everything. I don’t know where the lights really are,” she said. “So I can’t break them. And the windows only look empty so we can’t attack them from here.”
Thunder rumbled again, and we watched as Miss Rao’s winds picked up within the inner ward. The stubborn lights seemed to be well protected. And if we tried to cross the lawn like this, our powers would be gone. We’d be helpless. And Sebastian wouldn’t survive tomorrow.
“There is one alternative,” I said slowly, feeling like I had said it before, like I had always known it would come to this.
Even in the dark, I knew they were all frowning at me.
“Ev, we didn’t go through this whole plan so you’d charge after Captain Goode on your own again,” Rose said.
“I won’t be alone,” I said. “All of you will help me from the outside.”
“He’ll still turn off your healing.”
“But he wants me alive,” I said. “He needs a healer. This is the best way I can think of.”
Everyone sat in silence for a moment, thinking of something better. Nothing came.
“Are you sure?” Miss Chen finally asked.
I looked back at the path of destruction we’d carved across the Thames and through the tower to this spot. The path Rose, Emily, Miss Chen, and Miss Rao had made with amazing use of their powers. They had to keep them.
“I am.”
As my friends spread out on the rooftops and battlements to find the right angles to watch the tower, I climbed down into Captain Goode’s domain and stepped into the light. He could easily see me now. As I crossed the lawn, I tried futilely to raise my power, hoping my noble, self-sacrificing attitude or my Sebastian-focused mind might trigger something new. Of course, it did not.
There was no sensation, save for the chill that ran through me as he turned my powers off.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I FELT ANOTHER strange chill as I entered the White Tower and quickly received an explanation for it with a cold slash across my face. I pulled out my dagger fan and found myself facing that damn ice guard who refused to go away.
“Not so tough on your own?” Miss Quinn asked.
I swung at her, and she spat another ice shard at me, clipping my shoulder. She dodged my clumsy attack and kneed me in the gut. I lost my breath, and by the time I found it, she’d frozen my feet together into a block of ice and kicked me to the ground. I tried sliding away from her, chipping at the ice with my dagger and then resorting to banging the whole thing against the stone.
She smiled at the futility of the endeavor and then stared at me wide-eyed as the walls behind me started to crack and shatter, followed quickly by the ice around my feet.
I took the opportunity to kick her shins and scramble back up. I darted for the closest stairs I could find as more walls on the west side started to come down, exposing the inside of the White Tower and giving Miss Chin and the others a better view of my enemy.
I made it up to the second floor, where I found what I was looking for: the extensive armory. Figures in the shapes of past kings and their horses donning four-hundred-year-old armor. Glass cases of swords, pistols, and shields. I smashed one open with debris and pulled out the tallest shield I could find. It was heavy and unwieldy, but when Miss Quinn caught up to me and unleashed the full power of her freezing breath, I blocked the entire attack, beyond a slight chill in my feet.
She was getting frustrated, especially with the constant barrage from my friends. Every time Miss Chen broke open another section of the tower, Emily would grab Miss Quinn, dodging her attack and throwing her into the glass cases. In desperation, she fired shards at Beauchamp Tower and blew a mist into the air that gave her some cover, but that only helped her make it behind another wall that Miss Chen started cracking apart.
I maneuvered into the exposed areas, keeping my shield between Miss Quinn and me. Every wound stayed with me now, but it wasn’t fear that made me defensive. It was trust in my friends’ powers. That they were doing everything I couldn’t do to help. I readied my shield, waiting for the last of the walls to fall away, when I discovered Miss Quinn had friends of her own. A knife sliced into my arm, and as I reflexively swung back at the attacker and found myself stumbling through a body, I knew exactly who it was.
“Fei, dear, this has gone far enough!” Mr. Pratt’s illusion yelled out into the darkness.
Another slash tore across my chest, and I had to start swinging wildly, hitting air. He’d managed to render himself invisible. Emily tried to help by throwing debris, but nothing seemed to make contact with the invisible enemy. Blood dripped from my body onto the floor, and now I was certain my power had been shut off. My arm was a mass of hot pain and my skin stung where the shallower cut had sliced across my chest.
“I understand the need to preserve your feminine modesty by rejecting my first few proposals, but you need not destroy the Tower of London for it!”
Glass broke in a corner display case and a sword and shield quickly disappeared before Emily’s rocks could make it there. I started to back away, though I didn’t quite know where to back away from. I barely knew how to fight a visible enemy. How could I fight an invisible one?
Then I heard Miss Chen answer me with the crumbling of the ceiling. Dust sprinkled from above, disappearing wherever it fell upon Mr. Pratt. Holding my shield out, I backed away from him while keeping one eye on Miss Quinn, who seemed to be preparing an attack. Thunder growled in the sky with me.
“If it would make you feel better, your traitorous friend Miss Wyndham can attend our wedding!” Mr. Pratt’s illusion offered from behind me. “We’d have to keep her in a box, of course, but we can make it look quite lovely!”
Three knives flew at me at once, two illusions making no sound as I blocked with my shield, and a real one leaving a burning slash in my leg.
I stumbled toward the edge of the building, where a patter of rain started to fall, and I felt the awful helplessness of slipping on ice. My legs spun out from under me, my dagger clattering out
of my hand. I was completely open to attack, which, of course, is when Mr. Pratt charged.
A charge I could now see, with Miss Rao’s barrage of rain droplets disappearing upon contact, forming an outline of a man swinging his sword down upon me.
I wrenched my shield up, blocking the attack from the ground, my shoulder screaming in pain. I kicked at his feet while Emily’s stones struck his head. With a final push of my shield, I twisted it and slammed into Mr. Pratt’s torso, knocking him off-balance and off the building with a scream.
A shard struck me in the shoulder. I spun around, putting my shield up to block, feeling the thumps of icicles lodging in the front. I rose up to my knees behind the cover as I felt shivers and heard Miss Quinn let loose another heavy freezing breath. Nothing touched me, but as I heard her footsteps come closer, I tried to move the shield and found it frozen to the ground. I pulled and pulled in desperation, waiting for Miss Chen to help. But the ice had been formed on the other side of the shield, out of her sight.
The footsteps came closer and closer. I reached out for my dagger on the ground, and another shard impaled my hand immediately. Which left me stuck on the edge with no weapon and one hand.
“I’m sure that will heal eventually,” Miss Quinn said.
I turned with her voice and steps, trying to keep the shield between us as I tried to think of a plan. The rain had stopped, along with Emily’s rocks, and it seemed my friends had also run out of ideas.
What was the most unexpected thing I could do? She knew I was cautious, afraid, searching for a way to survive without my healing. I wouldn’t be reckless enough to charge straight at her.
So that’s what I did. I steeled my nerves and leaped out from my cover, startling her into firing a shard straight into my foot. My terrible charge quickly came to an end as I hit the cold ground.
And slid on her ice. Right to her feet.
I slammed the shard of ice lodged in my hand straight into her leg, and as she toppled down over me, my palm turned up and caught her with it. She fell onto the shard and cried out in pain.
I shoved her aside and wrenched my numb hand free before clumsily scrambling to my feet. She remained on the ground, coughing up blood, unable to do the same. A scream left my mouth as I pulled the shard out. Bruised, bloody, and broken, I picked up my dagger and limped up the stairs to the third floor.
Time for the hard part.
I climbed the dark, narrow stairs slowly and loudly, every part of my body aching. No need for stealth at this point.
I reached under my skirts and pulled out Mr. Kent’s pistol. I wasn’t going to shoot Captain Goode, but I needed to be enough of a threat to distract him.
But before I even reached the top of the stairs, I heard his voice call to me. “Miss Wyndham, I want you to know that I have a gun pointed at Mr. Braddock’s head.”
I covered my mouth to swallow my cry. Of course it wasn’t going to be quick and easy. I climbed the last stair and stopped at the doorway, my gun pointed at Captain Goode. The room was austere and unadorned. No displays of armor or weapons like the rest of the keep. Just three prisoners, wrists and legs tied to chairs. I winced when I saw the blood and cuts on Sebastian’s face, the rag stuffed into Mr. Kent’s mouth. But they were alive, this pair of brave, wonderful fools.
I didn’t know what to make of Miss Fahlstrom being held as the third prisoner. Did our revelations about Captain Goode convince her to help us?
“Will you give the gun to Mr. Thorpe?” Captain Goode asked.
To my right, the torturer from the train cleared his throat, watching me closely with his uncovered eye. He was bandaged and leaning on a cane, but it didn’t make him any less dangerous. Even if Miss Chen managed to break down the wall for Miss Rao and Emily to sweep everyone up, it would not be fast enough to keep Sebastian from getting hurt.
“No,” my mouth answered, unbidden. He’d turned Mr. Kent’s power up to make this a truthful conversation.
“I see,” Captain Goode said. “Now, do you know what Miss Fahlstrom’s power is?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“She can see the deaths of powered people.”
“Good,” he said. “Now, Miss Fahlstrom, how and when is Mr. Braddock going to die?”
“In forty-two seconds. When Captain Goode shoots him,” Miss Fahlstrom answered.
I stared at her and Captain Goode, completely speechless.
“I don’t think either of us likes that outcome,” Captain Goode said. “But your prophecies can change, yes?”
“They can,” Miss Fahlstrom replied.
“How?”
“When I tell another, it can change their behavior in such a way that they alter the future.”
Dammit. I looked at Mr. Kent. “Has your power been raised this whole time?” I asked him.
He mumbled something unintelligible and nodded.
“Evelyn, don’t give it to him,” Sebastian said, shaking his head.
I took a deep breath and lowered the gun. And possibly us into a grave. But there had to be another way to save him.
The torturer limped over to me and took the pistol. He slipped it into his jacket pocket and kept his hand at my back. A familiar warmth filled my gut, that invigorating feeling of Captain Goode enhancing my power. My wounds practically knit themselves together by the time I glanced down. Only slight reddish hues were left to mark the spots.
Mr. Thorpe inhaled deeply as my healing fixed his remaining injuries. “Thank you,” he said and stepped back into his corner.
My power left me again with a chill.
“There we are,” Captain Goode said, his gun still on Sebastian. “Now Miss Fahlstrom, how and when am I going to die?”
“A Frenchman named Adrien Martin will poison you thirty days from today at a dinner party,” she answered. “You will die in your bedroom the next morning.”
“I will have to do something about him then. But for now, I’m satisfied,” Captain Goode said, finally lowering his gun.
“When will Sebastian Braddock die?” I asked.
“At his execution tomorrow morning,” she said.
The world shrank down to those five words.
That couldn’t be. My follow-up question came out as a whimper. “W-what?”
“His execution is tomorrow morning,” she repeated. “I’m sorry.”
But then … that meant this plan would be a failure. My eyes flickered over to the window, where Beauchamp Tower sat quietly in the dark.
“If you’re waiting for your friends to help you, it will be about twelve hours,” Captain Goode said. “I asked my songbird, Miss Tolman, to wait for the fighting to come to an end before putting everyone to sleep. I believe you have met her. No one can resist her lullabies.”
I tried to keep my body steady. The old woman who sang people to sleep. We’d met when Oliver was hurt, and I’d completely forgotten her. Which left me alone. Useless. Powerless. There was no other way to save Sebastian.
“Though I must admit, you did surprise me by coming here tonight,” Captain Goode said. “Miss Fahlstrom told me I was going to die in fifty-seven years, in a prison. Which didn’t provide much information about your plan. How did you do it?”
“By deciding not to kill you,” I spat out.
Dammit. Do something. Do something. Do something.
“And here I was trying to give you more reasons to kill me at the execution,” Captain Goode said, shaking his head in disappointment. “But you were more interested in saving him, weren’t you?”
My eyes met Sebastian’s heartrending gaze, and the answer came out as a growl. “Yes.”
“That’s quite useful information for Miss Fahlstrom’s power,” he said. “Thank you.”
Do anything.
I turned to the torturer. “What is your power’s weakness?”
“Only people in my sight can be hurt,” Mr. Thorpe sputtered, trying to cover his mouth.
Captain Goode’s flinty expressio
n shifted to fury. “Remind her what you can do.”
The torturer lifted the kerchief from his eye, and that awful pain seized me.
I cried out, as much as I didn’t want to give Captain Goode the satisfaction. But the pain was worse than I remembered, constantly changing. It brought me to the ground and refused to let go. It was piercing, then suffocating, then burning. I hated my body for existing, for feeling pain. I just wanted it to stop, please.
Captain Goode’s voice joined the agony. “This is the other reason I wanted to keep you alive.” His footsteps came closer. I could hear muffled yells coming from Sebastian or Mr. Kent, but I could barely concentrate with the pain splitting my head into dust. His face seemed to be right next to mine. “So the rest of your life will serve as an example. As a deterrent for those who consider shirking the duty and responsibility their power demands. You’re going to spend it in agony.”
He sniffed and stood back up. “It is a necessity. And this isn’t a pain healing fixes. This isn’t even a pain you can get numb to. This is a pain you brought on yourself.”
His footsteps faded away, returning to his prisoners. “Tie her up.”
I moaned, managing a deep breath. He was right. The pain was excruciating. But I’d been choked, burned, stabbed, pummeled, electrocuted, frozen, and broken. I’d been knocked off a roof, thrown from a train, and forced to watch the people I love die. I wasn’t going to let one man taking my power away and another glaring at me be the end of it.
My hand clicked the dagger fan tied to my wrist and I shot up through the pain with everything I had. My blade found the torturer’s gut, and he doubled over, his gaze finally off me. I gasped in relief and pulled out the dagger, a lightness in my body. Captain Goode spun around and reached for his weapon, but I already had mine. I clutched the torturer’s hair and aimed his evil eye right at my target.
Captain Goode got one shot off before he collapsed in pain. It hit the torturer in his chest and I felt him stumble, but I pushed him forward, one hand roughly pulling his eyelids up to keep his gaze locked on Captain Goode. The gun dropped out of Captain Goode’s hand by Sebastian’s feet, and he kicked it out of reach, while I snatched Mr. Kent’s pistol back from Mr. Thorpe’s jacket pocket. It took a few seconds for Captain Goode to find the strength to shut down Mr. Thorpe’s power, but by that time, the torturer was falling to the ground, unconscious, and I was already taking aim. A shot in Captain Goode’s stomach and another in his leg kept him down.
These Vengeful Souls Page 23
