by Bec McMaster
The ballroom practically glittered, there were so many lights, and the mirrors that lined the chamber made it seem as though there were thousands of guests.
"What the hell is Balfour waiting for?" Adele murmured as she accepted a glass of watered-down wine that Malloryn provided for her. Her husband was carefully managing the aristocrats who attempted to get close to her, keeping them at enough distance to maintain her subterfuge, but her nerves were frayed around the edges.
"A chance," he murmured, surveying the ballroom and the Nighthawks who were wearing the Coldrush Guards uniform. They surrounded the ballroom discreetly.
"Maybe you scared him away?"
"He'll be here. I can feel it."
There was a slightly feral gleam to his eye, and black bled through his irises. Every inch of him quivered with the intense desire to finally get his hands on Balfour.
Out of everything, it was this fact that bothered her the most.
She couldn't help feeling as though their time together was slowly ticking to an end.
People danced. Debutantes laughed. Lords watched her with glittering eyes.
She recognized several of their faces as men to be wary of. They circled the ballroom in small droves, and Adele tried not to stare at them. Sweat dripped down her spine. Thank goodness she'd told Lena and Hattie to avoid the celebrations tonight. She could almost feel that target painted between her breasts.
But when she blinked again, only friendly faces smiled back at her.
Barrons started a toast to the queen. "…and as we usher in a new day, so do we celebrate a new era of…"
She could barely make out what he was saying. "Where have they all gone?"
Malloryn had been pretending to laugh at something the Duchess of Casavian said, but he turned to her sharply. "Who?"
"The Rising Sons," she said through her teeth. "I can't see any of them anymore."
He raked the crowd with his gaze and reached up, very slowly, to tug at his earlobe. Several Nighthawks noticed Malloryn's signal and straightened.
The enormous clock began to chime midnight, sending a portentous shiver down Adele's spine.
Its peal rang slowly; one, two, three, four, five—
"If we could charge our glasses?" Barrons called.
A choreographed wave of glassware glittered in front of her. She couldn't help looking for a malevolent stare, but all she could see was the flash of gleaming white teeth. No Rising Sons anywhere.
"Malloryn," she whispered sharply.
"To her Majesty, Queen Alexandra!"
—six, seven, eight, nine—
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
It sounded like fireworks, but they weren't scheduled yet, were they? There was supposed to be some grand conflagration just before dawn to herald the rising of the sun in some sort of symbolic gesture.
Every guest in front of her froze.
Malloryn's hand locked around her upper arm, prepared to haul her to safety if need be. "That." Malloryn clasped the hilt of the sword sheathed at his hip with his other hand. "He's been waiting for that."
"What the hell is going on?"
"We're under attack," he replied grimly, pressing a finger to the earpiece in his ear. "Ava? Jack? What have you got for me?"
Another explosion ricocheted through the night, and this time it felt as though it detonated nearby. The entire tower seemed to shudder.
Adele screamed as a chunk of the roof crashed down, sending a pair of debutantes sprawling. Lords and ladies fled the center of the dance floor in a panic of silk and velvet.
Plaster dust rained down, painting Malloryn's coppery hair white. He looked up, tensing as he listened to the information clearly relayed through his earpiece.
Another explosion rattled the tower. Adele staggered into him.
"Where is that coming from?"
"Protect the queen!" he bellowed, shoving her behind him into the waiting arms of Gemma and Ingrid.
The cacophony of sound continued.
Another detonation shattered every window along the north side of the ballroom. Glass spewed into the ballroom. Screams filled the air.
"Sound the alarms!" Malloryn bellowed, for the sake of the crowd. "And find out where that noise is coming from! Someone's setting off explosives."
"Where's the source?" Gemma demanded as she put herself bodily between Adele and the crowd, her pistol held low, hidden in the folds of her diaphanous skirts.
"I don't know yet," he snarled. "Clear the room!"
Several guards surrounded her, forming a bodily mass. The rest started pushing the frightened guests through the doors. Until they could work out where the explosions were coming from, there was no point fleeing.
Adele slid her little knife into her hand, though she was trembling so badly she didn't know what she'd be able to do with it.
"He knows where we are." Malloryn's face tightened with strain. "He's going to drive us out of the ballroom."
Gemma whirled her skirt away from her waist, revealing tight leather trousers and half a dozen knives strapped to her at various places. "We need information," she said as Obsidian appeared at her side. "Obsidian and I can work out what's going on. Ava and Kincaid may not be in the right position."
Malloryn hesitated only a second before he nodded curtly. "Watch your back. Dido's still out there."
"Yes, Father." Gemma rolled her eyes again. "Please. Tell me how to run reconnaissance again."
"Haven't you been doing this since you were off short strings?" Obsidian drawled, loading bullets into a dangerous-looking pistol.
"I don't know," Gemma replied, mock seriously. "Weren't you once the most feared assassin in Europe?"
"Ha. Ha," Malloryn said. "I don't know why I even bother, some days."
But Adele knew their banter had a purpose.
"I'll watch her back," Obsidian promised, as if could sense Malloryn's concern.
Then the pair of them vanished.
Malloryn turned to her. "Are you ready?"
Adele nodded at him.
"Good." He glanced toward Ingrid. "On my signal, prepare to get her out of here."
Chapter 34
"Your Grace, it appears to be coming from Thorne Tower!" One of the guards told them after a swift glance through the ruined windows. "They're firing on us!"
"The headquarters of the Coldrush Guards," Charlie said, pausing by the windows to get a better look.
"Stay there," Malloryn told her. He pressed a hand to his earpiece, trying to tune it. "Kincaid? Are you there? The cannons in Thorne Tower are firing on us. Can you find out what the hell is going on down there? Have they breached the walls? Is there any sign of anyone approaching?"
He listened intently to the tinny reply, and Adele watched his face tighten.
"It's one cannon," he said.
"What's its range?" Charlie asked. "Because those explosions are happening too frequently for one cannon to manage, and I doubt it would have hit us up here."
Malloryn relayed the information through the communicator, and then looked up. "Ava said she thought it was coming from the servants' quarters."
"What the hell is going on?" Byrnes snapped.
"So it's coming from both inside and outside the tower." Malloryn spoke his thoughts out loud.
Adele was so intent upon him, that she almost missed the movement at the corner of her eye.
The nearest metaljacket turned and lifted its arm cannon, the round end locking directly upon her. Adele froze. Her husband had assured her the two metaljackets in the room were defunct and purely there to lull the Rising Sons into a false sense of security. He'd had Jack check the chips in their heads himself.
"Malloryn?" she called.
He glanced across the throne room at her, seeing the threat immediately.
"Protect the queen!" Malloryn bellowed, and then he was sprinting directly toward her.
Heat flared to life deep in the heart of the spitfire's cannon. Adele sto
od mesmerized, her heartbeat ticking out the seconds as the press of her corset strained against her agitated ribs.
And then fire bloomed, a gush of it spewing directly toward her.
Malloryn drove into her like a freight train, and she slammed into the marble tiles as fire gushed overhead. It licked against the tapestries behind the throne, curling up the walls as the metaljacket maneuvered slowly, trying to find its target with its sensors.
"Stay down!" Malloryn said, lifting his head to see what was going on. "Byrnes! Charlie!"
Both of the enormous, ceremonial metaljackets lumbered forward, iron-plated boots striking the marble. These were the Firebird models, and virtually unstoppable without water cannons or arm cannons.
Adele screamed as the fire bloomed again, spraying over the top of her and Malloryn. Heat blistered her skin, but Malloryn shoved his body over the top of her and grunted as the stink of burning wool filled the air.
His weight suddenly shifted as he tore his coat off, tossing it aside before pushing her in the back. "Move!"
Adele scrambled toward the throne, peering out from behind it. "What's wrong with them?"
"I don't know!" he yelled back. "Someone must have tampered with them."
"But Jack checked them!"
Everything was happening all at once.
Malloryn drew his pistol, crouching by her side as he surveyed affairs.
Byrnes tried to kick one of the metaljackets behind its knee joint, before it swung its massive fist at him. Ingrid drove her knife between the fine gap of its chest plate, cursing under her breath as the blade stuck.
"Get clear!" Byrnes yelled, wrenching her out of the way as fire bloomed from its flamethrower.
"This big bastard is mine!" Charlie yelled, sprinting toward the other automaton.
He slid to his knees beneath a gush of fire as it turned on him, and rolled a handful of golden orbs toward the metaljacket. The orbs quivered as they changed course, rolling toward its steel boots as if magnetized.
Each orb split in two, little spindly legs erupting in an insect-like fashion as the orb rearranged itself into a carapace. Tiny golden spiders. And then they were crawling up the metaljacket's boots, sparks erupting between their pincers as they found the connecting wires in the knee joint.
The metaljacket's glass eyes flashed a warning as sparks spat out of its joints. And then it was sinking slowly to its knees and landing on its metal face with a clatter.
There was nothing she could do except stay out of the way.
"Stay here," Malloryn demanded. "Lark!"
The young woman backed away from the fight, knives held at the ready. "Last line of defense," she repeated, as if they'd had this conversation several times already.
Malloryn grabbed a stunner that one of the Nighthawks tossed toward him. The long poles had thin metal loops on the ends of them that could be electrified with a push of the button. He swung it at the last metaljacket, hooking the loop around its steel-plated head. The monstrous metal beast jerked and spasmed as current arced through it.
The second he released the trigger, Byrnes launched a flying kick at its face, metal crunching around his boot as the steaming hulk slowly toppled with the clatter.
Both metaljackets were down.
"Nice work, Your Grace," Byrnes said, breathing hard.
Ingrid yanked her knife out of the breastplate, leaning all her weight on the metaljacket to do so. "How did Jack miss it?"
"This might be the problem," Charlie called, having rolled one of them over. He yanked a small, magnetized device off the back of the metaljacket's head. "It looks like some sort of frequency-altering device that must have overridden the control chip. I can pull it apart later when we get a chance, but I daresay it's the cause."
Adele eased her way out from behind the throne. "Now what?"
"Evacuate Adele," Malloryn said to both women.
"We don't know which parts of the tower have been compromised," Lark replied. "The tunnels might be nothing more than rubble by now."
"Then go to Plan B. There's a bloody reason I approved the funding for that damned dirigible. It wasn't so the Nighthawks could take scenic flights in it."
Ingrid glanced at her. "Care for a flight, Your Grace?"
"Go with Lark and Ingrid," he told her, a smear of soot across his cheek.
"What about you?" she demanded.
The line of his jaw tensed. "I have to finish this, Adele. I have to make sure he dies this time."
"The entire tower's on fire! He's called your bluff."
As if to punctuate her words, something else exploded.
"He's here somewhere, I know he is—"
"Please," she whispered. "Please come with us. Come with me...."
Malloryn turned his face away from her touch. "I can't." Capturing her hand, he pressed it to his lips, his eyes raw with unspoken words. "I'll see you at home."
Then he turned, heading into the smoke.
Adele stared after him, her heart in her throat, aware of all the eyes watching them.
Just before he was about to vanish, he paused.
And then he was striding back toward her. Capturing her face in his hands, he pressed his lips to hers. Adele wrapped her arms around his neck, clinging to him as he kissed her, long and slow and deep. She didn't want this moment to end, for the second it did, he'd walk away from her again, she knew it.
This was goodbye.
All the things left unspoken between them poured into a moment of perfection. Of need and desire, and a thousand little secret confessions.
And then Malloryn finally drew back, carefully disengaging her arms from around his neck.
"I love you," he whispered, his eyes gleaming bright gray in contrast to the soot on his cheeks. "I have tried not to. I knew I was breaking every single promise I ever made myself when I looked at you. But I couldn't help myself. You drive me crazy, Adele. But you also give me back a piece of myself I thought I'd lost."
Another kiss, her arms locking around his neck.
And then he was capturing her wrists, lowering her hands in front of her, his expression grim. "And so I want you to go. If I don't make it, go and live your life. Be happy. Be free."
She knew what he was saying.
He didn't think he was going to survive.
"Come with me!"
"I can't." Malloryn cupped her hand against his cheek. "This needs to end, Adele. One way or another, one of us has to die. If I walk away, he'll scuttle free, and then there'll be more dead girls in the streets. More explosions. More killing. He'll come after the queen again. He'll come after you. I can stop it. I have to stop it."
"None of this was your fault!" she cried.
"Adele."
The way he said her name always cut right through her. But this time, there was a slight pleading undertone.
"Know this," he said. "I want that future we spoke of. I will fight for that, if nothing else. And I will come home to you if I can. But you need to go now, before the tower goes down." His mouth softened into a smile. "Be brave."
And let me go….
She didn't want to go.
Heavens knew what Malloryn faced. But if his attention was focused on protecting her, then he'd be at risk himself.
She couldn't afford to distract him when he went face-to-face with Balfour.
Adele steeled herself, drawing on years of experience to swallow down the fear inside her. "Go and kill him. And you had better come home to me, Auvry, or I am going to be most put out."
"As you wish. Fall back," Malloryn commanded, pushing her toward Lark and Ingrid. "Keep her safe for me, please."
"I love you," she mouthed, before she turned away from him.
Before she could linger any further.
"This way, Your Grace," Lark said, gesturing her to the back of the throne.
Ingrid tore a burning tapestry from one of the walls, revealing a secret passage behind it. "I'll go first. Cover me."
The three of the
m fled along the corridor and appeared outside on one of the enormous spiral staircases up the center of the tower. Each staircase twined around the other, so you couldn't see anyone travelling up or down the other staircase.
Another loud explosion sent them all sprawling.
Smoke poured up through the hollow of the tower, and Adele lay winded as the entire structure shook. "Is Balfour insane? He's taking out the base of the tower!"
Perhaps, after all this time, he'd finally given up on taking power and merely sought revenge.
Ingrid hauled her to her feet. "Keep moving! We need to reach the top of the tower and signal the Nightingale."
A second explosion sounded closer. Nearby. Adele screamed as she was slammed into the wall. Pieces of shrapnel flew past them, landing with a tinny bang against the wall. One large piece clattered down the stairs toward them.
"What the hell was that?" Ingrid demanded, spinning in that direction with her knives drawn.
Lark bent to pick up the domed helmet, flinching from the heat of it. "It looks like some sort of—"
"Oh, my God. It's a Mowbray!" Adele cried suddenly, recognizing the piece of machinery. All the facts suddenly rearranged themselves inside her head. The Prometheus Project had never been about the metaljackets. They were merely the distraction.
"What in bloody rot and ruin is a Mowbray?" Ingrid demanded.
Adele took the domed helmet from Lark and shook it. "This is a Mowbray! Or part of one. They're in almost every aristocratic home!"
Recognition dawned in Lark's eyes. "Household automatons."
"The best on the market." Adele wanted to slam her palm to her forehead. "Of course! There was some sort of shortage fault discovered in the previous models the tower used. A Paxton Elite burned the Earl of Ardmore's townhouse down, and the bloody council ordered their Paxtons all replaced six months ago. It was a major scandal in all the papers and sent the other manufacturer broke. The tower scrapped the other contract and went with Mowbrays. Balfour didn't need to smuggle explosives inside the tower! They were already here, packed inside each Mowbray in the tower. He must have been waiting for this day for months. I'll bet my best diamonds they're all full of explosives."
