Isolde’s nostrils flared in their direction. “Is she a fledgling?”
“No.”
“No, but he is.” Lilac looked over her shoulder at Rupert. “And so is he.” She pointed at Gwendal’s body.
Walter glanced at Garin. “One of her guards?”
“He was the only survivor in François’s most recent attack. Garin brought him here.”
“Take him to the mine. Ensure his first feed, keep it ethical,” said Garin. “Oversee it, and provide thevolunteeringdonor extra rations. When this is all over, we’re going to discuss freeing them—but not a moment before,” he warned. “They’ve given years of their lives to the coven under Bastion’s order. Under mine, we will protect them, cater to them as our own.”
The vampires exchanged glances.
“He belongs with her,” Lilac said with a softened glance at Yanna, who’d begun to tear up again. “Take care of him.”
Isolde went to Gwendal without another word, scooping him up and propping him carefully over her shoulder. “You will see him again,” she told Yanna with a small, fanged smile. “I promise.”
“And the house?” Walter asked, eyeing the wreckage.
Garin blinked blearily up at it. “It is a house. Nothing more.”
Isolde and Walter moved toward the trees with no more than a parting glance at Garin and Rupert. Lilac took Yanna by the wrist and tugged her toward Myrddin, Rupert, and Garin.
For once, the world was somber and still as the trees and smoldering house began to spin, and the ground dropped from beneath their feet.
37
Kemble shrieked, knocking her chair back from her desk.
Lilac shoved Myrddin and Rupert off; they landed on the floor next to her with a thump. Yanna had landed on the cot to her right closest to the door.
Garin was the only one already on his feet, already prowling across the room; his limp didn’t slow him one bit. Myrddin’s hand flew up from the tangle of limbs between the cots; the infirmary door was instantly shrouded in its violet glow, filling the room with the scent of sulfur as it sealed shut.
That didn’t stop Garin from trying.
“Open it.” He slammed his body against the door. Dust rained down from the doorframe. “I said,openthedoor.” Lilac braced herself before she even felt the inevitable tug at her navel. She fought it, curling her fingers into the thin blankets and locking her legs around the nearest bedpost as if it would stop him—until Garin’s shoulders stiffened and he glanced over his shoulder. “Anyone buther.”
Her body ceased struggling immediately, and she scrambled back onto the cot as if it were a life raft. Yanna climbed from hers onto Lilac’s anyway, eagerly distancing herself from the vampire.
Garin yanked and pushed on the handle, which snapped off in his hands. It clattered to the floor when he levitated several feet off theground. He shouted, swinging his arms and legs at the air. “Put me down, Myrddin!”
But Myrddin was still peeling himself off the floor, detangling his legs from Rupert. The fledgling rose first, propping himself against the foot of Lilac’s bed; when Garin let out a territorial growl, Rupert cursed under his breath and stood erect. “I’m not touching her.”
Kemble stood between her desk and the medical supply cart from the night before, arms outstretched toward Garin, the veins at her temples bulging.
“Minerva! Good evening to you, too!” Myrddin tossed his hair out of his eyes. “Nice to see you’ve continued your schooling, after all. Now, would you mind putting my vampire down?”
“Your—vampire,” Kemble hissed, clutching her breast and pointing sideways at Rupert. “Thatis a vampire. He’s a Strigoi?—”
“I know what he is, Minerva.”
“Are you out of your mind?” Kemble screeched. “A Strigoi in Brittany? In this castle?”
Garin gave a final, determined kick to the door from the air, launching himself at Kemble. She shrieked and swung her arms in a half circle, flinging him across the room. Garin’s head bounced off the wall with a sickening crack, and he landed on the cot adjacent to Lilac’s—the one he’d cradled her on, nose buried in her hair the night before.
He coughed and rolled onto his side, and didn’t move after that.
There was a tug at Lilac’s collar; Yanna’s fists were wrapped around the ribbons at her back. “I see that psychotic look in your eyes. I’ll put you in a headlock, too.”
