Before she could ask anything else, Bastion’s head was gone.
5
“Itold you hosting it here was a bad idea,” Meriam snarled, just as there was athud, then a shout from what sounded like the bar—the sounds of a struggle. Lilac straightened, her hand in Garin’s as they emerged from the cellar into the scullery, the innkeeper’s white curls taking up most of her immediate field of vision as the old woman glared daggers at Garin.
The scullery was empty besides the witch, the flame under the large cauldron reduced, the pottage simmering quietly. Meriam, wrapped in a nightgown and wool sweater, ushered them through the iron curtain. The smoke was stronger now, a gray cloud of it slowly leaking into the room, and Lilac bumped into Garin, who had frozen in the hall behind the bar.
She stepped around him, taking in the room—Lorietta was propping the front door open in attempts to waft the smoke out, Giles and the two korikaned, Blitzrik and Ra’arak on bar stools with their noses in bowls of pottage, Sable and Jeanare watching, frozen in the dining area to their left. Finally, at the foot of the stairs, Bastion was holding something—and someone. Her travel bag was on the ground, the lip of it open and her contents spilling out.
In a delicate two-fingered grip, Bastion pinched her envelope from Kestrel, small clouds of iris blue smoke rising from the corners. With hisother hand, he restrained Hywell the guard, who stared at the small white square with an unusual fixation.
“He smelled the smoke before anyone else did and began to fish in her bag. He pulled this out,” Bastion explained.
“Give that to me.” She marched forward, furious at herself for not keeping it on her body.
Bastion extended his arm, but Garin made a warning sound. “Wait.”
There was something wrong with Hywell.
“I can hear it,” the guard said, voice full of wonder. He reached across Bastion’s body again, wiggling his fingers, but the vampire yanked him back by the neck.
“You can’t have thequeen’sparcel. What’s the matter with you?”
“Faerie ether,” Garin said from beside her, his hand clamped on her arm.
The envelope suddenly burst into a ball of blue flames. Bastion yelped and released it as it fell to his feet. Hywell tried to lunge for it, but Bastion held onto him.
An angry wail came from behind the bar, where Meriam was gripping her knitted cap. “Get rid of it!” she shrieked as the ball of blue flames began to singe the planking.
Sable and Jeanare had scooped up Blitzrik and Ra’arak and watched from just inside the open door, while Giles had flung himself over the bar, the top of his head and bulging eyes barely visible over the counter next to Meriam. Lorietta burst out of the bead curtain brandishing a decorative bronze wand the length of her forearm.
“Reveal yourself,” she cried, pointing it at the envelope, which was still intact amidst the fire.
What would have happened to her had she opened it earlier?
Garin’s grip on her hand tightened, and everyone backed silently away as the flames died, leaving the envelope in the center of a circle of charred wood.
Everyone except Hywell, who wrenched himself from Bastion’s loosened grip, landing directly on the parcel.
A deafening explosion rocked the room, and when Lilac found her feet again, Garin and Lorietta were shouting. A cloud of frenzied blue smokefilled the room before shooting toward the ceiling and funneling down into Hywell, who kneeled in the center of the char.
The envelope was gone.
The front door slammed shut, rattling the timber as the smoke entered him through his mouth and ears, the veins along his throat swelling as he inhaled against his will, until the room was clear.
His body seized, and the guard gave Lilac one last look of terror before he collapsed to the floor face-first. Body stiff, he continued to tremble there, his skull and joints rattling along the wood.
Lilac was not one to believe in souls, at least the church’s version of them, but when Hywell—or whatever had hold of Hywell’s body—rose to his feet, she knew his was long gone.
His eyes hadmelted, leaving streaks of red-tinged foam running down his face below two gaping sockets. His mouth opened loosely, as if his jaw had been unhinged from the rest of his skull, the entity possessing him forcing it open as it spoke in an unnatural cadence.
As it did so, a voice echoed through the room—one she would never forget no matter how hard she tried.
“Good evening, Your Majesty.” It didn’t come from his mouth, instead seeping up through the floorboards and vibrating into her skull, so loud it was painful. It was Kestrel’s voice, echoing throughout the room, and by the horror on everyone’s face, they all could hear it, too.
“You, the twice usurper, thief, and first of your kind, owe me something.”
“Thief?”
