“We’re going to send the spell with Odile.” She tore the spell from the book, making the page as small as possible before rolling it into a tiny scroll.
“Brilliant.” Thomas nodded, ripping a thread off his ragged clothes. Using the string, he secured the scroll.
As if understanding she was needed, Odile fluttered to Celia’s hand, perching on her finger. “Take this to William Corvin in the Tuckomock Forest,” she whispered.
Odile gripped the miniature scroll in her feet before fluttering toward the front door. Celia pulled the portal spell from her bodice, shoving it into Oswald’s hand. “You need to read this. Hurry.”
He frowned, glancing at the golden stand, and grabbed the marble bowl, tucking it under his arm.
She shook her head. “What are you doing?”
“If I’m going with you, I’m taking this.” He knitted his brows, scanning Celia’s spell. “This doesn’t take you to a place. It takes you to a person.”
“Whatever. Just read it. Just get us out of here.” She cringed at the hysteria in her voice. Not very regal.
He glared, unwilling to leave his home. Just as he began chanting, the front door burst open. A horde of armed guards swarmed the room, swords clanking. Celia thought she saw one of them loose a fireball just before she heard Oswald utter the word Tobias.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Tobias
Tobias awoke with his arms wrapped around Fiona, a smile on his lips. She was lying against him, and his head rested on the wooden armrest.
An unquiet thought tickled the back of his mind. What am I doing here?
He jolted with the realization that they were fully visible, lying outside the Williamsburg bus station. Fiona rested against him in her ripped ballgown, and Tobias wore only his singed black underwear. He was practically naked. He blinked in the bright sunlight. Cars were pulling into the parking lot. “Fiona.” He nudged her awake, and her head shot up.
She looked at him with horror before sitting up. A middle-aged woman in a floral dress shot them a dirty look, tutting as she walked past them into the station.
Alan slept near a flower bed, and Fiona jumped up to wake him before rousing Mariana. What are we supposed to do now? They would need to sneak in somewhere privately to make themselves invisible. But this entire task of fleeing Virginia would be near impossible without their own mode of transport. He didn’t want to panic Fiona, but had a growing feeling of unease about the fate of her mother.
A battered car with a smashed taillight pulled up to the station, and Tobias hunched over, hoping to avoid attention. A young man with spiked, green hair stepped out. He slammed his door, leaning against the hood of his car to squint at Tobias. “Good party last night?”
Tobias nodded. Maybe there was some way to get clothes off this guy. “It was quite a party.”
The green-haired boy pulled out a pack of cigarettes, tapping them in his palm. “You guys hear about the terrorist thing last night?”
There goes our plan to avoid attention.
“Oh? What did you hear about it?” Fiona pulled at the front of her dress, and her smile was as fake as the boy’s hair.
He pulled out a cigarette, popping it into his mouth. “Bunch of teenagers lit the Ranulf plantation on fire.” He flicked his lighter. “Rich kids. They’re all from a private school.”
Fiona’s voice was shaky. “You can’t trust anyone these days.”
The stranger took a long drag of his cigarette. “I don’t have a problem with it. I think all politicians probably deserve it anyway.” He seemed to study them intently. “But I imagine these rich kids wouldn’t want anyone finding out where they were.”
Tobias’s jaw clenched. He’s going to try to blackmail us, isn’t he? Good luck with that. I’ve got nothing to give him beyond my burnt underwear. He scrubbed at his face, and when he opened his eyes again, he saw something that froze the blood in his veins.
It must have been the Fury, drawn after them by his own guilty conscience. There was no other explanation. It was the people he’d left behind. Thomas, in the ragged uniform of a pearly cap, like the one Tobias’s mother had tried to sew for him. Celia dressed as a Throcknell princess. And Oswald—an avenging angel, draped in white silk and drenched with blood.
Tobias staggered to his feet. He pushed past the stranger, stumbling toward Oswald, who stalked toward him across the parking lot. The Fury was here to kill him, disguised in Oswald’s form. There was no point in trying to run.
Tobias tottered toward him on aching legs, kneeling down before him. “I’m sorry,” he sputtered. “I tried to save Eden. I thought she had the plague. She wouldn’t have—” He nodded, resigned. His voice cracked only a little when he spoke. “It’s all right. I know. You have to kill me.”