And then she muscled Dido to the side, throwing her back against the window. Glass shattered, and Dido's eyes went wide as she clawed at Ingrid's shoulders.
Locked together as they were, Ingrid had no chance of saving herself.
Lark and Adele screamed in horror as the pair of them vanished through the window.
"Ingrid!" Adele yelled, sprinting to the window and peering through its broken remains with Lark wedged against her.
Ingrid lay flat on her back on the marble colonnade that circled the ballroom three floors below them, groaning as she tried to roll onto her side—and failed.
Dido pushed to her hands and knees, swaying badly.
"Will this bitch not die?" Lark snarled. "Get up, Ingrid. Come on, get up."
But Ingrid couldn't move, and Dido was the one with the weapon in hand.
"We have to do something," Adele gasped.
"Come and find me, Malloryn," whispered that ghostly voice.
Malloryn tracked it up the stairs, a pistol held low against his thigh and a knife in his left hand. He reached a corner and heard Balfour chuckle. Pressing his back to the wall, he put one finger to his lips to still Charlie and Byrnes, and then eased out his breath.
Rolling out into the hallway he aimed the pistol and—
There was no one there.
"All these years," Balfour murmured, somewhere to the left of him. "I've been waiting for this moment."
A pair of open doors awaited him.
Tension crept through him as he put one foot in front of the other, crossing the carpets. He slipped through the doors, pistol tracking the room. A sitting room, by the look of it. One of the guest chambers.
"Revenge shall be so very sweet."
Left again.
Near the windows.
But surely no one could fit behind the curtains?
Malloryn yanked the curtain aside, his stomach falling as he saw a small ECHO recording device he'd seen the Nighthawks use on occasion. It's clockwork mechanism wound through the prerecorded reel of Balfour's voice.
As if to mock him, the words repeated, "Come and find me, Malloryn.... All these years...."
He jammed his heel down on the brass device, cogs spewing from its body as the recording cut off. "Son of a bitch."
"It's a trap," Charlie said, spinning around.
"Yes." Malloryn sheathed his rage. "But who is it designed for?"
"Can anyone hear something ticking?" Byrnes asked. "Or is that just my ears ringing?"
They all froze.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
There was no clock on the mantle.
"Under the sofa," Byrnes breathed, and as one, they all looked at it.
The ticking sped up.
"Move!" Malloryn yelled, yanking Charlie toward the door.
They were barely through it when a blast wave went up, slamming him in the back and sending him sprawling across the marble floors. Charlie hit the railing of the staircase, his eyes widening as he started going over it.
Somehow Byrnes managed to grab him and haul him back to safe ground.
"Thanks," Charlie mouthed.
Malloryn shoved to his feet, his ears ringing. Little bits of shrapnel had shredded his arms, and he could feel the craving rushing through him as it sought to heal him.
Bit by bit, the whining in his ears stopped. Behind him, the doors were gone. Half the wall had vanished. Smoke billowed from the remains of the sitting room and flames licked at what was left of the furnishings.
And there was still no sign of Balfour.
Byrnes frowned behind him. "Malloryn?" He had his fingers on his communicator, his face paling.
"What?" he barked.
"It's Ingrid," Byrnes said, and took off sprinting before either he or Charlie could stop him.
"Damn it! Byrnes!" Malloryn went after him, but as he rounded a corner, he slowed to a halt.
Half a dozen blue blood lords were sprinting up the stairs toward them, heavily armed, as Byrnes burst right through the center of them.
Every single one of them wore a golden sash over their court attire, with a pin jabbed into their breasts: a rising sun in stylized gold.
Devoncourt was in the lead.
"Tell Byrnes I love him…."
The words echoed through Byrnes's head as he sprinted through the tower, trying to find his wife.
The second he'd heard them through the communicator, he'd known.
Ingrid was verwulfen to her core, and Malloryn had given her an order to protect his wife. It didn't matter what Ingrid had to do, she would give her life for that command.
He had to find her.
Before it was too late.
"Here's my pistol." Lark gave it to Adele. "Don't go anywhere. Shoot anybody you don't recognize."
Here goes nothing.
Putting her knife between her teeth, Lark caught hold of the velvet drapery and ran at the gaping window.
Leaping through it, Lark sailed through the air, trying not to look down. They were nearly at the top of the tower, and for a second she could almost hear Charlie telling her there were at least a thousand stairs from the base to the top, which was not what she needed to be thinking about right now. The second she started swinging back toward the tower, she gauged the drop and let go.
Air whistled past her ears.
Her heels slammed right between Dido's shoulder blades, and Lark turned her fall into a roll, coming up with her knife in her hand. She crouched over Ingrid protectively.
"Get up," she said, never taking her eyes off the assassin. The woman was backlit by the flames burning in the ballroom.
"I can't," Ingrid growled. "I can't move my legs. I landed on my back—"
There was no time to examine her.
Lark drove to the side as Dido lunged for her, steel flashing in the night. A hot line of fire rose along her arm as she lashed back with her own knife, feeling it bite into flesh.
She was no match for the dhampir by herself. All she could do was lure her away and hope Ingrid could get to her feet.
Dido slowly stood, blood streaming down her leg from where Lark had cut her. "Irina Grigoriev. We meet again."
"This time, you don't have any vampires on a leash."
"Yes." Dido smiled. "But there's only one of you."