Halstead reported back.
Nobody had been seen entering the grounds with any large shipments. No one had been admitted to the tower in twelve hours who hadn't been expected.
That didn't mean Balfour's agent hadn't been able to get in.
But he was running out of time.
Think, damn it. Malloryn turned, his gaze locking on Crowe Tower, where an open clock face loomed. It had been rebuilt in the wake of the revolution but was little used. A couple of minutes until midnight. Adele had to be here somewhere. The second hand ticked toward—
There was a faint light in the window up there, behind the open clock face, almost like someone had lit a candle.
Of course.
He was running before he thought about it. The enormous brass minute hand ticked closer to the hour. Two minutes. At most. That was all he had.
Bursting through the door, he found himself at the base of the tower.
Malloryn flew up the stairs. He shoved open the door into the first level, and a string tied to the door jerked, a flash of light igniting in the corner. As he watched, fire raced along the trail of gunpowder. Hell. Malloryn started sprinting, following the trail.
Up more stairs. Thighs straining and lungs burning. The gunpowder led to a cask, and the second it hit the cask, everything went white.
BOOM—
The concussion smashed him off his feet, slamming him back into the wall behind him. Pain exploded through his head, his ears ringing. Somehow he crawled onto his hands and knees. The hallway loomed ahead. Another trail of gunpowder ignited, leading higher, higher....
A small charge set at each station, as if Balfour wanted him to get close enough to taste success.
"I don't want to kill you, Malloryn," echoed that hated voice from their confrontation in Russia. "I want to destroy every single thing you ever loved. One by one. Until you are crippled and alone, with their deaths on your conscience—"
"Adele!" He staggered up the stairs, trying to fight off the wave of double vision that afflicted him.
The trail of gunpowder hit the closed door ahead of him, vanishing beneath it. A series of pops and crackles suddenly exploded behind the door. No. Malloryn threw his shoulder against the timber, rebounding sharply. Again. This time the lock shuddered. A scream echoed within as smoke began to creep out from beneath the door.
The fury ignited in him. The craving. Suddenly the world was nothing but shadows, and he could feel his sight and hearing sharpening, his mouth suddenly aching for the taste of blood. Adele. She belonged to him, and damned if he knew what was going on between them, but he wasn't about to lose her.
Malloryn bellowed in rage and threw himself at the door.
It burst open, sending him rolling through flames and smoke. The entire room was on fire. Her wedding gown hung in the corner, flames chewing their way through the fabric.
"Adele!" he yelled, fighting through the smoke. "Adele?"
Flames licked at the walls, revealing a half dozen barrels stacked around the room. His heart stopped in his chest—
—and then someone coughed.
A figure was bound to a chair in front of the open clock face, slumped behind the thick hood.
No time to think. The flames had almost reached the first of the barrels and the second they went up there'd be nothing on this earth that could stop the tower from burning to the ground.
Malloryn drove into Adele, his arm locking around her waist as they plunged toward the open clock face. The pulley mechanism that opened and closed it flashed past his eyes, and at the last second he grabbed hold of it, the two of them swinging out into the open—
Not a second too soon.
The entire top of the tower exploded.
Heat seared his back, burning straight through his coat. Then he was falling as the pulley's rope suddenly cut off, Adele screaming in his arms, her hands bound behind her back. The ground flashed up toward them, and Malloryn stuck his feet out—
He hit, the impact jarring through his left ankle and flipping him forward. Somehow he bore the brunt of it with his shoulder, pain screaming through him as the joint popped from its socket. Adele slammed against him, and then they were rolling head over heels until they finally came to a stop.
He could barely move. Barely lift his head off the cobblestones. His ankle and shoulder were on fire. But Adele gasped in a sob, and somehow he managed to scramble across to where she lay, his useless arm hanging in its sleeve.
Once again his vision turned to shadows as the heat of the craving swept through him. Safe. She was safe. He'd never wanted to kiss her so much in his life.
"You saved me," she sobbed.
"I've got you," he gasped as he tore the ropes from her wrists.
Malloryn yanked the hood off her face with one hand—
—and stared directly into the terrified eyes of Mrs. Danner as she threw her arms around him.
Chapter 28
His heart jacked through his chest, kicking behind his ribs as Malloryn caught Giulia's arm. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Giulia.... What was she doing here? What was—? Where was Adele?
"You came for me," Giulia gasped, bursting into tears.
And that was when he knew how Balfour had played him.
Suddenly he could move again, pushing her away from him. No. No, not this. Anything but this.
Somehow Malloryn staggered to his feet, aware that dozens of Coldrush Guards were streaming from the Ivory Tower, watching as Crowe Tower burned. He felt weightless. Distant from his body. Unerringly, his head turned toward the east, toward the opera house where he'd first met Giulia.
The opera house, where he'd sent Byrnes and Ingrid to rescue the soprano at his feet.
And as he watched, an enormous mushroom cloud of fire suddenly bloomed into the sky.