“You’ll come quietly,” the woman behind me says.
“Like hulls.” I twist and jerk my wrists and begin to pull away, but their hands flail out and become iron beneath their black gloves. I try to peer at their faces, but the thin material stretches over their features enough to hide everything but their sharp eyes. The four of them drag me down two corridors into a thin hallway away from the wraiths. When they stop and release my arms, it’s not just Lady Isobel standing in front of us.
It’s Eogan. Or, more accurately, Draewulf.
I pull away and smooth my shirtsleeves.
“Leave us.” Draewulf bats a hand in the air and waits for Isobel’s soldiers to exit the hall before stepping closer.
Bending down, I yank out a knife, but before I can lift it to his stomach, he wrenches both arms behind me and draws his body against mine in a move that, like most of his others, is faster than should be possible. He laughs an ugly sound. “So the Elemental girl can fight off an army but can’t handle a few Mortisfaire maids.”
Lady Isobel steps forward with that smile that’s like a plague on her lips and brushes a graceful hand down my hair. “Or perhaps it’s that she has no fight left in her. I wonder—has watching her beloved trainer live out his final days left her . . . impotent?” Her hand moves from me to her father and presses down on his shoulder. He makes a bizarre choking sound.
I twist my head around to see his countenance alter as the black of his irises grows wider and his teeth longer. I writhe beneath his grip to stop her, to help him, but Draewulf presses harder on my wrists as any last bits that make up Eogan seem to fade before my eyes.
“Of all the—” I shove my knee up toward Isobel.
She dodges and retreats with a giggle, then releases her father in the process, allowing him to return to Eogan’s form. “Oh come now,” she says in a pouty voice. “Watching your pretty face flinch is just so lovely.”
“Let’s see if yours stays lovely when I make it flinch.”
She lets out a tinkle of laughter and glances up at her father. “I think our impotent Elemental forgets who she’s speaking to.”
“I’m speaking to the woman whose father now inhabits her onetime lover’s body.”
The same expression I noted back at the banquet when she stood looking down on Eogan in irritation and disgust flashes behind her eyes.
I smirk. “Must be awkward, no?”
Her hand goes up, but Draewulf releases my arms and slides around to block her from slamming it against my chest. “Isobel, quit fooling and tell me. Does she have what we need?”
She narrows her gaze. “Father, I—”
“Now.”
Her look is murderous as she slides close to me. “Don’t worry. That heart of his you only wished belonged to you is about to cease existing altogether.” She pauses to lean into my ear. “Say good-bye knowing he won’t suffer. Much.”
I wrench a hand free and slap her across the jaw so hard, I think I hear her bone crack.
Her fingers are on my throat, but Draewulf’s quicker. He pulls her wrist away and crunches it loud enough with his own that she actually whimpers and I wince. His smile turns disgusted. “I said assess her, not kill her.”
Isobel’s glare could pierce ice through my skull. She clenches her jaw but stays put, then slips her hand onto my arm covered with memorial scars. She squeezes down as he murmurs against my neck, “Just think, Eogan’s gone all because of me. Because you weren’t strong enough. And now,” he whispers, “no one but you and I and your two Uathúil friends will ever know.”
I bring my foot toward Draewulf’s family heirlooms. It only lightly connects because he dodges, then jerks my elbow toward my shoulder, but we both cry out.
“There it is,” he pants.
“I will kill you—”
“Careful with threats you can’t follow through on.”
Lady Isobel’s hand begins shaking over my arm. It’s warming. I cringe and twist my wrist beneath Draewulf’s fingers enough to hover it over his chest. Forcing down, I yank as much energy as I can from his venomous, twisted soul.
Draewulf utters a pained curse word.
But it’s not enough. I can’t focus it adequately as Isobel’s hand latches onto something in me, and it’s as if I can feel the veins stiffening in my arm and solidifying all the way up my shoulder and down to my heart, freezing it into place. Into stone. My palm immediately drops from Draewulf, my whole being going sluggish, as if I’ve been weighted beneath metal.
“Enough,” Draewulf murmurs as he sags back. He pushes Lady Isobel’s hand off me. “Is she ready?”
Her only reply is to nod.
“For what?” I hiss.
She smiles. “The question is, Father, are you?”
Perhaps it’s my imagination, but I swear I see the slightest wince in his eyes. “Only a day, maybe less.”
“Then the airships depart before dawn.”
CHAPTER 31