Brum had halted then. His face had shown anger at being stopped, then confusion, and then wondering disbelief. “Matthias?” he’d whispered.
“Please, sir,” Matthias had said hurriedly. “Just give me a moment to explain. There is a Grisha here tonight intent on assassinating one of your prisoners. If you’ll bear with me, I can explain the plot and how it can be stopped.”
Brum had signalled to another drüskelle to watch Nina, and shepherded Matthias into an alcove beneath the stairs. “Speak,” he’d said, and Matthias had told him the truth – a bare sliver of it: his escape from the shipwreck, his near drowning, Nina’s false charge of slavery, his captivity in Hellgate, and then the promise of the pardon. He’d blamed it all on Nina, and said nothing of Kaz or the others. When Brum had asked if Nina was alone in her mission, he’d simply said he didn’t know.
“She believes I’m waiting to escort her over the secret bridge. I broke away as soon as I could and came to find you.”
A part of him was disgusted by how easily the lies came to his lips, but he would not leave Nina at Brum’s mercy.
He looked at Brum now, mouth slightly open in sleep. One of the things he’d respected most in his mentor was his mercilessness, his willingness to do hard things for the sake of the cause. But Brum had taken pleasure in what he’d done to these Grisha, what he would have gladly done to Nina and Jesper. Maybe the hard things had never been difficult for Brum the way they’d been for Matthias.
They had not been a sacred duty, performed reluctantly for the sake of Fjerda. They had been a joy.
Matthias slipped the master key from around Brum’s neck and dragged him into an empty cell, propping him up against the wall in a seated position. Matthias hated to leave him there, chin flopped on his chest, legs sprawled in front of him, without dignity. He hated the thought of the shame that would come to him, a warrior betrayed by someone to whom he’d given his trust and affection. He knew that pain well.
Matthias pressed his forehead once, briefly, against Brum’s. He knew his mentor could not hear him, but he spoke the words anyway. “The life you live, the hate you feel – it’s poison. I can drink it no longer.”
Matthias locked the cell door and hurried down the passage towards Nina, towards something more.
ELEVEN BELLS
Jesper waited by the slit in the wall, a sniper’s bolt, the perfect place for a boy like him. What did we just do? he wondered. But his blood was alive, his rifle was at his shoulder, the world made sense again.
So where were the guards? Jesper had expected them to rush into the courtyard as soon as he and Wylan triggered Black Protocol.
“I’ve got it!” Wylan called from behind him.
Jesper hated to give up the high ground before they knew what they were up against, but they were short on time, and they needed to get to the roof. “All right, let’s go.”
They raced down the stairs. As they were about to burst from the gatehouse archway, six guards came running into the courtyard. Jesper stopped short and held out his arm.
“Turn back,” he said to Wylan.
But Wylan was pointing across the courtyard. “Look.”
The guards weren’t moving towards the gatehouse; all their attention was focused on a man in olive drab clothing standing by one of the stone slabs. That uniform …
A woman walked through the wall, a figure of shimmering mist that solidified beside the stranger.
She wore the same olive drab.
“Tidemakers,” Wylan said.
“The Shu.”
The guards opened fire, and the Tidemakers vanished, then reappeared behind the soldiers and lifted their arms.
The guards screamed and dropped their weapons. A red haze formed around them. The haze grew
denser as the guards shrieked, their flesh seeming to shrink against their bones.
“It’s their blood,” Jesper said, bile rising in his throat. “All Saints, the Tidemakers are draining their blood.” They were being squeezed dry.
The blood formed floating pools in the vague shapes of men, slick shadows that hovered in the air, the wet red of garnets, then splashed to the ground at the same time as the guards collapsed, flaccid skin hanging from their desiccated bodies in grotesque folds.
“Back up the stairs,” whispered Jesper. “We need to get out of here.”
But it was too late. The female Tidemaker disappeared. In the next breath, she was on the stairs. She balanced her weight on the banisters with her hands and planted her boots against Wylan’s chest, kicking him backwards into Jesper. They tumbled onto the black stone of the courtyard.
The rifle was jerked from Jesper ’s arms and tossed aside with a clatter. He tried to stand, and the Tidemaker cuffed him on the back of his head. Then he was lying next to Wylan as the Tidemakers towered above them. They lifted their hands, and Jesper saw the faintest red haze appear over him. He was going to be drained. He felt his strength start to ebb. He looked to the left but the rifle was too far away.