“My sincerest apologies,” Dupuis said, so close behind her that she flinched and started to turn.
His arm came toward her face and struck the side of her head. Ingrid went down into a swirling black fog.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Gabby and Vander had made it to the basement level, but not without a pack of disciples on their heels. The three men now trailed them through a maze of narrow corridors. For a bunch of students, they were suspiciously well armed.
“Here,” Vander hissed, and Gabby darted to the right, down another corridor.
The bulbs snapped and flickered as Vander and Gabby approached a new ruckus: the draining room. It had to be.
Vander slammed into the door, twisting the handle and throwing all his weight against the solid wood. It rattled but withstood his assault. He backed up and went at the door with the heel of his boot instead, kicking and stomping with crazed ferocity.
A disciple came around the corner and Gabby raised her sword in time to feel his blade bite into hers. His thrust was far more powerful than hers, and it shoved her blade down to the floor. Vander turned, buried his foot in the disciple’s gut, and cracked the crossbow against his temple.
“Thank you,” Gabby breathed.
“My pleasure,” he replied as he kicked the door again. Gabby heard wood splinter and the door flew open.
There were three people on the floor of the draining room. Though Gabby recognized them all—Dimitrie, Carrick Quinn, and a completely unclothed Marco—her eyes went straight for Ingrid, who was unconscious and strapped to a gurney that Dupuis was rolling out of the room through an open door along the far wall.
“Dupuis, stop!” Vander brought his crossbow up and aimed. But Dupuis ducked low behind Ingrid for cover, and then they were gone. The next second, another disciple charged into the draining room, his katana slashing through the air toward Vander.
Gabby intersected it with her blade, but the force of this man’s swing was also superior to her own. Her blade hit the stone floor and he shoved her back. Gabby tripped over Marco’s splayed form. She landed on her rump, her legs and skirts covering his backside.
“Oh, for the Lord’s sake! Can’t your clothing shift with you?” She struggled off him as Vander and the disciple crashed into a table and upset a host of medical tools.
“Last I was aware, it wasn’t my clothing that was cursed,” Marco growled. “Now, if you please, Lady Gabriella, I’ve got a mercurite dart in my spine. Take it out and let me kill some Daicrypta scum.”
Gabby turned toward the door Dupuis and her sister had disappeared through. It was shut, but that didn’t matter. Marco could get to Ingrid faster than any of them.
Gabby gripped the silver fletching feathers. She closed her eyes, and with a grimace, ripped the dart out of Marco’s back. His roar of pain drowned out the telltale sound of steel and silver clashing in the corridor. It had to be Nolan and Léon out there.
Carrick moaned from his spot on the floor by yet another overturned table. Dimitrie had been near Nolan’s father a moment ago, but he was gone now. Gabby made a beeline for the closed door across the room, stooping quickly to pick up an abandoned dagger. She recognized the dull pewter sheen of the blade: mercurite-dipped. She slipped it into her cape, making one of her dagger sheaths do double duty. If she found Dimitrie, she wouldn’t hesitate to use it.
Marco grasped the collar of the disciple Vander had been battling and threw him against the stone wall. The disciple crumpled to the floor.
Vander cleared his throat. “Yes, well … thank you.”
Marco reached the door Dupuis had escaped through just as Gabby did. It wasn’t a plank of wood like the rest of the doors she’d seen in this godforsaken mansion. It was made of thick, smooth stone and had no handle. She pushed it. Nothing happened. In her side vision, she saw Nolan and Léon barrel into the draining room.
Nolan went straight to his father’s miserable form. “What’s happened?”
Léon stayed at the entrance, facing the corridor. Silk streamed from his fingertips, and Gabby heard the muffled cries of more disciples.
She found a small gap between the door and the wall with her fingertips. She strained to pull the door out. Nothing. Marco knocked her hands aside and dug his own fingers into the gap. He hauled on the slab of stone, and slowly, it sank into the wall like a pocket door.
“You can’t stay here,” Nolan said to his father. “I have to get you to Benoit—”
“Listen to me,” Carrick interrupted. “The Directorate. Don’t trust them. Tell Rory.”