Vander was probably aiming for chivalry, but his words smacked of patronization instead.
“Protecting me is Luc’s problem, isn’t it? Let him worry about it,” Ingrid said, throwing Vander’s earlier words right back at him. She didn’t care if they stung. This was exactly why she’d wanted to take lessons with Constantine. She didn’t want her safekeeping to fall to anyone. Her safety should be her burden alone.
If only she could direct her power the way she needed to.
Nolan passed Ingrid, taking the lead in front of Constantine. Vander brought up the rear, and he was quiet there, no doubt stewing over her retort. Their first argument. Ingrid kept her eyes on the steel railing that she speculated kept the sewer workers from taking a misstep and falling into the rushing, debris-laden water.
After a few minutes of silent procession, the railings began to look, well … odd. Whitish strings wrapped them, forming wide nets between each section of post. The nets jiggled here and there, and when Ingrid stopped to bend closer to one, she saw why. They weren’t nets. They were spiderwebs. Spiderwebs the size of pillow shams, and they had trapped all manner of things. In the web closest to Ingrid, a cockroach struggled pointlessly. Its hairy legs had become tangled in the sticky gossamer, along with a number of flies and centipedes, and in one far corner—Ingrid peered closer, before gasping and standing back up. It was a rat’s tail, chewed off from the rest of its body.
“Constantine,” Nolan called from farther ahead. The tip of his sword sliced through a web that stretched the width of the walkway. The broken strands fell away, but not with a ghostly flutter. The threads dropped to the cement with a wet slap.
“Either the evolution of spiders has worked at miraculous speeds here in the sewers, or this was spun by the Duster we’re looking for.”
Nolan was right. It had to be Léon. Ingrid stepped away from the webbed railing. Her heel nudged something. It looked like a dirty, oversized mothball in the dim underground light. She quickly corrected herself: it was a cocoon. She didn’t want to know what was inside.
“He’s close,” Vander said, his crossbow raised.
The next voice that rang out didn’t belong to any of them.
“How do you know this?”
Léon was above them, perched on one of the thick pipes, his chest and legs folded tightly together so that he could fit in the small space. His shoulders hunched forward until they were on his knees, and his short blond hair hung in limp, ragged clumps around his face.
“How do you know this?” he repeated, his English heavily accented.
“Because I can see your dust,” Vander answered, nonplussed. Ingrid admired him for that; her heart raced like one of Pamplona’s stampeding bulls.
“I have it too,” Vander went on, his crossbow still aimed true.
“Léon,” Constantine said, walking back toward the pipes that he had just passed beneath. “We only wish to help you. Won’t you come down?”
Léon’s sweaty face pruned up into a grimace. “You. You said I would get better. You said I would be able to control it.” He rocked forward, letting his hands come out and brace against a parallel pipe. He hung over Constantine, seething. “Well, I could not! And now they are dead! You can’t help me.”
He sounded as angry as Grayson had the night before. Ingrid knew not to pull Vander’s crossbow from its target, but she placed a hand on his arm to stay him.
“It takes patience, Léon,” she said. The boy’s eyelids, which had been sealed in agony, sprang open. “I hurt my friend. I didn’t kill her, but I could have. I could have killed a number of people. We all make mistakes—”
“I murdered my family,” Léon spit. “Mon père, ma m-mère.” His chin quivered as he spoke. “And Charles. Mon petit frère …”
They let him sob. His shoulders shuddered and his nose ran and Ingrid had to look away. Was this how Grayson felt? Did he hate himself the way Léon did? Something about Léon’s sobbing must have put Vander at ease. He lowered his crossbow and hitched it back inside his overcoat.
“My name is Ingrid Waverly,” she said once Léon had composed himself a bit. “I have the blood of a lectrux demon. My brother, Grayson, has hellhound blood. We know how frightened you are. How confused. Please, let us help you.”
Léon watched her from his perch, his pale lashes blinking rapidly, as if he was considering her offer. She held her breath.
“Non,” he finally said, shaking his head for emphasis. “You want to help me live with this curse, but there is another who will free me of it. I am going to him.”
Constantine’s feet scraped the cement as he lurched forward. “You cannot.”
“What man are you talking about?” Nolan asked, his broadsword still poised.
“Dupuis,” Léon answered.
Ingrid knew the name. Dupuis was the man Luc had told her about the evening before. The one who had called on Constantine and asked about her.