This was more frustrating than before, when she’d had no control over the electric impulses. It wasn’t until her nightmarish imprisonment in the Daicrypta draining room with Hugh’s father that she had realized she could draw electricity from other sources around her—lightbulbs, rushing water, stormy skies … anything that generated electricity.
The incessant shivers skittering along Ingrid’s back suddenly turned to steel. She stood taller, shoulders squared, afraid even to breathe for fear of losing hold of the realization that had just struck her. She spun around and looked toward the opposite end of the Champs de Mars, past the magnificent fa?ade and fountains of the Chateau d’Eau, to the sloped glass ceilings of the building behind it. The Palace of Electricity.
The Exposition Universelle wasn’t set to open for another week, but Ingrid knew the Palace of Electricity was in working order—she and Vander had heard the low hum of the machines inside less than a week before. Ingrid had felt the current of tremors rolling through the air. The air was still now, though, the building likely abandoned. But underneath that darkened glass roof were the generators that would power the entire fair. The Eiffel Tower would no longer be lit from the top with gaslights but with thousands of bulbs strung along its sides. She knew what it felt like to draw energy from a single powered bulb. But thousands of them? A whole building of generated power?
Her distraction had not gone unnoticed.
Hugh touched her arm lightly. “Lady Ingrid?”
“That building,” she said, still dazed by her realization. “The Palace of Electricity.”
Nolan stood close enough for Ingrid to feel his side knocking gently against hers. “What about it?”
She felt a cramp of desire, of pure need, close around her stomach. She’d never thought she’d long for her ability like this.
“I need it turned on.”
Hugh cleared his throat and started to speak, when a high, keening wail spiraled up from somewhere within the Champs de Mars. Other sounds joined the single moan—grunting and hissing, rasps of pain. The huddled Dusters, penned in by demons, sank to the ground, clutching their heads, fists pounding against their ears.
“This is not a promising sign,” Nolan said, his broadsword sweeping up into a defensive position.
The moans of the Dusters stopped in unison and the esplanade was silent once again. Only now, the hellhounds that had been slowly circling the Dusters stepped out of their rotations, allowing the humans freedom. They weren’t free, though. Ingrid knew better. Axia had reached into their minds and taken up the puppet master’s strings.
What she hadn’t taken was the bait.
A rattilus came at them, whipping its serrated scorpion tail, the hooked quills looking as though they could saw through flesh and bone. The tail scythed once past Nolan’s kneecaps, and on the second attempt, Nolan’s sword connected. The blade sheared through, and before the lopped-off tail could even hit the ground, his sword speared the thick, crusty exoskeleton of the creature. The explosion of green death sparks hung in the air a pregnant moment. As the last one disappeared and no other demon or enthralled Duster attacked, Ingrid began to wonder if Axia had changed her mind.
She hadn’t.
Ingrid screamed as Rory pitched a dagger in her direction. The blade whistled past her shoulder and thudded into one of the wolf demons midleap, its paws less than a foot away from Ingrid’s head.
“We could use our wings now!” Nolan screamed, though he hadn’t needed to. The sky above the Champs de Mars darkened as scores of gargoyles swooped, dropping into the esplanade.
Their contingency plan wouldn’t last, however; not if Axia forced the Dispossessed into submission the way she’d done with Marco that morning. It would only give them enough time to backtrack out of the esplanade.
And then they’d be at the beginning all over again. No ground gained. All hope dashed.
Rory and Nolan had widened their circle, their swords flashing in every direction as they attempted to beat back the demons coming for them. Hugh had his sword in hand, and though it was only the size of Gabby’s short sword, it looked enormous and unwieldy in his grasp.
“Lady Ingrid, you should at least have a dagger,” Hugh said, his eyes on the ever-shifting battle around them.
“I wouldn’t know how to use it,” she replied, searching the esplanade for the one-winged gargoyle she wanted to see more than anything else. It was too chaotic, though. and the fading light was tingeing every thrashing body—human, demon, and gargoyle—the color of mud. Any moment now she expected to see Marco’s wings slicing toward her. He would seal her to his chest and twirl her up to safety, pulling her from her one plan to destroy Axia.
“Ingrid!”
The shout had come from a distance, but it had still hammered into her, clear and strong. Breath lodged in her chest, Ingrid searched the esplanade, where the path widened out to bracket the base of the Eiffel Tower.
She spotted him, his arm waving manically over his head to capture her attention. And this time, it wasn’t a delusion demon.