A grumbling broke out among the Alliance.
“Oh dear,” Mama could be heard saying above the din. “That doesn’t sound very good at all.”
She accepted Constantine’s proffered hand and eased herself onto one of the sofas.
“It is not,” Hugh confirmed. “A severix can split itself from its actual form so quickly that it leaves an ethereal ‘fade’ behind.”
A rise of panic blocked Gabby’s throat. “Axia told you she couldn’t be captured?”
Ingrid held out her hands. “That’s what she said, but I did stab her. I caught her by surprise.”
Gabby swallowed, this revelation about Axia sticking hard.
“Their fades aren’t powerful in the least, but when a severix casts multiple fades in a short handful of seconds, it can be nearly impossible to keep up with. Severix demons use their fades to confuse their prey,” Constantine added.
This was not what Gabby wanted to hear. Even if Axia was lured out into the open, she very well might be too fast to be caught by a net of any sort.
“Good. So we can abandon this ridiculous plan,” Hans said, turning his back on Rory and rejoining Hathaway.
“No.” Vander hadn’t said a word since leaving the rectory. The muscles in his jaw flexed now as he walked toward the corvite in its cage. “It’s flawed, but it’s the only plan we have.”
“Burke, you’re hardly in a position to make decisions,” Hans said. “Your refusal to bring in Dusters as the Directorate has ordered is about to land you in the basement at H?tel Bastian.”
“Don’t be an imbecile,” Vander spit. “There are exponential numbers of Dusters being created with every attack. Bringing them all in is an impossible task.”
“Then we’ll have no choice but to treat them as demons!” Hans shouted.
Gabby threw up her hands. “Enough! Hugh, please give the corvite its message for Axia.”
Hugh unlocked the cage door and swung it open. “There is no need. It has been listening to this entire conversation, Miss Waverly.”
The corvite’s twiggy black claws closed around Hugh’s forearm and he drew it from the cage. Rory crossed the library to the double glass-paned doors leading onto the grounds and opened them.
Hugh ran his index finger along the bird’s beak and whispered something against its domed skull before thrusting his arm up. The corvite flapped its wings and beat its way into the sky.
Constantine punctured the silence. “And now?”
Hugh shut the doors and returned to the fireplace, his shirtsleeve torn and spotted with blood from the demon’s claws. He hadn’t been wearing the leather falconry gauntlet this time.
“I’ve instructed the corvite to return once the message has been delivered. Until then … we simply wait.” He clapped his hands together. “Who fancies a game of whist?”
Not surprisingly, there were no takers.
Hans belted out orders to his fighters while Hathaway did the same to his men.
“There is still the rest of the city to protect,” Hans explained as a third of the Alliance fighters began filing out of the library. “The fewer able bodies left here to be inactive, the better.”
It was clear that he didn’t believe Axia would come. This was nothing but a waste of time to him. Perhaps it was, Gabby thought, allowing her own conviction to flag.
She felt a hand touch her shoulder. Nolan again whispered in her ear, but not with a sarcastic remark.
“Come with me.”
How does a moth resist a flame? Gabby stole a glance at Mama and Constantine on the sofa, whispering in conversation as other chatter built within the library. Gabby followed Nolan as he weaved his way toward the door and out of the room.
He didn’t take them very far—just across the hallway and into Constantine’s formal dining room. The long table had a crisp yellow linen runner topped with an enormous vase of hothouse flowers that looked freshly cut. Gabby wouldn’t put it past the old man to have a hothouse on his property somewhere. The world was going to pieces and yet the French aristocracy still required fresh jonquils, lilies, and white roses.
She was shaking her head at the bouquet when she heard the door shut.
“Don’t pretend that you wouldn’t have done something equally stupid had I been the one tied up in your room,” she said, unable to turn and meet his eyes. She touched one silky petal of an over-bloomed rose.
“Had you been tied up in my room …,” Nolan began, and Gabby instantly regretted her choice of words. He surprised her, however. “I would have used my sword against anyone who stood between us.”
She peered over her shoulder. Nolan hadn’t shaved in days, and the new black scruff covering his chin, cheeks, and upper lip had a funny effect on Gabby’s stomach. She wanted to rub her hand along his cheek and then work her fingers through the waves of his hair.
“You see? Stupid,” she said.