A small, guilty part of me twisted. If I hadn’t used magic on that crate . . .
No, magic that simple wouldn’t bring a gust of wraith. The stink and creatures that blew into the valley, like the heavy winds before a storm, were normal these days.
I whistled for the Ospreys and waited for the reply.
Nothing.
I whistled again. There should have been four lookouts: two at the street-level warehouse doors and two at the nearby intersections. Someone should have answered.
Still nothing.
I rested my hands on my daggers as wariness prickled over my skin.
What if the police had caught them? Or worse, Black Knife? He liked capturing all kinds of criminals, not only flashers: magic users. We’d run across him during three of our last five jobs, and once he’d come close to capturing Melanie.
The acrid stink grew stronger.
“Help!” A shout came from down the street.
I drew my daggers, sprinting toward the shout and terrified screams, and then the thud of a body slamming into a wooden fence.
Ezra, one of our youngest boys, dropped to the ground. His sister, Quinn, shrieked and ran for him. Connor and Theresa stood in the street, blades drawn as they backed away from looming shadows.
I skidded to a halt. Five huge men bore down on the Ospreys.
Connor’s round-eyed gaze darted from the attackers to me. “Wil! Mel!”
“Oh, saints.”
The strangers turned toward me. They were grotesque, with bulging shoulders and arms, the muscles bursting through the fabric of their clothing. Two were enormously tall, practically giants, while the others were as wide as doorways. All of them were revolting with red-veined eyes, cheekbones like shelves, and fat lips. They stank of wraith and shine.
They were glowmen: men turned into monsters.
I rushed at them. They swung at me with heavy fists, but I kicked and slashed with my daggers, my limbs but blurs of movement. I went for their knees and groins; their throats were out of my reach.
Melanie and Theresa fought with fiery quickness, making their way toward Quinn, who guarded Connor and Ezra near a crumbling wall.
A length of chain whipped through the air and caught my shoulder. Pain cracked through me. I tried to pull away, but the glowmen had me surrounded. Three on one didn’t seem very fair. Thankfully, they were stupid.
The first glowman, wrapping the chain around his fist again, didn’t notice as I stomped on the bottom links, jerking his whole body forward and into the giant closing in on the other side of me. I ducked beneath them, away from the third.
While they untangled themselves, I crouched and slashed my blade across one’s heel, slicing through the leather of his boot to the heavy tendon.
The glowman dropped immediately, dragging one of the others with him.
I jumped toward my friends, but the third glowman shoved me hard against a building, knocking both my daggers from my hands. As he lumbered closer, I groped along the brick wall, and a windowsill came loose. I swung with all my strength. The rotting wood clapped wetly against his head, but did no damage. He jeered and lunged for my throat.
I reached for my daggers, and his hands mashed against the brick.
The glowman reared back. I brought my heel down on the arch of his foot, making bone crack. When I drove my dagger into his thigh, blood poured, hot over my hand. I stepped away.
Melanie, Quinn, and Theresa were dispatching the two glowmen who’d been bearing down on an unconscious Ezra. The glowman with the cut tendon was limping toward them, but they could take care of him.
The fifth glowman . . .
Down the street, he held a dagger to Connor’s throat. Blood caught moonlight as it trickled down Connor’s brown skin.
“No!” I lunged for him, but the glowman I’d just stabbed caught my ankle and I fell, both daggers skittering out of my reach. Magic stirred on my tongue. I could make the ground bring the daggers to me.
No. Not yet. Magic was a last resort.
I struggled, twisting and yanking my foot, but the glowman’s grip tightened.
I slammed my heel against his face. His nose cracked and blood spewed, and he released me.
Daggers in hand again, I scrambled to my feet and ran to help Connor.
But Connor was free. A sword-bearing figure sliced and stabbed at the fifth glowman. Long and slender, he moved like a dancer when he twisted and ducked and disarmed his opponent.
Connor peeled away from the fight and hurtled toward me. “Wil! I’m sorry! I was coming to help you, but he—”
“It’s all right.” I dropped to one knee and touched his neck. “How bad is it?” It was all I could do to keep from hugging him, checking the rest of his body for wounds. He was old enough that it would only infuriate him. Still, I didn’t stop myself from pulling him closer.
He tilted up his head and cringed, but the cut on his neck wasn’t deep. “It hurts.”
“Put pressure on it. The bleeding will stop.” Instead of coddling him more, I turned and rushed the glowman who’d hurt him.
The newcomer had the glowman worn down. The beast was panting, bleeding from cuts all over his arms and chest. His shirt hung in shreds. With a mind to add a few more gashes to his collection, I ripped him away from the stranger and slammed him against a building.
A fantasy tickled the back of my thoughts: the brickwork coming alive, swallowing the glowman whole. A fantasy it remained; I couldn’t call attention to my power.
“Why did you attack my people?” My voice was little more than a growl, a knot of rage and fear. If they knew who we were . . .
His gaze flitted beyond me, toward Connor and the others. “The boys looked easy.”
Not because they knew us. Good.
Again, I slammed his head into the bricks. His eyes grew unfocused. “Touch us again,” I said, “and you die.” Maybe he could die right now, for what he did to Connor. I had daggers. I could do it quickly. It wasn’t like he was human. Not anymore.
A presence warmed my back, and the glowman tried to wrest himself away. “No!”
“Excuse me.” The voice was deep and unfamiliar. “I’ll take him, if you’re finished.”
I spun away from the glowman as he crumpled to the ground, and readied my daggers, but the hooded man didn’t look up. Quickly, expertly, he bound the glowman’s hands and feet together with a silk cord.
The sounds of fighting died away as the other Ospreys dropped their opponents. Five bodies littered the ground, still breathing for now. My eyes followed the stranger as he turned toward me.
His face was covered by a thin sheet of black silk; only his eyes remained unhidden, though shadowed now.
Black Knife.
“Thank you for your assistance.” He stepped closer and offered his hand, but then paused and let it fall back to his side. “You?”
Wonderful. He recognized me from the last few times our paths had crossed. Though he’d never saved one of my friends before.
I threw a glance over my shoulder. Melanie had gathered the other Ospreys and they were already slipping quietly away. I took four long strides backward.
“What’s your name?” Black Knife stalked toward me, removing another silk cord from a pouch on his belt. “I’ve been looking for you. Where have you been hiding?”
I touched my chest and feigned flattery. “You’ve been looking for me?”
“Who were those children? More recruits for your gang?”
Same group. Younger orphans. Not that I’d tell him what we were, or from where we’d been taken.
“Surely we’re a waste of your time. There are worse things in Skyvale than a few teenagers trying to feed themselves.”
His gaze cut to the glowmen bleeding in the alley. A few of them were beginning to stir. “What are you stealing this time?”
“Do I look like a thief to you?” I reached for a look of innocence.
“You look dangerous.”
I smiled. “Thank you.” Before I could consider the wisdom, I pulled a dagger and threw it.
Black Knife swore and darted aside. The dagger struck behind him, pinning a glowman’s hand to the ground. The broken pipe he’d been reaching for rolled away.
When Black Knife kicked the pipe aside and knelt to tie the glowman, I ducked around a corner and ran as fast as I could, crossing into the White Flag district and taking to the rooftops. The other Ospreys would be waiting at the inn.
Away from the quiet of the warehouse district, midnight life rumbled on the streets below: drunks staggering home, dogs barking, and babies crying. The moon cast wan light over the district, not yet reflected in the mirrors that hung on the taller buildings. If Black Knife had followed me, I couldn’t see him.
I paused on the roof of an apothecary and whispered to the sky, “Thank you.” My Ospreys were safe. That was all that mattered.
They were my only family, my only hope for home. When the Indigo Army invaded Aecor almost ten years ago, every adult living in the palace was slaughtered, and the highborn children were brought to Skyvale, the capital of the Indigo Kingdom. We escaped the orphanage a year later and named ourselves after the national animal of our conquered homeland.
The Ospreys, these children, were my life. Without them, I had nothing.
But with them . . .
With them, I would take back my kingdom.