CHAPTER 13
GRATH FROWNED AT THE pistol. “Is this your plan, pet?”
“You’re not an Excisioner,” she said flatly, though she moved her other hand to the pistol to hold it steady. She hadn’t used the gun since her confrontation with Lira, and the rickety barn hardly made for ideal concentration. “You can’t heal from it like Lira did.”
“Are you so sure?” he asked.
Ceony leveled the gun at his heart.
Grath stepped forward. Ceony cocked the hammer.
He chuckled. “You ever killed someone before, little girl?” he asked.
“I did that, didn’t I?” Ceony said, jerking her head toward the mirror that still showcased Lira. But that isn’t death, just magic, she thought. If I shoot him, I’ll kill him. I’ll be a killer just like he is.
But no, this was different. This was Grath or Ceony, and Ceony thought a bullet to the chest was undoubtedly far more merciful than whatever Grath had planned for her.
Still, she lowered the muzzle down, to his hip. Better to incapacitate him here and let Criminal Affairs deal with him.
She hated how the gun trembled in her grip.
Grath did not seem amused. “I’ll track down your blond friend like I promised. Delilah Berget, isn’t it?”
Ceony tried very hard not to glance at the oval mirror by the doors.
Reaching behind him, Grath pulled two short daggers from his belt, their blades made of thick, frosted glass. They looked like carved ice. He brought one to his lips and kissed it.
“I’ll cut off her toes first,” he said, taking a small step forward, sliding his boot across the dirt floor. “Then her fingers, her ears. I’ll pull her teeth one by one, then her tongue. And when she can’t scream anymore, I’ll—”
“Stop it!” Ceony shouted. “It doesn’t matter! I’ll stop you, and Delilah will be fine!”
“Oh, she might be, but what about the others?” Grath asked. “You don’t know much about Saraj, do you? He’s a mad dog, the kind that kills for fun, not for food. He’ll go after your friend, and Patrice Aviosky, and Emery Thane. He even blew up the Dartford Paper Mill just to flush you out.
“But he won’t stop there,” he continued. “With him, it’s always a game. I already know who’s on his list. Ernest John Twill, Rhonda Montgomery Twill . . .”
Every muscle in Ceony’s body tensed, distorting her aim. Those were her parents’ names.
Grath didn’t stop. “Zina Ann, Marshall Ernest, and Margo Penelope. It is Penelope, isn’t it?”
Ceony’s mouth dried to desert. Airy tears stung her eyes. Her hands perspired around the gun. He knows my family’s names. How does he know their names?!
“Don’t you see, pet?” Grath asked, taking another sliding step forward. “I’m Saraj’s leash. If something happens to me, he’ll be let loose on the world—”
Grath moved so swiftly he blurred, a swathe of peach, black, and light. His blade whistled through the air, and suddenly Ceony’s pistol jerked from her clammy hands, hitting the ground some eight paces behind her. One of Grath’s daggers landed beside it.
Ceony’s heart dropped to her heels. She bolted for the oval mirror.
“Oh no,” Grath growled, and his heavy footsteps pursued her like a locomotive, boots smashing into the ground hard enough to shake it. Ceony shrieked and grabbed a handful of spells, throwing them behind her without even stopping to see what they were.
“Breathe!” she cried.
Three paper birds came to life, and one Burst spell fell to the ground, useless.
The birds sailed for Grath, but he pushed through the paper creations without even pausing.
“Delilah!” Ceony screamed as she neared the mirror. Its surface rippled, but Grath’s giant hand grabbed Ceony’s wrist and yanked her back.
For a quarter of a second Ceony flew, the barn spinning. Then she collided with the dirt, and a cloud of dust swelled up around her, stinging her eyes and coating her tongue. She coughed and pushed herself up, her right shoulder protesting.
Grath picked up the oval mirror. “Cute,” he said. “Shatter.”
Under the Gaffer’s light touch, the mirror broke into hundreds of pieces, falling to the ground like frozen rain. Amid the ringing of so many shards, Ceony heard Delilah scream her name.
Panting, Ceony stared wide-eyed at her ruined means of escape. But she still had the glider. If she could only reach the glider—
Grath switched his dagger to his right hand and charged.
Ceony pulled a paper rhombus from her bag and shouted, “Burst!”
The spell hovered between them, quivering wildly. Ceony ran to the back of the barn before it exploded in a firework of white and yellow. Some of its ashes curled around her, repelled by the shield chain.
Grath had vanished, leaving the path to the doors clear.
Ceony ran, but as she moved, a tall mirror to her right rippled and Grath passed through it. His huge arms swung for her like massive crab claws. Ceony ducked, half-tripping, and kicked him hard in the shin. She scrambled against the loose dirt on the floor and sprinted for the door, leaving the Gaffer cursing behind her.
She had almost reached the doors when another circular mirror rippled, and Grath stepped out. He said something Ceony couldn’t hear, and suddenly every mirror in the barn rippled. A copy of Grath stepped out from all of them. Soon dozens of Grath Cobalts surrounded her, some huge and menacing, some only a few inches high, hovering before the tiny mirrors that lined the wall.
Ceony stepped back, blinking sweat from her eyes. The copies of Grath had a slightly airy look to them, almost like a story illusion. But which one was real? And could the illusions hurt her?
“Don’t run, pet,” all the Graths said in unison, a songless choir.
She had one Burst spell left. Best to try the Grath closest to the door.
“Burst!” she cried, flinging the spell toward a mirror with an iron-cast frame, the one the first Grath had stepped through. She backtracked and called, “Move!”
The Burst spell exploded, its light reflecting through the enchanted mirrors, incinerating the Gaffer’s copies of himself.
Ceony ducked down, and the real Grath emerged from another mirror on the east side of the barn. He threw his dagger right at Ceony—
And it ripped through paper.
Grath, now unarmed, watched with a pale expression as Ceony’s paper doll—now torn from nose to collar—lost its color and drifted to the ground. The Mobility spell she’d placed on the doll earlier had brought it into the barn with Ceony’s second command.
The real Ceony stood and rushed for the doors, her hand searching for her bag, her eyes whipping between two other mirrors.
Grath transported to the one on the left, but Ceony pulled her Ripple spell free. Grath charged, a human bull.
“Ripple!” Ceony commanded the spell as its jellyfish-like folds cascaded downward.
The air around her warped, not unlike the glass of a mirror before transport. Grath wavered in his charge, but not enough. He reached Ceony, pulled back his right fist, and swung.
A sound like thunder echoed through Ceony’s skull, followed by wide streaks of lightning. She landed on the ground hard, the impact jarring up through her tailbone.
Fire burst from her left cheek, just below her eye. The rafters spun around her, this way and that, unsure of their direction.
Then she felt thick fingers ripping the shield chain from her torso. The barn spun harder as one of his hands circled her neck and the other gripped the front of her blouse, hoisting her up. He slammed her against the wall just beside the doors. Splinters dug into her back, and bits of dust sprinkled her shoulders.
Grath held Ceony a few inches above his crown. He squeezed her throat, and Ceony choked for air. He took a second to catch his breath before he said, “Do you know how an Excisioner bonds, Ceony?”
But Ceony couldn’t answer. Grath’s fingertips pressed into her windpipe. Her face grew hot and her cheek throbbed, drumming into her skull.
“I can’t do it yet,” he said, “but I can demonstrate well enough.”
He squeezed harder. Ceony’s feet flailed.
The loud clap of a gunshot rang through the barn, and Ceony fell.
She hit the ground on her knees and gasped, hot air filling her lungs. Grath grunted and staggered back, his huge hands flying to his ribs. Blood poured down the side of his shirt—a graze, but it bled a steady stream.
Ceony gaped at Delilah, who stood beside one of the empty stalls, Ceony’s pistol gripped in her hands.
“Run!” Delilah cried, and Ceony saw that one of her friend’s feet was still inside a rippling mirror. She had found the barn, and just in time.
Ceony jumped to her feet and slammed all her weight into Grath, elbowing his wounded side. The Gaffer staggered back, and Ceony bolted for Delilah.
Delilah slid back through the mirror until only one hand remained above the surface.
“Transport!” Grath shouted from behind her. All the mirrors began again to ripple at once. Grath appeared at the mirror closest to Delilah, still gripping his side, red-faced, breathing hard.
He charged for Ceony.
She wasn’t going to make it.
“Run, Delilah!” she cried, darting away from both her friend and Grath.
The mad Gaffer reached for her.
Digging her heel into the ground, Ceony shifted direction, receiving a painful pop from her ankle in the process.
She dived through another mirror.