I screamed as Hemming took the final step in toward Hector, ready to stab him in the gut.
Hemming’s eyes bugged. He went utterly still, taking an unseeing step forward, then teetered over. He dropped to the ground, revealing the knife through the back of his neck. Sadie leaned against the wall, staring at the throwing knife imbedded in her victim. Her binding lay discarded at her feet, her wrists bleeding from where she’d thrashed against the rope.
Hector stared from Hemming’s lifeless body and back at his sister, frozen in shock as if still waiting for Hemming’s blade to sink into his belly. Then he moved. In two strides, he grabbed his sister and pulled her into a fierce hug.
“Thank the Gods.” His voice cracked, the veins in his hands popping out as he crushed her into his chest.
Grae untied Navin, slinging his arm over his shoulder and helping him to stand. Navin swayed, barely clinging to consciousness.
“You need to get him out of here,” I said to Sadie. “Let us handle the other two. We’ll meet you at the wagon.”
“I want to fight,” Sadie growled.
“You already have,” I said, pointing to Hemming and then back at her bruised face. “But both of you are seriously injured.” I took a step toward her. “You can fight for me another day.”
She held my stare for a moment before pulling me into a swift hug. “Thank you for coming for me, Your Majesty.”
“Your Majesty?” Navin asked as Sadie ducked under his other arm, taking his weight from Grae.
“I’ll explain back at the wagon,” Sadie said, leading him hobbling out the door. She looked back at Hector. “Can you fight?”
Hector wiped the blood from his face with his sleeve and spat onto the ground. “I’m fine,” he lied. Half of his face was turning purple, but he rolled his shoulders and bounced on his toes like he was ready to jump into a sparring ring again.
Sadie shot a look at me. “Be careful.”
With that, Sadie and Navin disappeared down the long hallway, heading toward the back exit. The rest of us turned toward the stairwell and thundered out onto the street. The fire the others started now consumed half a building. I looked around for them, seeing their three cloaked figures huddled in a doorway.
Malou touched her hood in proud greeting.
“Thank you,” I signed to them. “Now get back to the wagon. Sadie and Navin need you.”
They nodded and scampered off into the shadows as the two Wolves circled around the corner. They scanned the burning building up and down, looking for the perpetrator.
“I have an idea,” I whispered, looking over my shoulder at Hector. “You go around to the back door of that building.”
He looked at the towering inferno and back at me. “What?”
“Go to the back. Keep the door open and wait for my command,” I instructed.
“Oh Gods,” he muttered, checking the shadows before running across the muddy street.
I turned to Grae. “Do you trust me?”
He grabbed me around the waist and planted a fiery kiss on my lips. “Always.”
The moment his lips left mine, I let out a loud whistle that carried through the night. The two Wolves swiveled from the burning building.
I flashed a wicked grin. “Are you runts looking for us?” I taunted as they began darting toward us.
“Remember,” Grae said, a bit of worry in his voice. “I said I trust you—”
I almost laughed as I ducked left down the lane between the rundown buildings. Mud flew through the air as our boots squelched down the street. I slowed my pace, wanting them to keep us within sight. Turning right down the back of the building, I waited until I heard them behind us and then turned right again.
I led them in a wild circling chase around the far building and back toward the burning one, buying Hector enough time to reach the back and drawing the Wolves away from the fleeing humans.
As I raced toward the burning building, I sent up a prayer to the Moon Goddess and leapt across the crackling threshold. Grae stayed hot on my heels, following me into the blaze. The layout of the building was the same as the one across the street, two stairwells at either end of a long hallway. It looked like it had been some sort of mill before it had been abandoned. The bottom floor was filled with wooden tables and piles of scrap fabric that exploded into bright bursts of flame.
I dashed up the stairwell, choking on smoke as we climbed. My eyes stung as I blinked through the haze to see, sure enough, the two Silver Wolves had followed us inside.
They pulled their tunics up around their noses. One elbowed his comrade and pointed up to us at the top of the stairs as we bolted again, down the long hallway. I tipped over a flaming barrel behind us, slowing down the Wolves’s chase. Kicking over a table, Grae created a burning blockade as we reached the far stairs. The flames consumed the stairwell, far worse than in the front. Smoke scorched my lungs and I hesitated before I felt Grae’s hand on the small of my back. He shouted something, but I couldn’t hear it over the hissing cracks of the floorboards combusting beneath our feet.
I shielded my face with my hands, screwing my eyes shut as I forced my feet onward, racing down the stairs through the wall of flames to where I knew the open doorway led back out to fresh air. For a terrifying moment, I felt nothing but scorching heat and the roar of fire and then the cool, fresh air hit my face again. Grae tumbled into the mud beside me.
I fell to my knees screaming, “Now!”
Hector slammed the door behind us, moving a heavy rain barrel in front of the smoking door. Steam hissed along the wet wood.
A patch of fabric on my elbow still flamed and I smacked it, stamping out the fire. I looked at Grae’s soot-covered face, his hair white with ash. He doubled over coughing, his hands splayed in the mud. The panic gripped me so tightly I wasn’t sure if I was injured. My clothes seemed mostly intact. My hands were blackened with smoke. My lungs ached, but I was alive. I thanked the Gods for the rain and our drenched clothes. They had probably saved our lives.
The back door thudded, the boards creaking, but the rain barrel kept it from budging. Fists pounded wildly on the door, one last desperate attempt to break out of their fiery death, and then they ceased. I wondered if they would try for the front door. I knew, in my heart, they’d never make it.