“We must go, or we’ll be trapped here.” Hunger wrapped iron fingers around my arm, pulling me toward the nearest fissure. The beginnings of a headache wrapped similarly tight fingers around my skull.
A thin smear of blood trickled down my hand. Mátyás’s blood. My eyes flew to Mátyás, huddled in the shadow of the great rock. I struggled against Hunger’s grip.
“I can’t leave my cousin!”
“He’s dead.”
“At least let me bring his body!”
“There’s no time!”
And Hunger jumped down into a chasm, pulling me with him.
I screamed at him, every curse I could think of. As darkness swallowed me, all I could see was Mátyás dying alone in the shadow of the rock, cradled by a scrim of roses.
I landed, hard, against the cracked marble floor in the Sala Terrena. Pain sizzled up my arms and through my hips. It jabbed pointed fingers in my eyes and glittered at the edge of my sight. I blinked, trying to clear my stunned vision, and stood. Fire radiated from my head, shooting down my spine and flaming through my joints. This, the cost of breaking.
Slowly, as though my bones would fragment if I moved too swiftly, I looked around.
I stood awash in a sea of movement: goose-footed lidérc, drowned rusalka, hollow-eyed boszorkány, the shadow-on-shadow sleekness of the fene. And others, creatures I’d never seen: a tawny beast with the face of a boar and a long, wicked horn sloping from his forehead. A manticore with the body of a lion and the face of a man. Serpents of all kinds—great-winged dragons, snakes with human faces, man-sized roosters with serpent wings and scales. Some—all?—of the creatures had come through the chasm with us.
They raged through the Sala Terrena and burst like a tidal wave into the rest of the palace. From a distance came the faint tinkle of breaking crockery. Nearer at hand was the distressing rip and slurp of something feeding.
I pressed my fist against my stomach, fighting my rising gorge.
What had I done?
Every window in the room was broken, as though some great force had exploded in the center of the room and pushed outward. Outside, it rained, a steady grey drizzle.
Inside, madness reigned. I could not see Hunger, or the calming light of the Lady. The spider-woman with the third eye glanced my way briefly and saluted before disappearing from the room.
“Hunger!” I shouted.
A great boar-headed creature with crow’s wings turned at my call, saliva dripping from his thrusting tusks. He sniffed at the air, and his huge lips curved upward in a distortion of a smile.
He sprang toward me, and I ran, dodging a cluster of fae women with flowing hair and ivy-twined dresses. I could not hear, over the cacophony of the room—voices hooting, singing, crying, laughing, cackling, crowing, rooting, roaring—if the monster still followed me.
I tripped and caught myself on my hands on the cracked tile. A sheep curled on the floor before me, asleep. No. Not sleeping. Dead: its throat torn out, its entrails spilled across the floor in bizarre runic patterns, bits of bone and matted flesh strewn around it.
This: the destruction newly released creatures left in their wake.
The room reeked of unwashed beasts and blood and the onset of rot. I struggled upright again, my pulse beating a painful tattoo in my throat. A voice sailed over the crowd, words in a language I did not understand, words with an alien cadence and heavy with age.
The clamor in the room cut off. The silence in its wake was so absolute, my breath roared in my ears.
I blinked and the creatures were gone, winking out of existence as suddenly as they’d come.
My stomach clenched tight as I processed this.
Hunger was gone—and with him, all the creatures.
So much for my promised army. I pushed back at the fear crawling through my belly. I could not despair yet. I had to find Grandmama and Noémi. I had to get to Buda-Pest.
I had to tell Noémi that Mátyás was dead.
My fingers gripped the cross he had given me, its points digging into my palm. Blinking back the tears stinging my eyes, I pressed forward. Dark flashes swarmed my vision. For a moment, I could not move until the pain became bearable.
I stumbled toward the doorway, one hand over my nose and mouth, swallowing against the burning in my throat. My hand smelled of blood and roses—Mátyás’s blood—and I was sick all over the floor.
After wiping my mouth on my sleeve, I forged onward. A human body lay on the floor near a shattered mirror. I picked my way toward it, trying not to look too closely at the ovine corpses. My head throbbed.
The sightless eyes staring at the arched sky were familiar, though they were no longer framed by spectacles. I crouched and smoothed Herr Steinberg’s eyes closed. Though he had tried to kill me, I could not hate him. He had only sought to do what he believed was right.
As I had.
We were both killers at heart—blood the terrible price of our beliefs. I scrubbed tears from my cheeks. The ache in my body was growing, a throbbing mass threatening to splinter me apart.
Another scan of the room confirmed there were no other human bodies. My shoulders drooped a little with relief, and I pushed my way free of the bloodstained room.
The corridors of Eszterháza seemed endless. The pounding in my head kept gleeful time with the shuffle of my feet as I mounted the stairs. I passed through the china room. All the lovely Sèvres vases and Dresden china were shattered on the floor, ground to powder by the passage of cloven and padded feet. Every room was empty. No creatures crouched in the shadows—but Grandmama and Noémi and János were still missing.
I pushed myself up another flight of stairs, my mouth dry. Noémi’s room was empty. And mine. I headed toward Grandmama’s.
“Anna?” The voice behind the door was faint, but my heart lifted with relief. They were here.
I pressed on the latch, and the door slid open. Noémi and János flanked the canopied bed, Noémi’s vizsla circled by her feet. Grandmama lay upon the bed, her arms across her chest.
“Grandmama!” I said, rushing forward as fast as my pain-racked body would carry me.
“Wait—” Noémi said, but it was too late. I flung myself onto the bed beside Grandmama, and one of her arms slid down to her side. Something about that boneless movement made my heart seize up. She was so very still, her face pale as candle wax. The hand curled by her side was cold to my touch.
“Noémi?” My voice cracked. I pulled away from the bed.
“I’m so sorry. She was struck. When I got to her, it was too late.” Noémi wiped tears from her cheeks.
“We brought her here to wait for you.” János’s voice was ragged, grieving.
I dragged my eyes from Grandmama’s pale profile to Noémi’s face. Something was wrong with her eyes. They weren’t tracking right. A bright, angry burn spread up the side of her face and fanned across her nose and eyes. Her eyebrows were gone, and her eyelashes.