“If everyone was eating those nasty things, then how were you able to stand up to her?” he asked as he reached up and pressed his fingertips against the low-slung ceiling. A square of wood twice Lorelai’s width slide quietly to the side, revealing a slice of the cloudy, pale blue sky.
“She never gave me any. She said they weren’t for people with magic in their blood. Plus, she trusted me because she thought we were the same.”
“Proof that she’s a fool.” Leo smiled at her, though there was worry in his eyes. “All the roofs are joined by narrow catwalks.” He cupped his hand for her foot. “If we stay low, the chimneys might hide us from anyone who happens to look up.”
“Unless she’s got the dragon circling the sky above.”
“You have a better plan?” He nudged her with his cupped hands, and she placed her foot in the cradle of his palms.
She didn’t have a better plan. She had Gabril’s implacable voice in her head giving her instructions, expecting her to heed him, refusing to let his princess do anything less than survive and keep Leo alive as well.
Use your environment to your advantage.
Surprise your enemy. Be unexpected.
Don’t get caught.
Don’t get caught. Lorelai looked up through the hole in the ceiling and took a steadying breath. If anyone could survive fleeing from the queen and her dragon over slanting rooftops and narrow catwalks, it was Lorelai and Leo.
Lorelai wrapped her fingers around the edges of the hole above her and climbed out onto a gently sloping roof made of weather-stained shingles pierced with copper ventilation pipes and a massive brick chimney to her right.
Dropping quietly to her knees, she reached down to help Leo onto the roof and then gestured toward the chimney. They began sidling toward it, careful not to let their boots slip against the shingles.
Lorelai’s heart beat painfully as panic wrapped tight bands around her chest. Her palms burned with the need to rip off her gloves and protect herself. She pulled at them, making sure not a single sliver of skin was showing.
The power in her blood might believe it could protect her, but Lorelai knew better. She didn’t feel capable of facing Irina on her own, much less Irina with a dragon and a horde of slavishly devoted villagers at her beck and call.
“You cannot outrun me.” Irina’s voice echoed down the street. “You cannot hide from me. You can either surrender or die.”
“Your Highness, the dragon needs a scent to follow,” a man said.
“I don’t need a hunter to follow a scent when my prey is so close. I can find them myself.”
“Ready?” Leo whispered as he nodded toward a narrow iron catwalk that bridged the distance between the alley-side corner of the smithy and the brewery next door.
“Ready.” Taking a deep breath, she found her balance and ran lightly down the sloping roof, onto the iron catwalk, and across to the brewery’s roof in seconds.
Irina’s voice rose. “You have chosen death.”
The catwalk creaked, and then Leo was behind her, moving quickly across the brewery’s roof, staying low and hugging the chimneys for cover. Lorelai followed, her stomach churning as Irina’s voice echoed across the alley below them.
“Nakhgor. Kaz`prin. Find the ones I seek.”
A light as brilliant as fire shot into the air, arced, and then plunged deep beneath the alley’s cobblestones.
Lorelai’s palms blazed with heat in response. She grabbed Leo’s hand and yanked him forward, their boots sliding dangerously against the brewery’s shingles as they fought to get to the next catwalk.
“Nakhgor,” Irina shouted as the cobblestones shook violently.
Lorelai and her brother reached the catwalk that led to the harness maker’s workshop as long jagged cracks split the cobblestones beneath them.
Sprinting across the catwalk, Lorelai scrambled up the harness maker’s roof and half slid down to the other side, Leo right at her heels.
“Kaz`prin.” Irina’s voice filled the air. The cobblestones cracked and crumbled as her spell gained strength. “Bring them to me to face their punishment.”
Lorelai was halfway across the catwalk that led from the harness maker’s to the weaponsmith’s when a score of thick black vines exploded out of the ground.
TWELVE
LORELAI FROZE ON the catwalk, Leo right behind her, as the thick black vines of Irina’s spell burst out of the cracks in the cobblestones, rushed toward the buildings, and plunged through windows and doorways, leaving shattered splinters of wood and glass on the ground. The shops shook, joints creaking, as the vines surged forward, scouring the insides for anyone foolish enough to be hiding from the queen.
The catwalk shook as well. Lorelai braced herself and looked back to meet Leo’s gaze.
They weren’t going to make it to the apothecary’s. They weren’t going to get help for Gabril. She absorbed the blow and swallowed against the grief that thickened her throat.
She couldn’t save Gabril, but she could still save Leo.
Her voice nothing more than a breath on the wind, she said, “Stay with me, Leo. Don’t fall behind, don’t veer off course, and don’t look back. Just stay with me, and I’ll protect you.”