“Good girl,” Yael cooed in approval, even though Elowin had to be about twice his age and the look on his face was more ‘I want to crush you into pieces’ than ‘I approve of your actions’. Still, he said it so persuasively, it was difficult to resolve his expression with the words that came out of his mouth. He reached down, taking the knife out of her hand. “Now why don’t you tell us why you took our dweller, and tried to mess with us, hmm?”
“She doesn’t belong here!” Elowin was back to panicking, even though she hadn’t tried to keep her knife. She actually wasn’t moving at all, her arms were hanging limply by her sides and she was staring up at Yael with a pleading expression, trying to appeal to him as though he would understand her. “She’s just a dweller! You can’t change all the rules for her and expect everyone to be fine with it. The rules are there for a reason!”
Yael exchanged a look with the others, and Siret grinned, taking a small step toward Elowin, so that her attention flicked directly to him.
“What’s the reason?” he asked, conversationally.
“It is how the gods wish it,” she spat back, regaining some of her fire, now that her eyes weren’t locked on Yael. “You’ll all be punished for going against them.”
“It’s true,” Coen agreed, grabbing Elowin by the shoulders and spinning her around to face him, “the gods do like their punishments.”
I knew that he was about to kill her. I could see it in his eyes. He had death-eyes again. I really needed to learn to step back and stop defending people who only wanted to hurt me, but I couldn’t seem to help myself. I shouted Coen’s name in my head, and his attention wavered, his eyes seeking me out in the corner of the room. As soon as he was distracted, Elowin screamed something that sounded like a cry for help, before erupting into flames.
“Holy crap!” I screamed unnecessarily, pointing right at her. “The lady is on fire!”
The other Abcurses took a step back, but it definitely wasn’t a big enough step to avoid getting killed if Elowin decided to give one of them a hug.
“That’s her gift, I guess.” Aros’s hands tightened on my shoulders. “And stop distracting them, you’ll end up getting someone hurt.”
Elowin lunged for the knife in Yael’s hand, but he pulled it out of the way, side-stepping her. There was a laugh in his eyes. Actually, they all looked amused.
Seriously?
Did nothing ever frighten them?
The door burst open before Elowin could lunge again, and a group of people spilled inside, along with a billowing rush of red smoke. For some reason, it reminded me of Rau—of the scarlet-red cloak that he had worn on both occasions that he had appeared before me. Aros shoved me behind his back, basically squashing me between him and the wall, and I saw boots move in front of us, turning to face the rest of the room. I couldn’t see much else, because of the smoke, but I recognised Rome’s massive feet.
Someone screamed—a woman. It didn’t exactly sound like Elowin, but it was hard to tell. Things started crashing around, and I could see that Elowin’s fire was starting to catch onto things. The flames were licking up the fabric that covered her windows, adding to the smoke that already choked the room.
“I need to get Willa out of here,” Aros muttered, as one of the guys grunted, and a body flew into the wall right beside us, collapsing the plaster.
“Rau is blocking the exit,” Rome spat back. “Turns out Elowin wasn’t smart enough to come up with this plan all on her own.”
Rau! AGAIN?
“So we’ll knock him the fuck out of the way,” Aros countered, grabbing my arm and dragging me across the room.
I tripped over a lank leg—which had been dangling half across the floor, courtesy of the body sticking out of the wall—but Rome caught my other arm, and they carried me between them the rest of the way to the door. I caught sight of the dark-haired sol who had impersonated me back at the academy. She and three other sols were fighting against Coen, who seemed to be playing with them more than actually fighting them. But Fakey was holding a candlestick and it looked like she might actually manage to hit him, so I untangled myself from Aros and Rome, running over to her and yanking the thing out of her hand before she could use it.
She spun, her eyes narrowing, and I knew that she was about to get her revenge for all the times I had punched her. Or … she would have, if Rome hadn’t grabbed me again, dragging me back to the front door. He pushed me through in front of him, and Aros kept an arm outstretched in front of me, like I might attempt to run off and attack Rau all on my own.
Which actually wasn’t a bad idea. I mean … I had a candlestick, and Fakey made it look super easy to use as a weapon. I could totally take Point on this. And, let’s not forget that I had stabbed a god before. That practically made me an expert in god-fighting.
Rau manifested before us, standing against the opposite hallway, his oily black hair stuck to his square-shaped skull, his muddy, red-brown eyes trained on me. He looked happy to see me. He even released that horrible, high-pitched laugh that I was starting to think was actually the worst sound in the world. It was more like a giggle. The giggle of a maniac.