Page 73 of Secrets of Graves and Gold

I don’t think they’re going to enjoy the outcome.

I whip my attention back to the fountain just as the first Order member reaches the base. He jumps up on the barrier around the water. “Come down from there and stop telling lies.”

“Or you’ll what?” Emor asks.

Voleska lowers the shield as if to defend the two of them—and I propel my magic in their direction once more.

This time I’m not aiming it at the shield. I fling the force into the conspirator, sending him lunging forward and wrenching up his hand as if he intends to strike out at them.

What he actually does is pound his fist against the shield hard enough for the sound of the impact to reverberate through the square.

Julita flinches inside me. I’m too caught up in the necessary concentration to apologize.

Off at that old farm, the backlash yanked the door off the dilapidated house at the same moment as I shoved the man on the fountain.

And the crowd erupts.

The angry shouts of the locals drown out anything else the Order member might have said. As he stumbles into the fountain water, the nearest civilians grab his arms and yank him away from the shield and the woman wielding it. He’s swallowed into the churning crowd.

“Down with the Order of the Wild!” Emor yells from his perch on the statue. “Kick them out! Take back our city!”

More people stream into the square from the nearby streets and buildings. Many are locals coming to see what’s happened, but others are clearly Order members.

I spot a man taking a swing at a couple of the conspirators, only for them to wrench his arms behind his back. A woman springs at them with a frying pan she bashes over the nearest conspirator’s head.

As more fights break out in knots throughout the square, arrows start streaking down from the rooftop where Rheave hid himself. Shimmers of electric energy send them racing toward their targets.

Stavros and Casimir will be in the middle of the chaos along with Emor and Voleska’s people, striking down every captured daimon Rheave identifies for them. And maybe a few of the fully human Order members as well, if they force the issue.

My main work is done. I can’t leave them to the riskier battle alone.

I shove open the windowpane and clamber out. My gaze drops to the building fronts directly beneath me, and I freeze.

Hanie is standing just a few shops over from the one I’m staked out above, cringing against the wall with her arms folded tight around her middle. Her brass-brown hair has fallen across her face.

I bite back a curse.

You told her not to come to the square this morning, Julita mutters. She’s not a fighter—she shouldn’t be here.

I did warn Julita’s old maidservant when I saw her briefly yesterday. I suggested she should stay clear of the central square all morning.

Apparently she was more curious than concerned.

She spins and darts away down one of the side streets. At least I don’t have to worry about her getting trampled now.

I scramble to the edge of the roof. My gaze catches on Stavros’s blood-red hair about halfway across the square, his head above the figures around him thanks to his massive frame. Casimir will have stuck near him.

Girding myself, I pick a section of clear ground and jump. As my feet hit the ground, I’m already braced to leap forward.

I weave through the rioting crowd, dodging jabbing elbows and grasping fingers. My gaze snags on a woman who’s staggering with one of Rheave’s arrows in her back, and I hurtle forward to slash my knife across her neck.

She collapses in a crash of shattering clay.

One fewer daimon the scourge sorcerers can send to attack us. Every one we set free is a victory.

A projectile sings through the air beside me, this one all daimon energy. It sizzles into the side of a man’s head several paces off through the crowd.

The man flinches where he’s trying to wrestle a thrashing woman to the ground. I push through the churning bodies toward him and stab my knife between his ribs straight into his heart.

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