Page 68 of The Mirror of Beasts

A hunter stepped forward. The sunken, sinewy planes of his face made it impossible to tell who he was, but the moment he spoke, it was like I’d been caught in a net of stinging holly.

“Looks like we’ve caught ourselves some little mice who scurried off before the fun was over,” he sneered.

I bit my lip, heart sinking.

That was Phineas Primm, one of the Hollowers from our guild. I’d recognize the old man’s smarmy, nasal tone anywhere.

Emrys lifted his head, meeting my gaze in alarm.

I squeezed my eyes shut at the sound of the man’s final screams, the wet rending of flesh as the hunters fell upon the other men we’d left there, unconscious. My stomach turned violently, horror and guilt flooding my veins.

I tried to focus my thoughts on the past, filtering back through my memories to find that night in the library. Primm, Septimus, and Hector had dogged my every move, keeping a close watch on the books I’d retrieved as I was trying to puzzle through the mystery of the Servant’s Prize. Septimus had been wearing the pin of the silver hand holding the branch—had the others?

Yes. Yes, they had.

It couldn’t be a coincidence. They were all connected to Endymion Dye in some way, even Wyrm and the Hollowers of his guild. The pin was more than a mark of belonging, it was a vow of allegiance.

More and more of the hunters poured into the warehouse behind Primm—a dozen, if not more, their spectral glow a sickening shade of poison green. If they searched the warehouse …

Emrys’s hands came up to gently grip either side of my face, turning it away from the carnage and toward him. His own expression was calm, but I could feel a slight tremor in his fingers.

“Help!” came the hag’s voice, as sweet and crisp as it had been when we’d first arrived, when she’d pretended to be Elaine. “Help me, please!”

“Ignore whatever the beast says.” Endymion’s clipped voice shredded the last of my nerves. “The hag will say whatever she must to convince you to release her.”

“He lies,” the hag moaned. “My name is Elaine. The Sorceress Lav—ah—the Sorceress Honora imprisoned me for daring to love the man she set her heart on—”

Well. Let it never be said you couldn’t teach an ancient hag a new trick—or a new story.

“Start with the cabinets on the far end and work your way toward the center,” Endymion ordered. “Tear the place apart if you have to, but make quick work of it.”

This time, I was the one holding Emrys’s face still, forcing him to look at me, not the twisted remnant of his father’s soul.

I’d never seen his eyes like that before, his pupils dilated so that the green and gray were barely visible. I pressed my fingers against his cold, clammy skin. Even in the darkness of the armoire, his pulse was visibly fluttering at the base of his throat.

I started at the chorus of smashing glass and cackling glee. Alarms squealed, each screech like a knife in the ears. The flaring of fire, of cracking and splitting stone—one of the hunter’s screams turned to bloodcurdling laughter from the others.

“A curse’s not going to hit the same if you have no bones to break,” Primm sneered.

They’ve set off the protective wards, I thought, wincing again as something crashed to the floor.

Emrys bent his head, letting it rest against our knees, his breath shuddering. The way his dark hair curled against the nape of his scarred neck, the vulnerability of his posture, made my whole chest ache.

“Why did he think it’d be down here?” one of the hunters asked. “Did he get a feeling or something? Or did Wyrm claim to have trapped it for him?”

“If he wanted you to know, he would have told you,” Endymion snapped.

My body went rigid. He was close. Somehow, despite his being incorporeal, I could have sworn I heard the clip of his boots against the stone floor. A cloth whooshed as it was tugged free of something.

My head came to rest against Emrys’s. I closed my eyes, breathing in the comforting scent of him—greenery and traces of fire smoke.

Please don’t let them find the others, I begged. Please just go—

“Let me out, please!” the hag cried. “I do not deserve to be punished in such a way!”

“Do they really listen to this racket every time they’re down here?” one of the hunters asked. “How do they shut her up?”

“I’ll do whatever you want—I’ll tell you whatever it is you want to know,” the hag tried. “Perhaps you’d like to find some special sword to slay your enemies?”

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