Page 144 of The Mask Falling

“An eye for an eye, Arcturus,” Thuban hissed. “I will pluck hers from her skull and watch her swallow them.”

All at once, I recognized the oily smell beneath the smoke. Paraffin. My gaze went from the soaked carpet to the chandelier above, laden with candles. Léandre aimed his pistol at it.

Thuban began to run. As I bundled Zeke through the doors, Léandre emptied his pistol into the chandelier. One of the bullets shattered its fixture, and as we all piled into the north wing, it plummeted. I had barely pulled Léandre through before the chandelier crashed straight into the sea of paraffin.

The conflagration was blinding. The candles ignited half the gallery, forming a wall of flame between us and the Rephaim. Thuban disappeared behind them. Léandre and Ankou slammed the doors shut.

The rest of the escape was a series of flashes, with darkness between. The sprint across another parquet floor, seeing only by glints of moonlight. The first soldier that fired through the window. Using my last bullet—the one meant for Jaxon—to splinter a scarlet visor. Watching Ankou hurl his axe across the room and Léandre finish the soldier off with a knife across his throat. When Ankou stopped to wrench the axe free, its blade glinted with blood.

Then a small room, full of silhouettes. Léandre shoved me ahead of the prisoners, through a half-open door that could have been part of the wall, onto a stone set of steps.

“Go,” he called after me. His hands were covered in blood. “I will guide this group.”

I went. At the bottom of the steps, I lurched right into a shallow pool. I shone my headlamp to the left—to the west—and illuminated a subterranean chamber. Water lurked around a line of pillars, which disappeared beyond my light. This was the abandoned reservoir that ran beneath the long parterre behind the palace. The smell made me grope for the pendant between my collarbones.

I turned right, as Renelde had instructed, into an arched tunnel. Hearing Zeke behind me, I sidled between two moss-covered pipes, ducked beneath another, and made for the end of the passage ahead. My calf now ached so deeply that I was afraid to put too much weight on it.

Frigid air chilled my skin. Renelde must have found a way to street level. When I saw a shaft of moonlight, I switched off my headlamp and came to a dead end. With a surge of adrenaline, I planted my boot on a loose brick, grasped the edge of the opening above, and hauled myself up, into the snow on Rue des Réservoirs. Blood drenched my trouser leg.

We were out of the palace. Now to escape the city.

Zeke climbed out of the tunnel behind me. Arcturus came next. High above us, black columns of smoke were pouring through a swallet in the palace roof. Flames raged across the upper floor, where I had left Jaxon helpless. I could no longer sense his dreamscape.

Halfway back to the cemetery, I came to a clumsy stop, holding a stitch in my side. There was one more thing I had to do. I opened the top of my oilskin, angled the camera toward the inferno, and pressed the tiny button on its side until it made a distinctclick.

Ducos would have something to send to her superiors. As I limped after Arcturus and Zeke, I sensed every soldier from the front of the palace leave their post and storm inside.

In my wake, Sheol II burned.

****

Volcanic orange illuminated the sky. The air was thick with the stench of burning hair and smoke. Maria would be proud of me, reducing a magnificent seventeenth-century palace to cinders.

Back through the city, dripping blood. Arcturus gave me a boost over the cemetery wall. Waiting near the mausoleum was Ivy, armed with her crowbar.

“Paige,” she called. “Are you hurt?”

“Not badly.” I went to her. “You came.”

“I had to.” Her eyes were dark mirrors for the sky. “Renelde has already taken Le Vieux Orphelin through. She said the tunnel would collapse if we all went at once.” Her gaze dipped to my throat, where bruises must have already formed. “Thubanwasin there, wasn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me you got a decent shot at him.”

“Rammed a knife right in his neck. And Warden took his eye out.”

A look of surprise, then grim satisfaction. “Well.” Her smile was thin. “For now, that will help me sleep.”

“Mahoney?”

I turned. A whisperer was slumped against a nearby grave, breathing hard.

“Nadine?” I crouched beside her. “Is that you?”

“Somewhere under the bruises.” A weak smile cracked her lips. “Took you long enough to find us.”

Zeke had cleared the wall. He came straight to Nadine, and she wrapped an arm around him as he spoke to her in gentle tones. Skin had been flayed from the backs of her fingers, leaving them raw and bloody.

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