Page 81 of The Mask Falling

I recovered my composure. “Another Rephaite sadist,” I said. “Are you friends with Thuban Sargas, by any chance?”

“Do not liken me to that craven. He spends his time pulling the wings off mayflies. I prefer prey that fights back.” His eyes grew just a little hotter. “Tell me, howisArcturus?”

“Far away, I imagine.” I pointed the flashlight at Cade. “So this is your big secret. Does he have a gift we can use, or have you worked out how to weaponize arrogance?”

“He does have an interesting gift,” Cade admitted, “but that’s not why I brought you to see him.” He turned back to his prisoner. “I’m afraid we’re not here for a heart-to-heart, Kornephoros. I’m here to give Paige a demonstration.”

The trace of a smirk left Kornephoros, turning his face to metal.

“When I leave this place, Fitzours,” he said, “I will make you rue the day you helped them incarcerate me.”

“Yes, I’ll die with my head on backward. We’ve been over the details.” Cade glanced at me sidelong. “Paige, you might consider taking a step back.”

I raised an eyebrow and stayed exactly where I was. Cade approached a steel trolley. When he came back into my flashlight, he was holding a syringe.

“Sorry, my friend,” he said to Kornephoros. “You know I hate this.”

“Head on backward,” was the cold reply. “I will hear your spinecrunchbetween my—”

Cade struck. The needle hit Kornephoros hard in the crease of his right arm.

What happened next was swift and brutal. The light in his eyes guttered. His aura pulled inward, as if it were bound as fast as the rest of him. Mottled bruising spread from the puncture in his arm, all the way to his fingertips, and fanned across his shoulder, into his chest.

A chill sharpened the air. My flashlight shook. Kornephoros strained against his chains—so hard I heard the crack of bone—and let out an awful noise, rough stone across metal. It woke a memory I had tried to suppress.

A forest in the dead of night. Endless trees, and that buzzing, like a swarm of carrion flies. Running across a land strewn with mines, pursued by a thing that screamed for my flesh. My wrist snapping under the weight of my fall.

Emite . . .

“Stop,” I barked at Cade. “I’ve seen enough.”

He was already back with a syringe of darker fluid. Kornephoros snarled at him like an animal, teeth snapping together. Cade flinched beyond their reach and stabbed him in the abdomen.

Kornephoros went limp. His head rolled forward. I tightened my grip on the flashlight as he shuddered, his giant hands clenching into fists.

For a long time, all I heard was my own breath. Finally, Kornephoros looked at Cade. Light waxed back into his eyes, embers blown into red flame. His aura brightened to match. Cade took a few drunken steps backward, and I steadied him before he could topple over.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said in a strained voice. “Never feels any better when they feed.” Blood seeped from his hazel eye. “You understand now.”

You will work it out yourself, Arcturus had told me.You are perceptive, and you have all the pieces. Sooner or later, you will fit them together.

“Yes,” I said softly. “I understand.”

Arcturus had been right. I had seen more than enough to work it out. Yet never once had I allowed myself to fit the pieces together, because never once had I imagined that the Ranthen would have kept a secret of that magnitude from me. Especially not him.

In 1859, the English government had secretly relinquished control to the Rephaim, believing only Nashira Sargas could protect humankind from the Emim—the flesh-eating creatures of nightmare that had come from their world to ours. They had thought she was a benevolent guardian, come to save us from the monsters at our door.

She had declined to mention one very fine detail.

They all had.

“The Emim,” I said. “The Emim . . . are Rephaim. Or were, at least.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off Kornephoros. Bone-jolting aftershocks racked his frame.

“They call it the half-urge.” Cade walked back to the trolley. “As far as I can tell, Rephs are immune to all human pathogens. I’ve injected him with smallpox, malaria, syphilis, even plague—no dice. This is the one and only sickness they can get.”

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