Page 19 of Siege of Shadows

Yes, I could feel her. Even though she stood several feet away from me, her presence weighed down my entire being, heavier and heavier with each passing second. As if she would overcome me at any moment.

Natalya’s scarred hand clutched the hilt of her sword, its tip just grazing the dirt.

Zhar-Ptitsa. The sword of Natalya Filipova, the legendary warrior who’d carried the mantle of fire Effigy before me.

But the flush was gone from Natalya’s small, angular face. She’d entered into my dreams, and she had taken with her the pallor of the dead.

I followed her right arm as it moved slowly, deliberately upward, her sword glinting in the sun as she raised it—to me.

Panic seized my entire body, my heart crashing against my chest. Natalya was here. Natalya was here. She was going to take my body again. She was going to take me. I couldn’t breathe. I clutched at my throat, willing myself to calm down, but to no avail. She lifted her sword high above her head. I couldn’t move, not even when the sword launched from her hand. I closed my eyes, ready for the impact.

It was the sound of Rhys’s helpless whimpers that snapped my eyes back open. Blood dripped from his soft lips as his hand grabbed at the hilt of the sword piercing his chest.

It was a dream, I reminded myself over and over again as Rhys fell backward onto the dusty ground before I could catch him. It was a dream. The real Rhys wasn’t dead. I knelt down and pressed my hands against his cold cheeks gingerly, suppressing the sob threatening to escape me. He wasn’t dead. “Rhys... Rhys!”

Take heed. Such is the fate of those who betray.

“What do you want?” I cried, standing up again. “You want my body? Huh? You want to freak me out and take me over like last time? Is that what this is?”

I didn’t have to wonder what she wanted for long because she made it clear the moment she raised her free hand and beckoned me with her finger.

A smile flashed on her face.

I want you to catch me.

She took off.

It must have been some invisible force propelling me forward because I didn’t actually want to run full tilt for the gatekeeper’s booth. But I was following her. I was following the girl who wanted to hijack my body.

My foot found the ledge of the empty booth and boosted me up, high enough that I could grab the roof. I flipped myself over onto the roof from the momentum and dashed across the moss-green metal roofing sheets. I could still remember the blood dribbling down Rhys’s cheek as I jumped over the gate.

I saw the edge of a white skirt fluttering around the side of the building. It rippled in the wind as Natalya ran across the roofs high above me, jumping from one building to the next. Her feet tapped the rooftops so lightly, so quickly, they may not have even touched the metal at all. I chased her into the city, through the narrow, dusty streets of the same busy market the Sect driver had taken us through on our way to the facility. But this time the bystanders were moving in slow motion, their hands filled with food, baskets, and money nearly frozen in the air, their mouths parting too slowly for me to hear what they had to say before I breezed past them. A dream. I was dreaming still. But where was Natalya taking me?

Keep your eyes on me. Catch me, quickly.

Natalya’s consciousness was particularly strong being the most recent death, and she used that to her advantage. The messages, the dreams. She’d even appeared once among the living, the day I took my oath as an Effigy. There, in that echoing cathedral, she’d become something like an omen. Back then I thought it was to warn me about the Sect. When I’d found out that she’d been investigating Saul during the last moments of her life, when I’d found out that the Sect had lied about her committing suicide, I’d decided to trust her.

But I learned all too quickly: Even in death, Natalya always had her own plans.

She jumped down, disappearing behind an alleyway. I slipped between two white wooden buildings and—

—and then I was in a museum.

I was taller. My arms long and white. These weren’t my arms. This wasn’t my body.

I was... I was turning around. There was a crowd of people here on the main floor of the museum. The National Museum of Prague. I was here on a mission, but I couldn’t complete it. I’d only managed to leave my message for Belle in Castor’s volume when I turned and saw him coming through the door—the door I thought had been locked.

Yes. Aidan. He’d come to the museum on the same day with friends I’d never seen before. He hadn’t seen what I’d done and didn’t ask questions, and I was grateful for it. Now that we were back in the lobby, he’d left his friends by the long, winding staircase to talk to me.

“Hey, Natalya, I’m so sorry I startled you before,” Aidan said. He’d come dressed in a black striped T-shirt and jeans, wearing that cute grin I’d come to know over the years. “It’s just that I saw you sneaking around the museum and couldn’t help but be curious. I was surprised to see you here in the first place.”

“I didn’t even notice you, Aidan,” I said.

He laughed. “Well, I’m pretty good at sneaking around too.”

It was strange that he’d be here on the day I’d decided to carry out Baldric and Naomi’s mission to find the secret volume. So strange. But then again, his laughter had a way of making you think otherwise.

“Aidan, about what I was doing—”

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