Page 36 of The Arrow and the Alder

Which brought her thoughts back to Harran and her family. She wished she knew if her papa and Levi were all right, just as Mama and Linnea were probably worried sick about Seph now. Oh how she lamented her parting words to Linnea, and the circumstances that had brought them tothis! To a world that had pitted them against one another when they’d once been two notes in harmony, singing different pitches but part of the same chord. And little Nora…

Air whooshed outside, startling Seph to her feet as she looked to the door. She couldn’t see anything but darkness and tendrils of mist, which curled and reached for the doorway but never slipped inside.

Seph wondered if the enchantments had something to do with that.

She listened a moment more and glanced to the rafters, where she suspected Marks had gone. Certainly, if there was something nearby, he would’ve seen it or warned her. He’d already proven his senses were far more attuned than hers.

Except she had his bow. How did one protect themselves without a weapon? Should she take it to him?

Seph heard the noise again, that whip of wind and push of air. Something wasn’t right. She grabbed his quiver and trudged up the stairs, her enchanted light following her all the way, and she pushed through the hatch. Cold slammed into her the moment she stepped onto the rooftop.

The platform was empty, hemmed in by a parapet but completely exposed to the night, and there was no sign of the kith anywhere.

Where had he gone?

Her little light flickered out, as if finally depleted of power, plunging her in darkness.

Seph’s pulse quickened, her eyes adjusted, and she scoured the mist. It held a soft glow of its own accord, some faint pale sheen that prevented the night from being fully black. She crossed to the wall and was peering through the low embrasure when she sensed a presence behind her.

Seph turned on instinct, arrow set and bow drawn, just as a dark shape materialized in the mist, rising over the parapet with its wings spread wide, its face a horror as it shrieked.

A depraved.

It whipped over her in a violent twist of wind and wings, and Seph ducked, watching it soar up—up—up before banking hard and diving back down.

For her.

She aimed, heart pounding as she gazed along the arrow’s shaft. Depraved were unfamiliar, but archery was not, and so she focused as she’d relentlessly trained to do.

One inhale.

Hold.

Hold.

The depraved was nearly upon her.

Thwick.

The arrow was a streak of silver in the night, slicing through mist before sinking into the depraved’s exposed chest. The monster let out a horrible wail, its wings thrashed at the air, and it dropped like a boulder. Seph lunged out of the way, narrowly missing it as it collided with the rooftop and erupted in brilliant blue flame.

What in the?—?

Flame caught the end of Seph’s coat sleeve, and she yelped, jumping away as blue fire licked the skin of her right hand. The one holding Marks’s bow.

Oh, no.

She cursed and dropped his bow—praying fleetingly that she hadn’t just broken it—before peeling off the coat. She was just stomping out the flame when she felt the prickling of another presence behind her.

She spun around, cradling her injured hand, fearing a second depraved.

It was only Marks.

He stood perfectly—inhumanly—still before the hatch, and as the silence stretched, Seph slowly took in his appearance. His eyes were huge and dark and set deep, and they shone with a wildness that had never been there before. Something almost…predatory, and Seph felt a spark of unease.

The blue flame breathed its last, the darkness returned, and all that remained of the depraved was a scorch mark upon the rooftop. Her hand was fire, though she refused to pay it any mind. She’d endured worse, certainly, and she would not be any more burden to this kith than she’d been already.

Marks looked at his scorched coat, which lay on the ground at her feet, then his bow. Unlike her hand, it was miraculously undamaged by the flame—praise the saints!—which again probably had something to do with the enchantments etched into its wood grain.

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