Page 113 of Thief of Night
Distracted, Charlie hadn’t seen the approach of another shadow. She didn’t realize it was behind her until she felt a hand grab her onyx necklace and pull so hard it snapped. She whirled and brought up her knife, stabbing as a thick fog of shadow surrounded her, invading her throat. She could taste it on her tongue. She choked on it.
Her lungs burned. She couldn’t breathe. Darkness edged in at the corners of her vision.
And then it eclipsed every bit of light.
31HenHouse Full of Foxes
Charlie woke on a carpeted floor that stank of cigarettes and the rotten smell of old meat. She looked up at a water-stained ceiling. Gingerly, she experimented with pulling at her wrists, then her ankles. Both were pinioned with what felt like zip ties.
Her head throbbed and her lungs hurt, a dull ache with every breath. A painful pressure on her chest made it worse.
She rolled onto her side.
A woman sat beside her, body as translucent as a ghost. “He’s been looking for you.”
Charlie swallowed a scream.
Rose Allaband had been a beautiful woman, with dark hair and dark eyes. Her shadow was no less beautiful. When she tilted her head, her hair moved as though blown by an invisible wind.
Charlie looked past her to a messy room covered in newspapers and take-out boxes, half of them turned into ashtrays. “Why am I still alive?”
Rose’s shadow shrugged. “He hasn’t decided how to kill you yet.”
“Are you the only one who… talks?”
The girl shook her head. “Not exactly.” She beckoned and several shadow shapes crowded in around her.
Terror washed over Charlie, wiping away her ability to do anything but tremble. There was a horrible wrongness to them, an unnaturalness to their movements.
The girl’s hand rested on the back of a shadow that seemed half wolf and half human. “This is Archer.” Then she introduced the others—JonJon, Maw, and the NeverMan. That meant there were maybe five left. She hadn’treally counted, back in the hall of Solaluna. She wasn’t sure how many they’d started with.
But what she’d been trying not to think about since she woke was everyone she left behind. Red and Posey and Malhar. Were they hurt? Were they alive? Imagining grieving them sent her spiraling into a despair deep enough to temper her fear.
“Where am I?” Charlie managed to ask.
“Our new house,” said the NeverMan. He had a haunting flatness to his voice. “We’ve had a lot of houses.”
“He’s the other one that talks,” the girl said. “Although Archer howls and sometimes Maw whispers things that I don’t think are words.”
“Should I call you Rose?” Charlie asked.
“Rosalva,” she said. “I’m from Rose, but not Rose.”
“A rosy dawn,” said the NeverMan.
“Our new house” meant nothing. Mark could have set up camp close to Solaluna or they could be miles and miles away at a new place. She would know more if she could figure out how long she’d been unconscious, but she suspected their sense of time was probably as bad as their sense of place.
She decided to try another tack. “Could you take the binding off my wrists?”
The shadows pulled back from her, making hissing sounds. Her heart sped.
“We can’t,” Rose’s shadow snarled. “He told us that we can’t.”
Charlie forced herself to keep pushing despite her fear. “Did he tell you that you can’t bring me a pair of scissors?”
“No bloodletters. Only water. And food,” said the NeverMan.
“Scissors aren’t bloodletters,” Charlie pressed.
