Page 46 of Tomb of Ancients
I gazed into the doorkeeper’s eyes, and what I found there frightened me. She would know if I lied. I thought ofFaraday—Focalor—the demon, and of his madness, his wounds, his horrible descent. Had he been truly willing? Or had he passed that first test only to fail the next? Sometimes to protect the peoplewelove, we have to disappoint them.
“I’m sorry, Henry,” I said, holding Bartholomew close to my chest.
“Dalton.Dalton. Don’t you dare do this, don’t you dare...” He advanced toward me, yellow eyes flaring wide. “You spinelessshit. Did you come all this way just to betray me? Is this amusing to you? Did the shepherd put you up to this?”
“I don’t need to answer that.” I stepped back. “Just listen to yourself, and you will know exactly what I’m doing.”
“No.” Henry flung himself toward Ara, spinning her around. He tore the Black Elbion out of the bag and shook it in my face. “There must be something else. There must be a way, a way to be free. Free from this book, free from this... this...”
Guilt.
He wilted, hugging the book and falling again to his knees. The journey was ending—he could feel it, and so could I—but it was not the ending he’d hoped for. Not for the first time, he changed in front of my eyes, pitiful now. Unmoored.
“You promised,” he spat. “Youpromised.”
“I didn’t see it then.” I backed away, slowly, backed away from him, from it all. “I didn’t know your purpose, and I won’t help you destroy that book. Damn it,I won’t lose you.”
Henry scrambled to his knees, a spark of hope in his eyes, one I already knew I would be responsible for stamping out. “Go to Judgment. Bring back the white book, bring it here, we can freeourselves together. I know there’s something else, Dalton, I know it. Trust me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again, watching that light flicker and die. “I won’t help you do this. Forgive me.”
“No.” He swiveled back toward Ara and Malatriss, leaving me behind in the salt. “No, Dalton, I don’t forgive you. I never will.”
The field lay before us, pocked with holes, the already damaged fence on the border now a dwindling fire. I had never known whether the Residents could actually leave the confines of Coldthistle House, but now I had my answer as they hovered in wait, no longer with any walls between us, an army of floating black shapes. Mrs. Haylam stood at the center of the mass.
“Now’s your big chance, Poppy,” Chijioke was saying. His eyes glowed red, standing out sharply from his dark skin. “With Mary here again, you can scream your little heart out.”
It was odd, going into battle with a child at my side, but she had helped save my life once before, and I knew better than to question her power.
“I have so many bundled up,” Poppy said, grinning. “But I hope it is enough.”
The only one among us missing from the east lawn was Mr. Morningside. He hadn’t emerged yet from the house, and there was no telling what plan he might be concocting. Mary and Lee stood next to Chijioke, though Lee was wobbly with illness, the presence of so many Adjudicators making him green in the face. And thereweremany. Dalton had called it a host, but with their golden bodies filling the sky, the glare made it difficult to count them.
Moonless, Khent was forced to stay by my side, as I had an entire drawer of cutlery ready to transform for him. There were a few stray pistols and a hunting rifle in the house that were brought along, too, though I doubted they would do much against this motley arrangement of foes.
“Bah, Nephilim,” Khent muttered, spitting in the grass. “I thought I killed the last of those ugly fiends in Giza.”
I had hoped only to ever read of them in Bennu’s journal, but Khent was right—the huge, misshapen giants with their faces full of wasps lumbered toward the charred remains of the fence. I could hear the steady humming of the bees above their heavy footsteps. The six-winged, sword-wielding warriors above them were familiar, too, as were the cries of “sanctus” as they charged toward the house.
“It isn’t at all like reading a book,” I murmured, hoarse. Khent reached for my hand and squeezed it.
“You wouldn’t happen to be hiding a Sky Snake under those skirts?”
“Just petticoats,” I lamented. Then I turned a hard look toward the advancing enemies, too numerous even to contemplate. This had to be the bulk of the shepherd’s army, and our last stand against them would have to be enough of a distraction to let Dalton slip by. There was no sign of the shepherd, but then, Mr. Morningside was still absent, too. “Khent, if I need to let Father take over...”
“I will draw you back when the time comes,” he said, pressing my hand again. I had expected him to relish this chance for war and bloodshed, but his eyes were sad. “You make the javelins, I throw them. Father is only if we find ourselves overrun, yes?”
“Of course.” But what I really meant was,I shall try. And also,Are we not already overrun? The shepherd’s resistance was far beyond what I had expected or imagined, and for a brief moment I understood Henry’s dark motivations. This was what he feared when collecting his souls—this annihilation at the hands of former allies. Maybe it was always going to come to this; maybe peace between folk so different simply could not be.
“What is it,eyachou?” Khent asked.
“I was only thinking, this is all such foolishness. Do we not all inhabit this place within a place? We should be friends.”
“Yes.” He nodded, rubbing his jaw. “But these servants of Roeh, they do not look very friendly today.”
I strained to hear him above the noisy buzzing of the wasps and the beating of so many golden wings. We waited, silent, Bartholomew pawing listlessly at the ground, Mary andChijioke holding hands while the Residents drifted back and forth at our flank. They all might be hurt. They might bekilled.
“Mary—” I called out, intending to say something, anything, that might express my gratitude, my relief, that I had wished her into being all those years ago, trapped in a cupboard while my parents argued, desperate for one true friend to distract me from the misery.
