Page 24 of Tomb of Ancients
But I was already on the move. “We will find a way to be useful somehow.”
“Torches!” I heard Khent thunder. “There are too many of them!”
Too many of them, and the moon would not be full again, ifit were indeed evening. I glanced frantically to Mary as torch-bearing followers of the shepherd streamed into the shop, swinging their lit truncheons in front of them as they went. Khent and Fathom fell back, and Niles and Dalton stood not far from Mother, in front of her on the carpets, taking aim and firing as best they could.
“Mary!” I cried. “Can you not do something?”
“I’m weak from the ball, but I will do what I can,” she said, pursing her lips tightly and throwing her hands outward. Her shielding powers shimmered out from her chest as usual, though the glimmer seemed somehow dimmed. I dodged around her, taking the steps two and then three at a time, pelting across the shop floor in time to see the shelves nearest the door catch fire. It was all too soon—the taste of smoke filled my mouth again, and I fought a wave of nausea—this time it was real. This time my friends could be killed if the fire raged out of control.
Courage.
Mary’s shield enveloped us, lessening the sting of the smoke and the heat of the flames, but already the fire was shooting along the walls, the old, brittle pages of the books the perfect but heartbreaking kindling. We may as well have been trying to stand against our attackers on a pile of dry twigs. Khent backed into the bubble, accepting a pistol from Niles, but knowing not what to do with it, he simply bludgeoned the nearest person in white, knocking the torch from their hand and stamping it out with his boot. Fathom quickly loaded the pistol she had takenfrom Niles, and proved an excellent shot, but there were simply too many targets.
And worse, more threatening than their swinging clubs, was the fire now creeping across the wood floor toward us.
“They must have followed me back from the tavern,” Fathom muttered. I could hardly hear her over the melee and the crackle of flames.
“I never thought I would say this,” Dalton said, firing blindly into the crush of bodies surging against us. “But now would be a good time for your father to come out and play.”
I went rigid, staring at him. Hurt. But he was right. We were being overwhelmed, and I was not at all the marksman we needed. Mary’s powers were faltering, the gossamer surface of her bubble fading out, more and more smoke curling in toward us. And the fire? There was no stopping it now—it ate and ate, hungry, gobbling up whole shelves, hemming us in on three sides with walls of climbing flames. Mary screamed as a beam not far above us cracked and swung free, then crashed down to the floor, glass cases showering us with shards. Her shield depleted completely, and I heard her footsteps as she abandoned the loft and joined us.
Khent took a bad blow to his forearm, stumbling back into me. I caught him by the shoulder and watched the blood seep through his shirt. I closed my eyes, letting the chaos and smoke fill me, letting the blood be all that I saw.First blood. More blood.
Father woke almost too eagerly. He had been waiting for this moment. My eyes glazed with red, and I felt the strange and wild stirring of his power as it overtook my own thoughts. I shook, not wanting to lose control, not wanting to unleash him again. There was no telling who would be caught in the ensuing carnage.
I could see nothing, but I heard the roar of the fire and the screams of righteous anger from the followers as they beat us back farther into the shop. We were losing ground, and I was out of time. But a light hand fell on my shoulder, soft and consoling, so consoling that I felt Father’s influence over me loosen until it fell away completely. I looked up and to the left and found Mother gazing down at me, her mouth half lifted in a forlorn smile.
“No,” she told me. “You must never let him out.”
“But—”
She silenced me with a shake of her head. All eight of her delicate purple eyes closed, and the hem of her feathered dress fluttered from the gust of the fire. Pressing on my shoulder, she moved ahead, and then seemed to glide across the singed carpets toward the fray. She was defenseless and carried no weapon, and I scrambled after her. I could not let her die at the hands of these people, not after the ordeal I had undergone to save her. She was met with alarmed shouts from Khent, Dalton, and Fathom, who tried to coax her back toward safety, but she would not be deterred.
“Peace,” I heard her say just above the din. Then louder,“Peace.”
All at once, as if put under a blanketing spell, the followers lowered their clubs and torches, mouths hanging open a little in wonder. She had captured their whole attention with two words, spoken as if in friendly conversation. Flinging her arms wide to them, she gazed around, seemingly unconcerned by the smoke or the fire eating its way toward her.
“I know your hearts,” she said. “I know that when you wake tomorrow, tired and afraid, you will look back on this moment and feel only one thing.Regret. Turn away. Turn away from this violence and this hatred. Turn away from this place. Someone awaits you. Will you greet them with relief or with regret?”
A hush fell upon us all. The mob shifted, and then I could make out their individual faces. Men and women, old and young, their eyes open wide as if seeing us and one another for the first time. One club fell to the ground, and then another, and I watched a mismatched pair grab hands and turn toward the broken door. They wereleaving. Retreating.
“This is our chance,” Dalton said, gesturing for us to follow. “There’s a back way out. Quickly. I had hoped to save the books, but we have no choice.”
I let Mary and Khent go ahead of me, pushing them along, then watched Mother stay there on the burning carpets until the last follower of the shepherd dispersed. Then she turned and drifted along beside me, her hands clasped at her waist, featherytrain trailing behind her, dragging through the charred remains of books and shelves.
“That...” I was astonished, almost at a loss for words. “How did you do that?”
She glanced down at me, a dimple running down one cheek. “It was only possible because they had no true hate in their hearts for us. I wanted to give them a chance. Peace is always preferable.”
“Now I know why Father wanted you gone so much,” I murmured, following the others behind the sales counter to a backroom and then a short door blocked by a bookcase. Niles nudged it aside and opened the door, letting in the blessed, rain-soaked air.
“He was not always as he is now,” she told me with a mournful sigh. “But he watched too many of us die. When you lose your children, something changes inside you forever.”
“They were your children, too,” I pointed out.
“Their loss broke my heart,” she said. “It scorched his to ash.”
Chapter Twelve
