Page 189

“Traitor!”Gunner thundered, his eyes streaming. Scottie and Otto held him back at either side.

But the general nodded. Two soldiers came toward me. They grasped my upper arms.

“Lower the gun now, boy,” the general called to Patrick. “Throw it to the ground.”

I looked over my shoulder in time to see Patrick lift the pistol off his temple, only to point it directly at the general.

Several things happened at once.

The remaining soldiers raised their weapons.

A blade flashed in Gunner’s hand.

And Patrick said, very clearly. “You’ll take me alone and let the earth Charmer go.”

The general looked from Patrick to me, his hands still raised. “We’ve orders to bring her back to the House of Lords,” he said. “Alive.”

“Then you’ll be breaking those orders,” Patrick said. “Now, tell your men to let her go.”

The general seemed to deliberate for a long moment. Then, he sighed, and said, “I’ll at least thank you for removing that pistol from your head.”

And the gun was wrenched from Patrick’s hand, as though something invisible pulled it. It fired once as Patrick tried to keep his grasp around its trigger, but the bullet only shattered a far-off window.

The pistol flew into the general’s hand. He smiled at it. “We’ll be taking you both,” he said.

“No!” Gunner roared, and he made to lunge at the officer, but the blade in his hand turned on him, and the wound it made buckled him in half.

“Gunner!” Patrick shouted.

“Tell your men not to be foolish,” the Smith said. “The fight’s over.”

CHAPTER 67NINA

The soldiers tied our hands in front of us, walked us through Margarite’s Modern Ladies, Seamstress Extraordinaire, over the wooden debris and into the storage room, where the trapdoor lay open and waiting.

I moved to the whim of the soldiers as if through a nightmare. My legs not my own, the gut-wrenching shouts of Gunner ringing out from the square. They grew weak quickly, and I imagined pints of blood slipping free, drawing the life from him.

Before I was lowered into the pit, the shouts ceased.

Patrick and I stood before the shaft and its pulleys to the tunnel we’d built together.

We were not lowered immediately. Before the soldiers could begin operating the pulleys, they were interrupted by feet staggering down the path. Three men came into view.

Two were soldiers, and between them was Theo, his face badly battered. His head lolled on his shoulders, unconscious.

“Found the water Charmer,” one of the soldiers said. The rest of the navy blues cheered, slapped their comrades’ backs as Theo was dumped into the shaft. “Let’s see what his father has to say about that stunt, eh?”

The shaft lift sank down its fathoms, its joints clanking, metal screeching.

And as darkness fell, I couldn’t see Patrick. But I could feel him beside me, his shoulder pressed to mine. I let it soothe me.

We’ll find a way out, I thought.I’ll find us a way out.

“Patrick,” I said, not caring who heard me. But no answer followed.

Instead, I felt him shift suddenly. I felt the entire breadth of his weight shove me into the wall of the shaft. I felt his forearm push into the column of my throat.

The space filled with the shouts of men. I heard them scramble in the dark, trying to make sense of the movement, grasping blindly at Patrick’s back.