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Zeinab grasped Julian’s pistol, her gaze shifting to the place where Jacobs still stood.

Behind all of them cowered Sayyid—ducking down and cursing from the whirling black storm of insects, even though the bugs refrained from coming too close.

But he did not lose his grip on the staff in his hand.

Jacobs gave a dark chuckle. It grew, collapsing into a harsh laugh twisted through with both frustration and an odd, unhappy relief.

His suit crawled with beetles. Black insects clung to his hair.

He tossed the rifle down at Adam’s feet.

“Till next time,” he rasped, and then walked away.

Ellie scrambled up. Adam gripped her, hauling her to his side, and watched with a wary, ready tension as Jacobs crossed to the path off the ridge… only occasionally swatting at the insects that hissed around him as he went.

??

Forty-Two

Holding up aflaming sword, Neil watched the impossible swarm settle like dust after a sandstorm. Most of the insects hissed and buzzed after Julian’s fleeing party. A few stray scarabs remained, clinging to the rocks or marching along in contended lines.

He looked at his hand and realized it still clung to the bone hilt of Dyrnwyn. Neil dropped it as though it might bite him, and the flames of the sword snuffed like a spent candle.

Constance punched him in the arm hard enough that he nearly staggered. “That was rather well done, you!” she declared approvingly.

Her hair had wrenched loose of its pins and spilled in an abundant, disarrayed mess around her shoulders. One of the sleeves of her white lawn dress was half torn away. Somehow, it made her look more like the unruly child he had known years before—and yet simultaneously achingly lovely.

Not that the loveliness mattered, he told himself. She was his sister’s friend.

Maybe his friend, too.

Neil might very reasonably have simply asked her that sort of question—are we friends now, too?Something else came out of his mouth instead.

“You attacked a man who had a flaming sword.”

“It was only Julian,” Constance retorted dismissively.

“You… I…” Neil’s voice was strangled. He closed his eyes, then forced himself to open them again. “Thank you.”

Constance flashed him a look of cat-like satisfaction. “You’re welcome, Stuffy.”

Sayyid stood a few steps away, still holding the was-scepter. His collar was askew and the shoulder of his waistcoat was torn. His expression was blank with shock and terror.

Neil threw his arms around him. “Thank you, too,” he said, his voice muffled by Sayyid’s shoulder.

After a moment’s hesitation, Sayyid hugged him back. “That was awful. Could you not have thought of any curses besides the one with beetles? I will be having nightmares about that experience for months.”

Neil laughed, feeling slightly hysterical. He pushed back from the embrace to check on the rest of the people he cared about.

Ellie launched herself into Neil with the impact of a small rhinoceros. “Are you all right?” She shoved back to get a better look at him. “Were you hurt in the fall? Or during your fight with Julian? And how did you get out of that hole in the ground?”

“I am bruised in possibly every place that a person can become bruised, and I never want to do anything remotely like this ever again,” Neil quickly told her. “But… I’m fine.”

Adam came up behind her. He looked like hell. He was also staring at Neil’s sister like a man who knew that he’d nearly just lost the most important thing in the world to him.

The sight of it tugged at Neil’s heart in a way that took his breath.

There was nothing thoughtless or irresponsible about that look. The emotion flooding through Adam’s eyes had another name—one that Neil couldn’t possibly fault him for. Not in a million years.