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I started charging up the stairs, though I felt as if my legs were about to buckle beneath me from fatigue.

“Archon save me!” a man cried.

Another servant ran down, tripping over herself to get out of the house. When they reached the guard’s corpse and the broken door, their screams grew louder.

This was going well.

At the top of the stairs, I took a right toward the direction of the man’s shouts. I hurried down the hall to a set of open wooden doors and burst inside.

Sion, soaked in blood, stared down at the body of a half-dressed man. The Lord Mayor’s throat had been ripped out.

Bloody hell.

My heart slammed against its cage. “Please tell me you at least got the key to the gate.”

Sion’s darkened gaze flicked up to me. He lookedhungry,which sent fear dancing up my spine.“Do you want me to say that, or do you want the truth?”

“So, you just killed him?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t. The bloody fanatic slit his own throat before I could question him further.”

I cocked my head, noticing for the first time the dagger in the man’s hand. “Fuck.”

I glanced at the leaded windows, where morning light was starting to slant inside. “If we can’t shut the gates, we need to wake everyone and get them out of the city.”

“Give me a minute, will you? You can wait outside. I’ll find the key.” An edge slid through his voice.

I wondered if the heavy scent of blood in the air would make him unleash his real vampiric side.

I turned, ready to leave, to scream a warning to the city at the top of my lungs, when Sion whooshed past me again like a phantom. I could barely track his movements as he tore the room apart—flinging open the wardrobe, the desk drawers. He rushed past me into a different room, his speed like wind rushing past my skin.

I barreled down the marble stairs and slammed through the shattered door to find Dunstan standing beneath the rising morning sun. My heart hammered. “Dunstan, if you give a fuck about anyone in this town, you will help me get them out of here before the Order shows up. They’re going to break people’s bones. Do you understand me? They will cut off their limbs in front of their families. Trust me on this.”

He nodded, looking like he was about to vomit. “The bell. I-I’ll ring the bell.”

He whirled and started sprinting across the cobblestones, past the empty market stalls, past the large stone well in the center of the square, to a wooden box that stood on a post.

Dunstan flung it open and pulled out a large hand bell. Apparently, this was the town’s emergency system. I didn’t expect much. But when he started ringing it, I had to clamp my hands over my ears. It was surprisingly loud.

“Everyone wake up,” Dunstan bellowed. I joined in with him as he broke into a jog and screamed along with him.

“The Order is coming,” I yelled. “They’re going to put you all on trial. They’re going to hurt everyone in this town! The Order is coming here to break your bones.”

The medieval town’s narrow streets twisted and turned, lined with timber-framed houses that leaned over the cobblestones. As we ran through the streets, bell ringing and shouting warnings, shutters flew open.

From behind, a strong hand grabbed my bicep, and I whirled to see Sion. He held up a large skeleton key.

“See? Told you I’d get?—”

Mid-sentence, he froze, his head turning slowly toward the gate. The wind toyed with his hair. And in the next moment, I realized what he was listening to, because I could hear it, too—the unmistakable rhythmic clink of marching boots, the creak of armor. My stomach twisted.

Sion met my gaze, his jaw tightening. “They’re approaching the gate. We won’t be getting past them, and neither will anyone else.”

CHAPTER 18

“So, we’re fucked.” My mind whirled with calculations. “Unless…”

I turned to look at Dunstan, whose hand was clapped over his mouth in abject horror. The bell shook in his hand.