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Owein hit the floor.

Fallon couldn’t get up.

Ellis squirmed and cried against her collar.

Myra ... her blood was pooling in the carpet. She didn’t move.

All Hulda’s nightmares were coming true ...

How had she notseenthis?

Had Silas started here, or ended here? Had he already been to Blaugdone Island and murdered her babies? Her husband? And now he’d come around to BIKER to finish what he’d started?

Her eyes shot from Owein to Charlie Temples—Silas Hogwood—sending a tear running down either side of her nose. She had no words to speak, no means of stopping him, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t give her the opportunity.

“Please,” she wept, “s-spare the baby. Sh-She’s done nothing—”

Silas’s head jerked hard to the side. He winced, gritting his teeth.

Hulda quickly set Ellis on the floor, under the desk, her little limbs flying in protest. Standing, she said, “Charlie Temples! Please, if you can hear me—”

An invisible hand clenched around her throat, cutting off air and blood. Her neck threatened to snap as it lifted her off the floor, until her toes didn’t quite touch. Face and lungs burning, she clawed at it, but there was nothing to grapple with. She stared at him, barely hearing him mutter, “One less parasite on my mind,” when the white splotches on his black beard fuzzed, and in the pattern she saw Blaugdone Island sprawling before her ... no, beforeSilas. She was Silas, and through his eyes she saw herself running toward Whimbrel House, her green skirt whipping behind her, surrounded by billowing fog, one of Owein’s dogs, or perhaps Fallon, pushing her faster—

Silas came to the island. She was alive. But the others, where—

The invisible hand winked from existence. Hulda dropped to the floor, hip thudding, palms slapping. Air clawed through her swollen windpipe, refilling her lungs. She didn’t remember Silas letting go. Didn’t—

Get up!Gray rings danced in her vision. A groan, a thump, a shout—she crawled forward, wheezing, placing a hand on Ellis’s chest and willing her to calm—if she could only be quiet, Silas might forget about her. She peeked around the edge of her desk.

The carpet, still soaked in Myra’s blood, came alive, ripping free of its tacks, and lunged for Silas. Owein—Owein was on his feet again! Maybe they had a chance. Maybe they—

She felt for her communion stone. Where had she dropped it? Where were Mr. Mackenzie and the watchmen? Had Sadie reached help?

Were they already dead?

The sound of the carpet tearing into a dozen pieces with a breaking spell was like a knife scraping across a china dinner plate. She hissed and flinched. And Owein—Owein stood there, blinking, intoxicated by the stupor so much chaocracy dealt him.Move, Owein!

Silas came to first. Though his arm struggled to bend, he forced it, pushed back his coat, and pulled out a pistol. Aimed it at Owein.

Hulda screamed.

Gun.

Gun.

Move!Owein’s brain screamed a splinter of a second before Silas shot. Owein lunged just in time, the bullet lodging in the wall behind him. He grabbed Silas around his knees and knocked him down like he was tying a hog. The hand with the gun hit the hardwood floor. Silas dropped the weapon, but his other hand swept up, knife clutched in the fingers, and sliced through Owein’s suspender, shirt, and pectoral. Blood seeped into Owein’s shirt, but he didn’t have the opportunity to worry over how deep it was. Silas swiped again.

Owein caught the man’s arm and wrestled him down, pressing weight into his wrist in an attempt to pin him. Owein wasn’t a large man, but he knew hard work, and Silas had starved Charlie Temples nearly to the bones. Silas’s coat sleeve had ridden up; his arm was thin, his body weak, yet he resisted, his free hand battering the side of Owein’s head, his legs trying to kick out from under him. Owein readied a spell to open the floor beneath them and—

—and Silas started to scream.

He hollered like a branded calf, eyes wild, body bucking. Owein pushed him down, trying to control him—

Thesmell.

The rank scent of rot, of bad meat left in the sun, burned Owein’s nostrils. He looked down to where his hands had pinned the arm of the hand holding the knife. Beneath Owein’s grip, Silas’s skin had putrefied. Before Owein’s eyes it was decaying, blackening and curling, the rot seeping down to the muscle.

The shock of it stilled him enough for Silas to land a good blow on his jaw. The madman threw him off, scrambled to his feet, and bolted for the far wall. Hulda screamed again as wood and brick shattered under Silas’s sole chaocracy spell, and then the wizard leapt right through the hole.