Page 62

Chapter 56

Lotte

Underground in the Clandestine Court, the darkness was complete. The only light was the moon, faintly peeking through the gap where the Grims had come through.

As she held perfectly still, Lotte could hear the sounds of the Grims shifting around them.

Their stolen weapons clicked uselessly, the magic knocked out of them. But they still outnumbered Lotte and Nora. And even in the dark, they would find them eventually. Lotte tried to get her bearings as the wolves shifted around them in the dark. Nora had been behind the bar. But there were dozens of knocked-over tables that would make noise if Lotte tried to move toward her.

And Lotte had no idea which way was out.

And then…a flash of light illuminated the room.

For a panicked second, Lotte thought it was the power coming back on.

Until it was followed by a booming crack of thunder echoing around the bar, shaking the bottles on the wall.

The first of the raindrops hit the Grims’ metallic masks with a quiet, plinking sound, soft at first. And then faster.

Another strike of lightning flashed, and in the brief violent illumination, Lotte saw the unnatural clouds gathered in the ceiling, accumulated around the chandeliers of the Clandestine Court. The lightning hit a table, sending it cracking. More than one Grim let out a cry that was drowned out by the boom of thunder. The rain rapidly turned into a deluge coming so fast and thick that Lotte felt like she might be drowning. The torrent forced some of the Grims to their knees as the unnatural storm raged indoors.

Then a hand closed around hers.

Nora, her thoughts flooding into Lotte.

Her half a plan had turned into a fully fledged one. This was the same charm the Holtzfalls had used for good weather at the Veritaz Ceremony. But good weather was no good to them now.

The storm roared around them.

They had cover.

Now they had to get out.

They fought their way down the slick debris. A Grim moved toward them, but another fork of lightning crashed between them, driving him back.

Lotte pulled Nora after her, guiding her through the blinding rain. Lotte could still feel the echoes of Nora’s desperate gratitude rattling around in her chest.

She wanted to tell Nora that of course she’d stayed.

That she would stay again because she knew Nora would do the same. And one clear thought from Nora seemed to overwhelm Lotte.

This was what family was.

They stumbled out of the Clandestine Court, bursting out of the storm and into the streets of Walstad, into the fray of knights and Grims.

As they broke free, Lotte hunted in the crowd for Theo, fighting among the knights in uniforms. Not daring to look for him in the bodies on the ground.

Finally, she found him in the fray, their eyes locking across the street.

They had made it, all of them had made it. The relief crashing through almost brought her to her knees as Theo broke away from the fray toward them. As the three of them stumbled to each other, slick with rain and blood amidst the death and the destruction.

And in Lotte, it echoed: This is what belonging to someone is supposed to feel like .