have been able to cut the other. The rest of his plan depended on them getting inside. If they couldn’t get through the veil, everything else was a wash. He had to find another way, and fast. There wasn’t much time left.
Pushing the looming deadline out of his mind, Eli set himself to finding another way in. But the others had started talking, and their voices were distracting him. Miranda was pestering Slorn, asking him about other spirits. She even suggested finding the Lord of Storms, though thankfully Slorn turned down that plan. The League Commander was the Shepherdess’s oldest ally; he’d never turn against her. The old thunderhead was probably already relaxing in paradise, Eli thought grimly. His nice, fat reward for a job well done. The fact that the storm would be bored stiff after an hour with nothing to attack was Eli’s only consolation, but before he could take any bitter pleasure from it, the Weaver joined Slorn and Miranda’s conversation, and they all started talking over each other.
Eli rolled his eyes and gave up, letting the voices bleed over him, mixing together until the words were just sounds. An idea. He needed an idea. A really good—
He stopped suddenly, ears straining. Below the drone of the arguing voices, he’d caught another sound. It was soft as a heartbeat, almost lost in the noise, but it was steady and strong, tapping out a rhythm Eli knew as well as his own breath.
And with that, his idea came to him clear as a trumpet.
Eli jumped up and scrambled over to Josef. The swordsman was still lying on the floor. His chest rose and fell with his deep breaths, as though he were asleep.
“Josef,” Eli whispered.
The swordsman’s eyes cracked open, and Eli grinned in response. “Hear that?”
For a moment Josef looked confused, and then recognition spread over his face. Eli’s grin widened. “Up for one more cut?”
Josef’s answer was to pry one of his hands off his sword so Eli could pull him up.
Everyone else was still arguing, so no one noticed as Eli hauled Josef to his feet and helped him walk over to the bone metal box lying forgotten at the center of the Shaper Mountain.
The thumping grew louder the closer they got—three long beats followed by two short raps, then a silence, then the pattern twice again before a slight variation, four raps instead of two.
Eli had thought of that part himself, a safeguard against imposters. By the time they reached the box, Eli’s grin was so wide his cheeks hurt. He looked down at the dull white lid, watching with deep pride as the heavy bone metal vibrated in the unmistakable rhythm of their long-standing all-clear code.
Without a word, Josef let go of Eli’s arm and stood on his own before the coffin. He hefted the Heart in his hands, lifting the black blade to his elbow before dropping it in a clean stroke. The blade fell perfectly, sliding between the coffin’s edge and the gleaming chains and then pulling out, snapping the chain with one swift motion.
The awakened steel broke with a ringing cry, and the room fell deathly still as the metal links clattered to the floor. Eli didn’t have to look to know everyone was staring at them, so he didn’t. He kept his eyes on the coffin as the knocking stopped. And then, with a long, groaning creak, the bone metal lid began to open.
CHAPTER
20
Miranda watched in horror as the chains fell from the box that lay like an offering at the heart of the Shaper Mountain. She didn’t know what was inside, but anything wrapped in that much awakened metal couldn’t be good. This observation was reinforced by the stricken expressions on the faces of the men around her.
Even Slorn looked terrified, his bear eyes wide and his ears back. Beside her, Gin was growling so loudly she could feel the vibrations in her bones. His muzzle was pulled up, revealing all his teeth, and his nose was twitching, sniffing the air in a way that told her he’d caught a scent. She wanted to ask what he smelled, but her body was so frozen with fear she couldn’t speak. She could only watch as the white lid opened.
From here, all she could see was darkness. The box was filled with shadows so deep not even the white light of the mountain could penetrate them. As the lid slid off and fell to the ground, the shadows seemed to slosh, almost like water, and then something extraordinary happened. A thin, white hand emerged from the darkness, followed by a bony arm. The hand reached up blindly, the fingers grasping at the empty air.
Josef moved faster than her eyes could track. His arm shot out, grabbing the hand with his own. The white fingers gripped his tanned, scarred skin, and then Josef pulled up, ripping Nico from the dark.
Her body was thinner than Miranda remembered, though that could have been because she’d never seen the girl without her coat. There was nothing to hide her frailness now. Nico was naked as she burst from the shadows, her body little more than pale skin and thin bone dangling from Josef’s hand. She was so thin, Miranda almost thought she was dead, but then she caught sight of the girl’s eyes.
Nico’s dark eyes were now golden yellow, and they looked only at Josef. The second she was free of the dark, the swordsman crushed her against his chest and turned, carrying her to the base of the box he’d pulled her from. He reached down, grabbing a small, sad black pile from the floor and wrapping it around her body. The second the black cloth touched her, it began to writhe and change, growing and reforming into a shape Miranda recognized.
When Josef turned again, Nico was dressed in her coat. It should have been a familiar sight, but the eyes changed everything. Nico’s yellow gaze lit up the deep shadows of her cowl, and at once Miranda remembered the yellow eyes of the creature at Izo’s. The endless glowing eyes with the dancing shadows behind them. But there were no shadows behind Nico’s eyes now and, Miranda realized with a start, no fear. Just the intense, golden stare as it moved across their group.
What have you done?
Miranda shrank away from the terrible fury in the Weaver’s voice. Suddenly, the old man was looming over them, large and threatening and cold as new-fallen snow, his white face alien in its rage.
You have freed the demon! he shouted. As though things weren’t bad enough. Is this your plot, favorite? Do you mean to hurry us to our deaths?
“I am not your death.” Nico’s voice rang pure and clear, but there was something in it that put Miranda’s teeth on edge. The words echoed with a strange double harmonic. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it also wasn’t a noise that should ever come from a human throat.
Nico whispered something to Josef, who nodded and set her down. She swayed a little, but then she planted her bare feet and fixed the Weaver with a glare.
“I am not your death,” she said again. “Nor am I your enemy, lest you make me one.”
Impossible, the Weaver boomed. You are a demon. Your very nature makes you an enemy of everything we know. We saw you change; we bound you in that box. There is no coming back.
“I am Nico,” Nico said simply. “And I my own master.”
She lies! the Weaver cried. Demons always lie. Don’t listen. Don’t fall for her tricks!
Nico’s yellow eyes narrowed to glowing slits. “No one knows that demons lie better than I do,” she said. “But I am not one of those.” She raised her arm, laying her thin white hand across her chest. “I fought and won. I was not eaten, and I never will be. I am the master of myself, I and no other. I am king of my own country. My power is my own to give, and I choose to use it to aid those who have stood by me.” She tilted her head, and her yellow eyes grew soft as she looked up at Josef. “I will fight the others for you,” she whispered. “As you fought for me.”
Josef nodded, and Nico turned back to the Weaver. Silently, she raised her arm, finger pointing straight up. “They’re coming,” she said. “I can feel them eating the edges as we speak. Soon there will be nothing left. The sky will split, and they will devour everything. So choose now. Accept my help and maybe live, or fight me and seal all our deaths.”
She crossed her arms and stood, waiting. Behind her, Josef was beaming with pride. Eli was also smiling, standing beside his partners in crime with a smug satisfaction that made Miranda want to scream.
But she didn’t. Miranda had seen this before, the three of them lined up in a united front. Every time she’d tried to stand against them, she’d lost. When the decision came, Miranda didn’t know if it was good sense or
