“All will be well, Thea,” said my father.
It was a kind, useless thought. Nothing would be well, unless I somehow made it so. I looked toward Dominic, thrashing in vain against his bonds. Across the room, Valentin leaned back against the wall, beside the door. His eyes were narrowed on Will. I could almost see the tortures he had planned in his furious glare. Martin and the other German stood near Valentin. It was good to have an ally in my father, but it would have been even better to have one of Valentin’s sort—broad, muscular, military. While the four Germans were arrayed around the door, escape was not possible.
You need a distraction. He would make a fine one.
I turned my attention back to Dominic and shook my head sharply. I couldn’t use Dominic. He had begged me to make sure he didn’t hurt anyone else.
Lose me and he will remain as he is forever.
I made the decision hardly knowing that I did. Will began to cough. The Germans turned their faces away from his uncovered mouth. The fit was loud, and lasting. I whispered in my father’s ear, certain the Germans wouldn’t hear me.
“I need you to distract them. Argue with them. Draw their attention away from Dominic.”
My father’s eyes widened in question, then in dismay. He started to shake his head.
“Please, Father,” I whispered. “I must.”
He looked at me for a long moment, then nodded.
Will stopped coughing, and my father took a step toward him.
“That’s enough of this.” He sounded stern, almost outraged. “It’s barbarous to treat a dying man this way. He told you what you wanted to know. Untie his hands! Give him water!”
My father walked to Will’s left side and placed a hand on his shaking shoulder. Dominic was in the right corner of the room. I moved as quietly as I could while my father continued to shout.
“Are you men or beasts?” he demanded. “Look at him!”
I moved quickly. I undid the straps at Dominic’s feet. They were threaded through the board he’d been placed on. It would take a moment’s thrashing for him to pull the straps through their holes and free his legs. I moved to his hands, and Valentin saw what I was doing.
“Are you mad?” he cried, and ran toward me. My father threw himself into Valentin’s path. In the few seconds it took for Valentin to toss him aside, I had untied Dominic’s hands. Dominic hurled himself forward, onto Valentin. The strap still between his teeth muffled his screams, but not the impact of his body against Valentin’s, and then of both their bodies on the ground. I ran past their scrambling forms and seized Will by his bound arms. I pulled him to his feet.
Martin lunged for us, but my father had seized a chair and swung, connecting with his head. Martin wheeled on my father, away from Will and me. I threw open the door and pushed Will out, then hesitated on the threshold. I looked back into the chaos in my wake.
Martin had easily wrested the chair from my father and thrown him against the wall, where he crumpled. Martin turned back toward me, a feral growl on his lips. But an even more feral noise behind him stole his attention. Dominic had risen to his feet. His arms were spread. His hands were bloody. Valentin scrambled backward, violent red scratches drawn down his face. The other German lay facedown in the corner, unmoving.
“Martin!”
Valentin screamed for help as Dominic hurled himself back on top of him. Martin ran to his captain’s aid. My father braced himself against the wall and pushed himself to his feet. He staggered toward me. Took my arm. Pulled me through the door out of the room.
Don’t hurt Dominic.
I didn’t know who I was pleading with. The Stone? Could it protect him, somehow? And if it could, would it?
“Don’t hurt him!” I called to Valentin.
My foolish, useless words were cut off when my father slammed the door behind us.
Don’t hurt him? What choice had I left them but to hurt him? They would try not to. Just as I had tried not to hurt my mother. As Dominic had tried not to hurt Bentivoglio.
Will was already hurrying down the stairs, clinging to the walls, then the bannister.
We ran after him, my father and I. We left Dominic. Again.
It hurt to do it, like wrenching out some part of myself and leaving it behind. And then, almost at once and very abruptly, it didn’t. The pain was blocked, and all I felt was hunger.
We reached Will. I threw his arm over my shoulder. On the other side, my father did the same. Together we rushed him down the stairs and out of the inn, into the treacherous night.
21
I did not know how long we had until Valentin dealt with Dominic and came after us. We kept moving, as quickly as we could force Will’s collapsing body to go. We turned down one side street, then another, but keeping a general direction toward the dock.
“Which ship, Will?” I hissed into his ear.
He coughed and shook his head.
“Don’t be stupid, Will,” I said. “We have to go. Your only hope is getting on that ship with me and the Stone.”
“I know,” he gasped, when the coughing slowed. “But the ship won’t leave until sunup.”
“It’s nearly sunup now,” said my father. He pointed eastward, and sure enough there was a faint lightening of the blanket of night where the coastline met the water.
Will stopped moving his legs and folded his face into one of his shoulders, coughing. It was amazing, how he had managed to make even as blunt a truth as his body’s final collapse into death a tool that served his own ends. He didn’t want to answer me, and I could hardly make him until he was done. He looked at me,
