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All Ilsa knew was the bullet hit her.
She was on the ground. The force of the shot had spun her around and thrown her to her stomach. Cassia fired again and she covered her head, perplexed and enraged, a slew of curses on her lips, but when she raised her head, everything came into focus.
A cloaked figure was sprinting to the west boundary of the park. As they ran, their hood fell away.
Pyval Crespo.
He ducked but didn’t slow as another bullet came at him from over Ilsa’s shoulder.
Cassia wasn’t aiming for her any more. Pyval had relinquished control of her mind.
Before Cassia could shoot again, a snarl tore through the clearing, and Ilsa turned to see a wolf tackle the girl to the ground. They were pouring into the clearing and surrounding her. They hadn’t seen the real threat, but it didn’t matter. Ilsa was on her feet, and then she was in the air.
That was when she felt the bullet. Pain lanced through her shoulder and her every muscle seized in protest as she tried to spread her wings. She careened towards the ground, catching herself at the final moment with one excruciating push. Then another. She could run on all fours, but it wouldn’t be any easier. Momentum. Only momentum would keep her flying through the agony.
Pyval was far ahead now, beyond the Outer Circle and into Camden proper. But Ilsa was a falcon. His human legs could not carry him fast enough to get beyond her sights. She just had to catch him up before he hit the border. Just needed to get close enough and—
And what? In animal form, she was too vulnerable to Pyval’s magic, and as a human she was unlikely to outmatch him. In the Otherworld, she would have had a pocketknife in her purse, but the Ilsa of the Witherward had no weapon but her claws.
And wolves. She shot a glance back at the park, where they were bursting through the trees on her heels. She wasn’t alone, not this time. Pyval wouldn’t know she was upon him until it was too late. She just needed to knock him out somehow and let the wolves come.
She just had to be fast.
He had cut a deft path through the streets, straight for the nearest point of the border, but Ilsa was closing in. She was directly overhead now.
But she had misread his destination. As they reached a corner, a carriage came speeding from the adjacent street. A rendezvous. The driver hauled on the reins and the horse banked hard to come level with Pyval, who leapt and grasped the open carriage door, and a pair of hands hauled him inside. Ilsa might have had time to dive and knock him off his feet, but the hands that caught Pyval had wrested her attention. She would never have seen it without her falcon’s vision. As it was, the seal ring on the right middle finger was clear as day: a cog, containing a cross-section of the human mind.
The Sage.
And Ilsa, out of time. The border loomed. The stewards raised weapons and shouted orders at the carriage, but there was nothing they could do but leap aside. Ilsa could not attack a Whisperer in front of them all, and she could not wait until they passed into Whitechapel.
But perhaps she could look. She could identify who killed her family.
She dived for the speeding carriage. As her talons made contact with the vehicle, she shifted into a leopard and brandished her claws. The second they knew she was there they would take control of her mind. She would have the briefest moment’s grace, if that. Steeling herself, she dug a claw into the roof and tore a window large enough to see inside.
Two heads snapped up, two pairs of eyes went wide with shock.
And Ilsa knew them both.
She shifted again and pushed the pain of the bullet to the back of her mind to spread her wings as far as they could go, letting the force of the air push her off the roof.
The carriage sped on, but if Pyval had got to Cassia in the park, then her fragile animal mind was still vulnerable from here. She was eight feet from the ground – close enough to live – so she shifted again, her shoulder screaming but her mind strong and human, and plummeted to the street.
* * *
Wet noses nudged at her. Growls and raised voices filled the air.
By some evil magic, it felt like every single part of her had hit the ground.
Someone said her name; begged her name. She knew them, but not like this. Not begging.
She tried to open her eyes but nothing happened. Every bit of strength had left her, but the pain remained.
“Ilsa, wake up.” The voice again. Male. A warm hand slipped under her neck and raised her up. She had liked that hand on her neck, she remembered that, and she instinctively leaned into him. Another hand went under her knees, and then she was off the ground, cradled against his chest, her head on his shoulder. The wolves had come.
Then she smelled fresh linens. Rain. She drew a painful breath and found her voice. “But… I’m cross with you.”
Eliot’s relieved laugh reverberated against her cheek. His muscles loosened, then held her tighter. “Good,” he said against her hair. There was more, and Ilsa wanted to hear it, but Eliot’s words faded as the world went dark.
* * *
She couldn’t have lost consciousness for long, because her shoulder was still streaming blood when she came to, and someone was lowering her onto a table top.
As someone cut her arm free from her dress, she rolled her head listlessly to take in the bustling room. She was in the kitchen. Most of the household staff and wolves on guard were crowding around the doorway, their fearful eyes gazing back at her. Oren and Ferrien were arguing in low voices. Fyfe was by her head, chewing his
