It wasn’t until Ilsa opened her eyes that she realised she’d closed them. She was sprawled on top of the Wraith, who had got a hold of her around the ribs, and she gasped as he squeezed, breaking something. But that bit of pressure was the most he could manage, because Ilsa’s knife was in his neck, and the light was leaving his eyes.
He went still as Ilsa got to her feet, woozy and breathless, but there would be no respite, because she had attracted the attention of another hooded figure.
The Whisperer glared at her with hatred and disgust. Ilsa was on her knees before she could push him out of her mind. She hadn’t thought she would ever want to hurt herself, but a macabre curiosity to learn what the Wraith had felt as she killed him seized her, so she turned the knife to her own neck.
And then the desire vanished. Ilsa stood. A black panther’s jaws were closing around the Whisperer’s neck. A woman – Oracle – was swinging the butt of her pistol at Ilsa’s head, but Ilsa ducked and dragged the knife across her shins. She caught the Oracle’s gun as she fell, then finished her with a blade to the neck.
But she now had bigger problems – much bigger. Another Whisperer was smiling viciously at her, and between them, under his spell, was Eliot.
He was stalking towards her on massive paws, claws extended and ready to tear her to ribbons.
“Eliot, you idiot!” she cried, but the cat took no notice. So she fumbled with her stolen pistol and fired off three rounds at the Whisperer. All missed.
The panther pounced. Ilsa tensed. A fourth bullet, fired from the door, found the Whisperer right between the eyes. Soft, wet fur brushed her skin before Eliot became human. The force of his impact sent them flying, but Ilsa hit the ground with one of Eliot’s arms banded tight around her waist and the other braced by her head, saving her skull.
They were alright.
Stunned, they both lay there – noses touching, chests heaving – until Ilsa shoved him away and scrambled to her feet.
“I said if you did anything stupid I’d kill you!”
“I didn’t realise saving your life counted,” he shot back.
“Somebody find Oren!” called Cassia, their saviour, who was still picking off the enemies from the door. She was firing her revolver with her right hand and letting off spells with the left. “Find the amulet!”
She covered them as they re-entered the house and raced back to the entrance hall. The front door had been obliterated, and glass and wood chips scattered the stone floor. The yellow smoke of a Sorcerer dampener was billowing from a doorway to the left, and the singing of a Wraith blade was coming from within. Ilsa hoped it was Fowler and not another Fortunatae member.
The wet sound of flesh tearing made them turn. Five yards away, a man was choking on blood, a blade run up through his abdomen. Ilsa was so utterly horrified she almost didn’t notice that his killer was her brother.
“Gedeon!” Ilsa gasped, but he didn’t react. He wiped his blade on his breeches and made for the stairs, catching sight of Eliot as he passed them. He careened to a halt, and Ilsa felt Eliot tense beside her.
“Eliot?” said Gedeon, cocking his head. “What are you—”
A nearby window shattered under a spell, and half a dozen Sorcerers poured in. Gedeon cut one down and continued on without a backward glance. Ilsa made to chase him, but Eliot grabbed her arm and shook his head.
“Blue eyes,” he said, ducking a spell. “Not him.”
They couldn’t see any Whisperers, so they both risked their animal forms to take on the rebels. Eliot moved like water, cutting through air and enemies like a stronger element. Every move was swift, graceful, intentional, like this was the body he truly belonged in. He took several hits from a flurry of spells, but each seemed to glide off him like he had a spelled shield of his own. He was just too strong for them.
Fowler joined them, and Ilsa – a menacingly oversized cat in her own right – was left with nothing to do, so she risked letting Eliot out of her sight to find the amulet.
But she didn’t have the first idea where to look. When Oren had told them about leaving it here, he seemed to hint to Ilsa that she knew something of it. But how could she? She had been a baby when it was hidden. At a loss, and with enemies in every direction on the ground floor, she decided to try upstairs.
The fighting lessened on the first floor, and as she got further from the stairs, the sounds of claws and guns and magic grew distant. Somehow, the orphanage was more frightening this way. It was more like the place she had known. There was the girls’ dormitory where she slept when she was good. There was the stairwell where she had accidentally become Lulu and sent the other kids screaming. Up there, on the second floor, was the door to the attic…
Ilsa jumped as a gaggle of small children burst from the dorm at the end of the hall and ran past her.
“Go!” a Camden wolf called after them, before something caught her in the back and she fell, lifeless, to the floor.
Ilsa ran towards her. She had to step over her body to get into the dorm, where a single remaining wolf was fighting off three men. It didn’t seem any of them could break into his mind, but their guns and spells were deadly enough, and the soldier had only a blade. He had barricaded himself behind a cot turned on its end, but he wouldn’t hold up much longer.
“Hey!” Ilsa called, and all three men swung towards her.
But she was already a mouse. It was her favourite part of The Great Balthazar’s defunct show, her vanishing trick, and she was well-practised in
