When the Whisperer gave up on her, she found herself face to face with another Gedeon. She was utterly desensitised by now.
“What are you doing?” he said, looking at her like she’d sprouted from the floor.
“Helping.”
“Helping?”
“You idiots are surrounded!” she snapped. “Fortunatae, Heart rebels. They got the acolytes on their side too now, so stealing that kid better have been worth it.” A bullet hit the cot and they both tensed. “This is a children’s home, you know. Full of children?”
“We’re on top of it,” he said, grinning. “No children are getting hurt.”
“Yeah, you look really on top of it.” A spell; this one hit with a crackle and set the cot on fire. “You take the one on the left,” Ilsa said, and without giving herself time to reconsider, she stood and started firing.
Or, at least, she tried. She was empty. The wolf had closed the distance between him and the other and was winning, with a little help of his claws, but Ilsa was on her own.
The Sorcerer smiled at her and raised his hand. On instinct, she pulled out her knife again and threw it, and it buried itself in the man’s chest. Ilsa took a second to marvel at how many useful skills her former profession had given her.
Across the room, blood spattered across the floorboards. Her comrade shifted from lion to man with a thrashing motion, and grinned; a dashing, carefree grin the portraits never showed.
“Thanks,” he said, making for the door. “Now get out of here.” He stopped at the threshold and tilted his head, hazel eyes flashing. “It’s strange. You look awfully like my mother.”
“I—”
But he was gone. “Wait!” She ran, but when she reached the corridor, it was deserted. “Damn it, Gedeon.”
There wasn’t time to catch up with Gedeon. She needed to find Oren and the amulet, but the house was huge, and it could be anywhere. She kicked the wall in frustration. Why had he been so sure she knew where it was? A floorboard groaned overhead, and Ilsa’s head snapped up, something tugging at her memory. The very first time they had spoken, Oren had pressed her for the whereabouts of something, but it wasn’t the amulet. It was the wooden wolf, the one that matched Gedeon’s.
Only, it didn’t. One wolf was hollow, the other was not.
Ilsa’s throat went dry. She climbed the stairs to the next floor without difficulty, but when she found herself before the steps to the attic, her feet locked in place like she was under some kind of spell. But the power that had taken over her this time came from her mind; her frightened, fractured mind, scored irrevocably with fifty reasons not to climb the stairs.
She hated that the words that swam up through the depths to soothe her were Eliot’s; treacherous, lying Eliot.
Look around you, Ilsa. We’re all scared. It’s only a weakness if you give in to it.
And so she let herself be scared. Her heart hammered against her ribs, and sickness churned in her belly, but she squared her shoulders anyway, and climbed the stairs to the attic.
37
The attic room was tiny, just as Ilsa remembered, with gaps in the floorboards and roof tiles.
Oren stood warily by the door, his gaze fixed on a spot under the slope of the far wall, between two towers of boxes, where the cot Ilsa had slept on as a child still lay. And sat on it, of all the horrors, was Miss Mitcham herself.
She hadn’t aged much, but then, it had only been eight years. Her mousy hair was thinner, and peppered with more greys, but her skin had that same too-soft quality; her face the same shapelessness.
Her hair was messily plaited and she wore a nightgown that had seen better days. The stump of her left arm poked out where she had rolled the sleeve up to the elbow. Ilsa remembered biting her vividly. Her teeth had sunk bone-deep and the wound had gotten infected. That was what you got for cornering a frightened bloodhound. The only remorse Ilsa had felt was over the blood on her own pinafore.
She had been crying, and she shook, but the most striking thing about Miss Mitcham was the knife at her throat.
Her captor was small for thirteen, and round-faced with a round chin; a babyish look that made them seem even younger. Sleek, white-blonde hair was gathered in a tight bun at the top of their head. Small ears stuck out at right angles, and a pair of all-white eyes shimmered like opals.
“This is the famous Cogna?” said Ilsa. She kept her eyes on the Oracle to keep from seeing the walls shrink towards her.
“Hello, Ilsa Ravenswood,” Cogna said in a light and lilting voice. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
Ilsa glanced at Oren, who said, “The child asked that I fetch you, and only you, or they’d hurt this woman.” He gestured to Miss Mitcham. “I told them you would come of your own accord.”
Ilsa folded her arms. “You found a bit of jewellery in a different universe with your magic bloody powers, and you couldn’t figure out I don’t care nothing for that woman?” Cogna’s little knife-wielding hand dropped to their side. “You want something from me? Be a dear and cut her throat. Then we’ll talk.”
Miss Mitcham gave a shriek and cowered, but Cogna gaped, wide-eyed.
“I wasn’t actually going to hurt her.” It came out like a squeak. “I just
