“Then give it here.” She held her hand out for the knife and wished that she hadn’t left hers buried in a Sorcerer. It wasn’t that she wanted to slaughter the woman in cold blood, but the sight of her, in this place… something inside her had been stretching since she got here, and had finally snapped. She saw that her outstretched hand was trembling.
“Ilsa,” said Oren, and Ilsa felt a hand on her shoulder. She shook him off.
“Ilsa?” Miss Mitcham’s bloodshot eyes roamed over her, unsure. It was a look that hollowed Ilsa out in a way she didn’t think was possible. “Is it really you?”
The woman had chained her to that very cot, sometimes for days at a time, had beaten her, bled her, made her believe she was a demon – and now she was looking at her like they had become strangers.
They could never be strangers. Not after what Miss Mitcham put her through. She deserved more. Tears. Screams. Something.
“Hello, miss,” Ilsa said, somehow rendering a calm she didn’t feel. She moved towards them, and Cogna hastily sheathed the knife. “D’you notice I brought some friends with me. They’re from the devil’s realm too.”
Miss Mitcham wept and crossed herself. Another loud crash sounded from downstairs, followed by a groan as the building faltered. They all glanced nervously at the ceiling.
“You better tell me what you want,” Ilsa said to Cogna, but she wasn’t heard. Cogna’s eyes were on Oren, Oren’s were on the thing in Cogna’s hand – the thing they’d come for. The little Oracle had already retrieved the wooden wolf from the floorboard where Ilsa had hidden it all those years ago.
“S’alright, kid,” said Ilsa, “we’re all on the same side.” But she wasn’t sure she believed it. Oren looked like he was readying himself to use force on the child.
“I’m sorry, Mr Tarenvale,” said Cogna, one hand twitching towards their knife. Even with the child’s Sight, it would not be a fair fight if it came to it. “You cannot have it. The amulet is not for you.”
“I don’t believe you intended it for Gedeon either,” said Oren.
“No, I did not,” Cogna sighed, “though I regret that I lied to him. The amulet is for you, Ilsa Ravenswood.”
Ilsa started in surprise. “Beg your pardon?”
“I can’t say for sure that the amulet is key,” said Cogna, “but I have known for some time that you are. When I Saw that the Prince of Camden was coming for the amulet, I took it as a sign.”
Cogna cut off as a sound like bending wood resonated from below. The sudden swell of voices was unmistakable; everybody was getting out.
“Gedeon Ravenswood is not the one who saves the city,” Cogna told Ilsa, “you are. I have Seen it. Others have Seen it before me. Please, Mr Tarenvale. You mustn’t interfere.”
Cogna wedged their knife into the wolf and, squeezing those opalescent eyes shut and leaning away, smashed the knife against the wall, breaking the wolf into several pieces.
Ilsa didn’t get to see what happened next.
“Cogna!” someone roared from below. “Time to go!”
It was Gedeon. He was on the second floor, mere feet away. Without thinking, Ilsa bolted from the attic and half-ran, half-fell down the stairs.
From the second floor, the extent of the damage was obvious. Part of the exterior wall was missing, and smoke – real smoke, the kind that came from fire – hung thick in the air.
“Gedeon?” Ilsa choked.
“Cogna?” He appeared from through the smoke, his clothes torn, bloody and soaked through from the ceaseless rain. He squinted at her. “You.”
“Gedeon.”
He frowned at her face, at her sodden, indistinguishable hair. Something halfway between incredulity and understanding crossed his features, and transformed into anger and misery. Before Ilsa could say another word, he had drawn his sword and gripped her by the neck.
“Take it off,” he growled. “That disguise. Take it off!”
They both lost their footing as the house shook, and were thrown against the wall. Gedeon struggled to his knees and was looming over her, his grip still around her throat.
“It’s no disguise,” gasped Ilsa.
She could see him better from nearer the floor, below the smoke, and he could see her better too. The eyes that were a little wider than his mother’s; the lids a little heavier, like his father’s. The cheekbones that would always be sharper than Lyander’s, on account of an adolescence of malnutrition, days without food on the streets of the Otherworld.
Slowly, the hand at her throat softened. His fingers floated over her skin and grazed her cheek, like he had to feel her there to know she was real. The frown never left his face as he pressed back on his haunches.
“You’re dead,” he said.
“No, she’s somewhat hard to kill,” said a voice.
Ilsa and Gedeon spun. Pyval Crespo had braved the crumbling stairs and stood behind them, a dagger in one hand and a pistol in the other. The latter was pointed at Gedeon’s chest.
Ilsa hardened her mind. She had practised alone daily since the last time she’d gone up against the Sage’s twisted assistant. Though she felt Pyval test the edge of her consciousness, felt his nightmare void creeping into the corner of her vision, her mind was sharp and human, and her determination was fierce. She would not let him take control of her again.
“Pyval,” said Gedeon, his bravado returning as he shifted himself between the man and Ilsa. “You know, it’s hard to stab a man in the back when he has an omnic at his side. Cogna figured you out just in time. You can tell Alitz Dicer all her supporters are dead.”
Pyval braced himself against the wall as the house shifted again.
“Yes, we should have realised sooner that you were expecting us.” He cast a glance at Ilsa. “We also did not anticipate your friends showing up, since you abandoned them all so heartlessly.”
Gedeon cocked his head and looked from Pyval to Ilsa. He didn’t know. He hadn’t seen any of them.
Pyval’s grip
