“So I have done what is necessary.” He levelled his sure, steady gaze at Gedeon. “And I would do it again.”
Ilsa was knocked off her feet. Not by the shaking house, but by Pyval bursting through the door. He clutched his chest and leaned heavily on the doorjamb, but he was still breathing, and still brandishing his pistol.
“No!” he cried, glaring wide-eyed at what had become of the amulet. He raised his gun at Oren. “You fool! You half-breed fool!”
With a miserable howl, Pyval fired. Oren made the smallest sound of surprise as blood started to seep through his shirt, right above his heart.
“Oren!” bellowed Gedeon as the Whisperer turned his gun on him.
Ilsa didn’t think. Thinking was never what she had needed to do; she had been in this very attic when she learned that. This is where fear had drowned out her instincts and stopped her from hearing that power inside her, the one that had always known what she was supposed to do.
She had escaped, but she had never been free. Fear had stopped her from using her magic her whole life. But something about being back here was calling up that power inside her. It was telling her, in a voice she could always hear but had never listened to, to remember what she already knew.
So Ilsa didn’t think, she shifted.
Even over the rumble of the crumbling house, the thud of her paws hitting the floor resounded through the attic, as did the roar that burst uncontrollably from her throat as she launched herself at Pyval.
He slammed into the wall, Ilsa’s claws at his throat. He howled as she dragged her paw down his neck and slashed open his chest. He thrashed, then slumped against the wall, twitching. Blood was seeping from between his lips when Ilsa shifted, her hands still on his mangled, bloody chest. “That’s for Bill Blume,” she whispered as she watched the light go out of Pyval’s eyes.
Ilsa shoved at him as she turned away, not even looking back as she heard his corpse thud to the floor. He did not deserve her attention. Instead, she crouched next to Oren. Gedeon was on his other side, one hand cradling the man’s head.
Oren was breathing rapidly, each gasp ripping from him with a small moan of pain. There was nothing controlled about the abyss behind his eyes now. Ilsa pressed her hands against the hole in his chest like she could hold the blood in, and he smiled.
“Not this time,” he breathed.
His hands joined hers on his chest. One closed gently around her wrist as the scars on his own rose like phantoms; he hadn’t the strength to hide them any longer. In the other hand was the pocket forge. “A remarkable thing,” he said, eyes on hers, before he became still.
“Oren?” His eyes were still open, but there was nothing behind them anymore.
People were calling her, calling Gedeon. She didn’t want to look away from Oren’s face – serene again, the way she would remember it – but from the corner of her eye she saw Gedeon climb to his feet and lift Cogna over his shoulder. The child must have been alive, at least.
“Leave him, Ilsa!” shouted Gedeon, his tone fierce but his face desolate and tear-streaked. “He’s gone!”
She brushed her bloody fingertips over Oren’s eyes, closing them, and then she took the pocket forge and let Gedeon pull her to her feet and towards the door. He was descending the staircase when she remembered.
Miss Mitcham was a ball in the corner, her knees pulled up to her chin. She had a rosary, and she rubbed the beads between her fingers as she prayed.
Just like reaching for Cogna’s knife, Ilsa didn’t want to go to her; she didn’t want to offer her hand. It just happened. Her voice was her own at least, bright and brave, as she said: “Come with me, miss. We got to get out.”
Miss Mitcham stared in horror at Ilsa’s outstretched hand. “I’m not going anywhere with you, devil!” she cried, and hugged herself tighter.
The floorboards beneath her shifted, Miss Mitcham cowered as the tiles above her came loose, and Ilsa felt something for the woman she would never have imagined possible: pity.
“Your loss, miss.”
She retreated to the door and looked back. She searched the loathsome woman’s face for any sign of a change of heart, a moment of humanity, even if it only lasted long enough for Ilsa to save her life. But all that was there was pure loathing; a loathing she would cling to through a painful, unseemly death.
“It’s all your loss,” she said, and she left her there, just as she wanted.
V
THE HONEY BEE
Apis mellifera
The honey bee is but a part of the superorganism that is the colony. Only the queen is of vital importance; as such she is fiercely protected.
38
When Ilsa, Gedeon, and the unconscious Cogna got clear of the orphanage – no more than a minute before half of it crumpled to rubble with a sound that shook the earth – there was no hovering about. Kennington Road was swarming with Otherworlders; perhaps two hundred or more. Shivering, wide-eyed children were everywhere. Cadell Fowler stood in the fray, holding a grubby eight-year-old by the collar and scowling. Though the evidence he had any authority over the situation was slim, Ilsa surmised he had been left in charge of the children.
“Wait here,” she said to Gedeon, and she became invisible and made a dash for the captain. With the chaos as cover, she put four fingers in her mouth and whistled hard.
“Partner up!”
The orphans filtered through the bystanders towards her and Fowler like water through muslin. In fifteen seconds, they had whipped themselves
