Kill her.
A blaze of flame shot up the side of the house, wood catching fire beneath torches and quickly turning into an inferno.
Cedar Hunt rushed silently through the cover of underbrush, the cover of shadow, the tuning fork screaming a bitter song.
Mae couldn’t die. He couldn’t let her die. Couldn’t bear her death. He ran a wide berth to get behind the house to the door he had heard slam. The wind heaved with smoke, fouling Cedar’s sense of smell.
She couldn’t survive that fire. He’d told her to stay. She would be burned alive.
Wolf instinct yelled:
Cedar pressed his ears down against his head and bared his teeth as he ran across the field. The wound in his side split open, poured with new pain. Almost there. Almost there to save Mae.
The heat from the fire grew stronger and stronger with every step he took. The light ruined his vision.
He leaped through the open back door and into a blistering hell.
Fire roared, chewing away the walls, snapping the wooden whimsies, burning them to ash, destroying the chairs, the floor, the walls, the ceiling, with white-hot liquid heat. Cedar crouched, eyes slit, and pushed into the living room. Searching for Mae.
Smoke burned his eyes; embers singed his fur. His skin charred. He could not find her. Could not find Mae.
There might be a nook or corner where she hid, but there was too much fire. He could not endure.
And Cedar Hunt could not hold against that instinct any longer.
He ran from the house. Out into the night. Ran until his lungs filled with air instead of smoke. Ran until the cool winds cleaned his eyes and soothed his flesh.
He had to believe Mae had found her way out. He had to believe she had left the house earlier in the day; had to believe she had tired of waiting for him and gone hunting. Had to believe that the door slamming was just a trick of the wind.
But he didn’t. Not in these lands where nightmares spread roots and sucked away all hope, all life.
The mob broke up, chose which men would stay and see to it that the house burned to the ground. Just then the matic suddenly huffed louder, and rumbled away from the gathering, out into the field.
Cedar knew where the matic would go. Back to the rail.
And that was where he would kill.
Cedar Hunt raised his voice, sorrow and anger howling against the night sky.
He took a step, and the pain from the wound in his side bloomed hot through him. It was bleeding again, bleeding still, worse than it had been. He didn’t care. There was no time to stop. No time to feel pain. He ran, first just a lope, then a ground-eating run. To the rail. To death.
Mae Lindson couldn’t get to the shotgun on the ground next to her and charge it in time to shoot Mr. Shunt. Rose Small didn’t look so much frightened in Mr. Shunt’s grip as just angry. That Rose was keeping her head about her was one thing good to their advantage. Unfortunately, Mae couldn’t think of many more.
“Your end is come, Shard LeFel,” Alun Madder said, his voice low, but commanding. “We have played this game to its finish. And just as you were banished to walk this land, you will die in this mortal land. Enough of your hollow threats. If we had the mind to, we’d shoot you now.”
“And lose the Holder?” Shard LeFel smiled. “How would the order of the king’s guard reward you when they find that you have let a weapon of that magnitude slip through your fingers?”
“You underestimate the guard’s resources,” Alun Madder said. “We’ll find the Holder, whether or not you’re breathing.”
“Or you’ll find pieces of it.”
Alun’s head jerked up.
Shard LeFel smiled. “If you kill me, the Holder will explode like glass under a hammer. And every piece will be loose in the land. Even one fragment of the Holder will destroy cities, kill hundreds, thousands, in most unusual and painful ways.” He smiled again. “You will not shoot me. But I have no such qualms about this girl. Mr. Shunt, make her bleed.”
Mr. Shunt raised the knife to her face.
“No!” Mae stepped forward. “Don’t hurt her. I’ll come with you. Let Rose go.”
“Mrs. Lindson,” Alun said, his voice tight, his eyes on Shard LeFel. “Don’t do what this dog says. We’ll find a way to save Miss Small.”
“Not before he has that monster cut her apart,” Mae said. “No, I’m going with him.”
Alun Madder took a step forward and extended his hand to her. They shook and he said, “I only wish you’d take a minute when you need it the most. Think things through.”
“I have thought this through,” she said.
“Then that might just save us all. Good luck to you.” Alun Madder searched her face, finding, she knew, her determination. Mr. LeFel might know she was a witch. But he most certainly did not know she was a witch like no other. Vows and curses came to her as easy as drawing a breath. And Mae didn’t need any weapon greater than that.
Alun stepped away and Mae realized he had pressed a pocket watch into her palm. It was warm, as if an ember lay coiled within it. No, not an ember—glim. She had seen glim once, from a man who tried to sell just a drop of it to her when she and Jeb were traveling out this way. She would know the feel of it anywhere.
She had no idea how a pocketful of glim would do her any good, though it was said the glim could give strength to anything it was set upon. She tucked the watch away in her coat, and turned back to face Mr. Shard LeFel.
“Let Rose Small go.” Mae took a few good-faith steps toward the matic, then stopped, waiting.
Mr. Shard LeFel worked the levers in the monstrous metal beast. “Yes, of course. Let us make good on our promise, Mr. Shunt. Let the girl go.”
Mr. Shunt pushed Rose so hard she flew several feet before landing on the ground.
And just as quickly, Mr. Shunt suddenly appeared in front of Mae.
She sucked in a gasp. Before she could exhale, he had cut the straps of her satchels and packs. They dropped in a thump to the ground. He wrapped at least two arms around her, another clutched to the brim of his hat.
And then the world became a blur. Ground sped by, the side of the matic pulled up beneath her as Mr. Shunt scaled it nimbly as a spider climbing a wall.
Once over the edge of the cab, Mae was shoved, facedown, and pressed into the leather cushions behind Shard LeFel’s throne. Mr. Shunt pressed his knee in her back with a punishing weight.
She couldn’t move if she wanted to. Steam pounded the air and jolted the matic into action.
Facedown with Mr. Shunt’s wide, hard hand clamped against the back of her head and his knee digging at her spine, Mae could still tell the matic moved faster than anything she’d ever known, faster than trains or ships.
And she had no idea where they were taking her.
Rose Small hurt from her bonnet to her boots. More than feeling bruised and scraped, she was angry. She pushed up and staggered to her feet, but it was too late. The matic thundered off over the field faster than a racehorse on Sunday.
“Stop!” she yelled, which did absolutely no good.
“They can’t hear you,” Alun Madder mused. “All those gears and steam deafen.” He tapped at one ear for good measure.
Rose turned on the Madder brothers. She knew she shouldn’t, but she had so much anger boiling up inside of her, she thought she’d about go insane from the noise of it. “You should have stopped him! How can you just let that, that Shard LeFel take Mae? He’s going to kill her!”
Bryn Madder was down in the collapsed tunnel, handing up packs, gear, and a crate or two. Alun and Cadoc took each load from him, spreading the barrels and crates out, then digging in their packs. They were paying no attention to her.
