IV
Lila’s back hit the pillar hard.
She crumpled to the stone floor of the throne room, and blood ran into her false eye as she struggled to push herself to her hands and knees. Her shoulder cried out with pain, but so did the rest of her. She tried not to think about it. Astrid, meanwhile, seemed to be having a grand time. She was smiling lazily at Lila, like a cat with a kitchen mouse.
“I am going to cut that smile off your face,” growled Lila as she staggered to her feet.
She had been in a lot of fights with a lot of people, but she’d never fought anyone like Astrid Dane. The woman moved with both jarring speed and awkward grace, one moment slow and smooth, the next striking so fast that it was all Lila could do to stay on her feet. Stay alive.
Lila knew she was going to lose.
Lila knew she was going to die.
But she’d be damned if it counted for nothing.
Judging by the rumbling of the castle grounds around them, Kell had his hands full. The least she could do was keep the number of Danes he had to fight to one. Buy him a little time.
Honestly, what had happened to her? The Lila Bard of south London looked out for herself. That Lila would never waste her life on someone else. She’d never choose right over wrong so long as wrong meant staying alive. She’d never have turned back to help the stranger who helped her. Lila spit a mouthful of blood and straightened. Perhaps she never should have stolen the damned stone, but even here, and now, facing death in the form of a pale queen, she didn’t regret it. She’d wanted freedom. She’d wanted adventure. And she didn’t think she minded dying for it. She only wished dying didn’t hurt so much.
“You’ve gotten in the way long enough,” said Astrid, raising her hands in front of her.
Lila’s mouth quirked. “I do seem to have a talent for that.”
Astrid began to speak in that guttural tongue Lila had heard in the streets. But in the queen’s mouth, the words sounded different. Strange and harsh and beautiful, they poured from her lips, rustling like a breeze through rotting leaves. They reminded Lila of the music blanketing the crowd in Rhy’s parade, sound made physical. Powerful.
And Lila wasn’t foolish enough to stand there and listen to it. Her pistol, now empty, lay discarded several feet away, her newest knife at the foot of the throne. She still had one dagger at her back and she went for it, sliding the weapon free. But before the blade could leave her fingers, Astrid finished the incantation, and a wave of energy slammed into Lila, knocking the wind out of her lungs as she hit the floor and slid several feet.
She rolled up into a crouch, gasping for air. The queen was toying with her.
Astrid’s fingers rose as she prepared to strike again, and Lila knew it was her only chance. Her fingers tightened on the dagger, and she threw it, hard and fast and straight, at the queen’s heart. It flew right at Astrid, but instead of dodging, she simply reached out and plucked the metal out of the air. With her bare hand. Lila’s heart sank as the queen snapped the blade in two and tossed the pieces aside, all without interrupting her spell.
Shit, thought Lila, right before the stone floor beneath her began to rumble and shake. She fought to keep her footing and very nearly missed the wave of broken stone cresting over her head. Pebbles rained from above, and she dove out of the way just as the whole thing came crashing down. She was fast, but not fast enough. Pain tore up her right side, her leg, from heel to knee, which was trapped beneath the rubble, pale stone flecked with fragments of whitened rock.
No, not whitened rock, realized Lila with horror.
Bones.
Lila scrambled to free her leg, but Astrid was there, wrenching her onto her back and kneeling on her chest. Astrid reached down and ripped the horned mask from Lila’s facs, tossing it aside. She took hold of Lila’s jaw and wrenched her face up to hers.
“Pretty little thing,” said the queen. “Under all that blood.”
“Burn in hell,” spat Lila.
Astrid only smiled. And then the nails of her other hand sank into Lila’s wounded shoulder. Lila bit back a scream and thrashed under the queen’s grip, but it was no use.
“If you’re going to kill me,” she snapped, “just do it already.”
“Oh, I will,” said Astrid, withdrawing her fingers from Lila’s throbbing shoulder. “But not yet. When I have finished with Kell, I shall come back for you, and I shall take my time divesting you of your life. And when I’m done, I’ll add you to my floor.” She held up her hand between them, showing Lila her fingertips, now stained with blood. It was such a vivid red against the queen’s pale skin. “But first …” Astrid brought a bloody finger to the place between Lila’s eyes, tracing a pattern there.
Lila fought as hard as she could to get free, but Astrid was an unmovable force on top of her, pinning her down as she drew a bloody mark on her own pale forehead.
Astrid began to speak, low and fast and in that other tongue. Lila struggled frantically now, and tried to scream, attempting to interrupt the spell, but the queen’s long fingers clamped over her mouth, and Astrid’s spell spilled out, taking shape in the air around them. A spike of ice shot through Lila, her skin prickling as the magic rippled over her. And above her, the queen’s face began to change.
Her chin sharpened, and her cheeks warmed from porcelain to a healthier hue. Her lips reddened, and her eyes darkened from blue to brown—two different shades—and her hair, once as white as snow and wound about her head, now fell down onto her face, chestnut brown and chopped in a sharp line along her jaw. Even her clothes rippled and shifted and took on an all-too-familiar form. The queen smiled a knifelike grin, and Lila gazed up in horror not at Astrid Dane, but at the mirror image of herself.
When Astrid spoke, Lila’s own voice poured out. “I better go,” she said. “I’m sure Kell could use a hand.”
Lila swung a last, desperate punch, but Astrid caught her wrist as if it were nothing more than a nuisance, and pinned it against the floor. She bent her head over Lila’s, bringing her lips to her ear. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I’ll give him your regards.”
And then Astrid slammed Lila’s head back against the ruined floor, and Lila’s world went dark.