“In forty-two seconds. When Captain Goode shoots him,” Miss Fahlstrom answered.
I stared at her and Captain Goode, completely speechless.
“I don’t think either of us likes that outcome,” Captain Goode said. “But your prophecies can change, yes?”
“They can,” Miss Fahlstrom replied.
“How?”
“When I tell another, it can change their behavior in such a way that they alter the future.”
Dammit. I looked at Mr. Kent. “Has your power been raised this whole time?” I asked him.
He mumbled something unintelligible and nodded.
“Evelyn, don’t give it to him,” Sebastian said, shaking his head.
I took a deep breath and lowered the gun. And possibly us into a grave. But there had to be another way to save him.
The torturer limped over to me and took the pistol. He slipped it into his jacket pocket and kept his hand at my back. A familiar warmth filled my gut, that invigorating feeling of Captain Goode enhancing my power. My wounds practically knit themselves together by the time I glanced down. Only slight reddish hues were left to mark the spots.
Mr. Thorpe inhaled deeply as my healing fixed his remaining injuries. “Thank you,” he said and stepped back into his corner.
My power left me again with a chill.
“There we are,” Captain Goode said, his gun still on Sebastian. “Now Miss Fahlstrom, how and when am I going to die?”
“A Frenchman named Adrien Martin will poison you thirty days from today at a dinner party,” she answered. “You will die in your bedroom the next morning.”
“I will have to do something about him then. But for now, I’m satisfied,” Captain Goode said, finally lowering his gun.
“When will Sebastian Braddock die?” I asked.
“At his execution tomorrow morning,” she said.
The world shrank down to those five words.
That couldn’t be. My follow-up question came out as a whimper. “W-what?”
“His execution is tomorrow morning,” she repeated. “I’m sorry.”
But then … that meant this plan would be a failure. My eyes flickered over to the window, where Beauchamp Tower sat quietly in the dark.
“If you’re waiting for your friends to help you, it will be about twelve hours,” Captain Goode said. “I asked my songbird, Miss Tolman, to wait for the fighting to come to an end before putting everyone to sleep. I believe you have met her. No one can resist her lullabies.”
I tried to keep my body steady. The old woman who sang people to sleep. We’d met when Oliver was hurt, and I’d completely forgotten her. Which left me alone. Useless. Powerless. There was no other way to save Sebastian.
“Though I must admit, you did surprise me by coming here tonight,” Captain Goode said. “Miss Fahlstrom told me I was going to die in fifty-seven years, in a prison. Which didn’t provide much information about your plan. How did you do it?”
“By deciding not to kill you,” I spat out.
Dammit. Do something. Do something. Do something.
“And here I was trying to give you more reasons to kill me at the execution,” Captain Goode said, shaking his head in disappointment. “But you were more interested in saving him, weren’t you?”
My eyes met Sebastian’s heartrending gaze, and the answer came out as a growl. “Yes.”
“That’s quite useful information for Miss Fahlstrom’s power,” he said. “Thank you.”
Do anything.
I turned to the torturer. “What is your power’s weakness?”
“Only people in my sight can be hurt,” Mr. Thorpe sputtered, trying to cover his mouth.
Captain Goode’s flinty expression shifted to fury. “Remind her what you can do.”
The torturer lifted the kerchief from his eye, and that awful pain seized me.
I cried out, as much as I didn’t want to give Captain Goode the satisfaction. But the pain was worse than I remembered, constantly changing. It brought me to the ground and refused to let go. It was piercing, then suffocating, then burning. I hated my body for existing, for feeling pain. I just wanted it to stop, please.
Captain Goode’s voice joined the agony. “This is the other reason I wanted to keep you alive.” His footsteps came closer. I could hear muffled yells coming from Sebastian or Mr. Kent, but I could barely concentrate with the pain splitting my head into dust. His face seemed to be right next to mine. “So the rest of your life will serve as an example. As a deterrent for those who consider shirking the duty and responsibility their power demands. You’re going to spend it in agony.”
He sniffed and stood back up. “It is a necessity. And this isn’t a pain healing fixes. This isn’t even a pain you can get numb to. This is a pain you brought on yourself.”
His footsteps faded away, returning to his prisoners. “Tie her up.”
I moaned, managing a deep breath. He was right. The pain was excruciating. But I’d been choked, burned, stabbed, pummeled, electrocuted, frozen, and broken. I’d been knocked off a roof, thrown from a train, and forced to watch the people I love die. I wasn’t going to let one man taking my power away and another glaring at me be the end of it.
My hand clicked the dagger fan tied to my wrist and I shot up through the pain with everything I had. My blade found the torturer’s gut, and he doubled over, his gaze finally off me. I gasped in relief and pulled out the dagger, a lightness in my body. Captain Goode spun around and reached for his weapon, but I already had mine. I clutched the torturer’s hair and aimed his evil eye right at my target.
Captain Goode got one shot off before he collapsed in pain. It hit the torturer in his chest and I felt him stumble, but I pushed him forward, one hand roughly pulling his eyelids up to keep his gaze locked on Captain Goode. The gun dropped out of Captain Goode’s hand by Sebastian’s feet, and he kicked it out of reach, while I snatched Mr. Kent’s pistol back from Mr. Thorpe’s jacket pocket. It took a few seconds for Captain Goode to find the strength to shut down Mr. Thorpe’s power, but by that time, the torturer was falling to the ground, unconscious, and I was already taking aim. A shot in Captain Goode’s stomach and another in his leg kept him down.
I trained my gun on Captain Goode and kept my distance, giving him a moment to feel the pain and realize the situation he was in. “If you don’t want to die, you will turn my power on, turn over, and stay down.”
He simply stayed still, stared at me, and breathed. No warmth of power came.
“You will bleed to death,” I told him.
“No, I know how I am going to die,” Captain Goode said with a disconcerting smile. “The same way as the rest of you.” He turned his glassy gaze to Sebastian’s foot and reached out. “I’ll see you in fourteen years.”
No.
His body went still in an instant. I fired futile shots at him, but it was too late. The effect was immediate, and it knocked the breath out of me. For the first time, I felt the full power of Sebastian Braddock.
One, two, three …
My legs went weak, my breath short. I struggled for air, choking, feeling energy leaving me, my coughs speckling the floor with blood. I spun around to find Mr. Kent and Miss Fahlstrom experiencing the same effects, patches of blue appearing on their skin. Captain Goode had turned Sebastian’s power up so high that his presence was as deadly as his touch was. That meant twenty seconds until we would all fall unconscious. Thirty until death.
Four, five, six …
Tied up next to Captain Goode’s corpse sat Sebastian, panic seizing his body. He struggled against his restraints with fervency and fury. Tears and sweat were streaking his face. “Evelyn!” he roared.
My legs trembled as my eyes met his.
Seven, eight, nine …
“Evelyn! Please! You must!” Sebastian pleaded.
I knew what he wanted me to do. What I had to do. I sucked in a desperate breath of air and took an agonizing step in his direction. And then another. It felt like I was wasting away as I lurched toward him. The life slowly chipping and flaking off of my body. I fell to my knees, wheezing, the world dimming and fading and disintegrating around me.
Twelve, thirteen, fourteen …