Page 136 of The Dragon and the Dove

Shaking her head, Nadia took a measured step back. ‘I can’t come with you. He wouldn’t come… I just… I can’t.’ She let the crossbow fall. ‘But I won’t kill Oriel’s dove. I won’t stand against fate. Not for him. Not for anyone.’

It was no life to live as a puppet in Andreas’s court. To love a man with a rotting heart. But the Dagger had made her choice.

How could Sera save her if she wouldn’t save herself?

She turned back to help Tobias just as an arrow whizzed over her head. It struck a drain between them and she jerked her chin up, frantically searching the rooftops. By the time she spotted the lone figure on the roof of the rectory, they were already firing another arrow. Nadia pounced, knocking Sera out of the way. They fell in a heap.

Tobias crawled out from under them, raising his hands to the sky. Gulls swarmed the square, flocking over the rooftops in a plague of grey feathers.

‘Move!’ he hissed. ‘We need to get to the cathedral.’

Sera scrabbled to her feet, reaching for Nadia’s hand. But the Dagger lay eerily still.

‘Nadia.’ She shook her shoulder. ‘We have to go.’

She saw the blood, then. It ran like syrup, staining the cobbles red. Tobias turned the Dagger over, finding the arrow sticking out of her side.

Sera bit off a curse.

Nadia whimpered and blood dribbled from the edge of her mouth.

‘She’s dying,’ whispered Tobias. ‘It’s in her lung.’

Another arrow flew, striking the streetlamp to their left. The gulls were thinning as Tobias’s strength waned. The cathedral, a hundred paces away, might as well have been in Urnica.

‘Help me get her to that bench.’ Sera marked an easier destination, less than twenty paces away.

Carrying Nadia between them, they made it to the bench, where they sheltered from another slew of arrows. There were more Daggers on the roof now. Soon, they’d be in the square.

Tobias removed the arrow and plugged the wound in Nadia’s side while Sera patted the Dagger down, hoping to find a vial of Shade in her pockets. There was nothing.

It occurred to her that they could simply leave Nadia here. Make for the cathedral and barricade the door, let the Dagger die on the streets she used to terrorize.

‘Can you help her?’ asked Tobias.

‘I don’t have any Lightfire.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’

Nadia lurched, coughing up more blood.

Tobias stared at the red streaming through his fingers. ‘She just saved our lives.’

‘She was the one threatening them.’ But Sera’s thoughts turned to another memory. To Bellevue Castle, when she’d found herself alone in the lion’s den, and the vial of mistbane that had secured her freedom. Nadia had risked her life to help her. Couldn’t she do the same for her?

Should she?

Her magic purred in answer.

There is more to do, Maker.

There were a hundred reasons why Sera should walk away, but here in the Saints’ Quarter with her palms aglow with fate’s light, she couldn’t think of a single one.

Moving quickly now, she unbuttoned Nadia’s coat. To Tobias, she said, ‘Go to the cathedral. Tell Mercure. Once the ritual begins, we’ll both fall unconscious. Daggers will come for us when the last of the gulls scatter.’

With a dip of his chin, Tobias took off. He hobbled across the square like a dutiful soldier, his blood a bright red target on his back.

Sera set to work on Nadia, whispering a prayer to the Saint of Destiny. ‘Please, Oriel, guide my hand.’