Page 138 of The Dragon and the Dove

Paola caught her elbow. ‘All right?’ she huffed, steadying her.

Anouk returned to herself with a shudder. She surveyed the destruction around her. Her destruction. ‘What have I done?’

‘Never mind that now. Can you get that damn dragon out of the sky?’

Bastian, still lost in the full tilt of his power, was trapped with them on the near side of the trench. Anouk leaped in front of him, pressing her hands against his chest. His heart hammered under her palm, and she gripped his shirt, shaking him.

‘Breathe, Bastian. You have to breathe.’

His chest was heaving, sweat dripping down his face.

‘We have to turn back,’ she said, urgently. ‘We have to get back to Seraphine and the others.’

Sera’s name struck him like an arrow. He jerked. High above, his dragon faltered.

‘Sera’s waiting for you,’ said Anouk. ‘Surrender your beast.’

He blinked, long and slow.

‘Come back to me, brother.’

The fight went out of him and he sagged against her. Run through by his own magic, he could barely stand. With Paola’s help, Anouk shouldered his weight, and together, they turned south towards the bridge.

Slowly, so very slowly, the dragon misted in the sky. Shadows fell like ribbons, dissolving as they kissed the cobbles. By then, the streets were empty, littered with broken glass and pulverized rubble, torn banners and dead bannermen.

All of it – every last unholy horror – was their fault.

Chapter 37 Ransom

Ransom returned to the Saints’ Quarter under an empty grey sky, feeling like he had lived a thousand lifetimes since dawn. He was all the worse for it. The dragon had been a thing of monstrous power. To sustain it had meant tunnelling deep into the black well of his soul. He had lost himself there.

Part of him was still trying to claw its way out.

Regret gnawed at him. By falling into Lark’s trap, he’d harmed the city he’d sworn to protect and dragged Anouk down with him. She trudged wearily beside him, lost in her own silent anguish, while Paola forged ahead, eager to return to the others.

Across the square, Our Sacred Saints’ Cathedral loomed, the stained-glass saints looking over them as if in disapproval. Months ago, during his first parting from Seraphine, Ransom had destroyed those windows and nearly pulled the whole building down with them. A regret he had atoned for, in gold and to great excess, in his first week as Head of the Order of Daggers.

There would be no atoning for the guilt that gutted him now.

Too many bannermen had fallen along Merchant’s Way, their eerily blank faces still flashing in his head. And still, Lark had got away. He had used the compelled like a shield while he scurried into the sewers like a rat.

That poisonous song of peace lingered, playing Ransom’s spine like a xylophone.

Peace, Lark had cried. Let there be peace.

And the townsfolk, so hopeful in their uncertainty, had joined his chorus.

The parade wasn’t a prelude to some grand scheme. It was the cheese in the mousetrap, and Ransom, slave to his own dark power, had devoured it. Devoured all of them.

Anouk sobbed into her sleeve.

He pulled her close, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. ‘Forgive me, Anouk.’

‘We’ve destroyed everything, Bastian.’

The name made him flinch. Whatever vestiges of Bastian had remained before today were gone. He was a monster now, a thing born from the brutal dark. Not a dreamer or an artist but a slave to his own nightmares.

Ahead of them, Paola skidded to a stop. ‘Blood.’