Page 85 of Rule of Wolves

But darkness enveloped her, and in the next minute, when the shadows cleared, he was gone.

Alina stood at the top of the sanatorium steps, her face ghostly in the gray light. Her right hand was bleeding. Misha was screaming, his anguish like the cry of something born wild as Mal held him back. Oncat looked on, unmoved, tail twitching, as if there was nothing a cat hadn’t seen.

“Let him go,” Alina said softly.

Misha shot down the stairs, angry tears spilling from his eyes, and stumbled into the woods in the direction the Darkling had gone. Mal’s hand was bleeding too.

The Sun Soldiers slowly climbed to their feet. They looked dazed, frightened.

“You’re all right?” Zoya asked.

They nodded.

“No broken bones?”

They shook their heads.

“Then prepare the coach. I need to get back to the airship. We’ll get messages to the nearest base to send sorties out to track him.”

“You won’t find him,” said Alina. “Not until he wants you to. He has the shadows for refuge.”

“I can damn well try,” Zoya said. “We have to get you out of here. We can evacuate you to—”

Alina shook her head. “We’re going back to Keramzin.”

“He’ll find you. Don’t underestimate him.” Zoya knew she sounded angry, even cold. But she didn’t know how else to hold back the flood of fear and helplessness threatening to overtake her. She’d let him get away and now she didn’t know what he might do, who he might hurt. She’d let this happen.

“I know what the Darkling is,” said Alina. “I know how he treats his enemies.”

“We both do,” said Mal, taking a handkerchief from his pocket to bind Alina’s hand. “We’re not letting him chase us from our home.”

“You don’t understand.” He was going to kill them. He was going to kill all of them and Zoya would be powerless to stop it. “We can find someplace to hide the orphans for a while. We can—”

Alina rested her hands on Zoya’s shoulders. “Zoya. Stop.”

“We’re not going to uproot the children,” Mal said. “They’ve already been through enough.”

“Then I’ll send a contingent of First Army soldiers and Summoners to you.”

Mal blew out a breath. “You can’t afford to waste soldiers, and they’d be no good against him anyway. All they’ll do is terrify the children.”

“Better that they’re scared and safe.”

“There is no safe,” Alina said, her voice steady. “There never has been. Not in my lifetime. But I meant what I said. You and Nikolai are the ones who can change that.”

“How did he do it? What happened in there?”

“He drove this through our hands.” Mal uncurled his fingers. In his palm lay a long, bloody thorn.

A piece of the thorn wood. The Darkling must have hidden it somewhere in Yuri’s clothing. He’d kept it with him since the failed obisbaya and their battle on the Fold, waiting for his moment.

“He needed our blood,” said Alina.

The Sun Saint and the tracker—Morozova’s other descendant. The two people who had almost ended his life. Only our own power can destroy us, and even then it’s not a sure thing. He’d been taunting them the whole time, begging them to guess at his plan. I understand we’re blood related.

Panic reared up in Zoya, a clawing, panting thing. “I let him go. I failed all of us.”

“Not yet,” said Mal. “Unless, of course, you’re giving up.”