The third elephant, larger than even the first had been, had no patience at all—he rammed his way out of the stall, his tusks tossing the barrier to the side. Sophia dove out of the way, narrowly missing the door as it smashed back onto the stone floor.
Somewhere, beyond the gray mountains of their leathery hides, the main door burst open and the shadowy attackers attempted to rush inside—attempted, because the nearest elephant lifted its head from the wine and trumpeted a warning that would have made the dead turn in their graves. The two in front had a moment to fall back before the elephant reared up, scraping the ceiling with its tusks, and forced its way out through the door, stampeding into the night.
“What now?” Sophia asked, righting her eye patch.
Nicholas pointed to the side of the nearest stall, which led into an open-air exercise or training courtyard. Hopefully there would be a way back into the city through it as well. He hoisted his full bag, switching shoulders, as he entered the stall. The soft grass padding it seemed to eat his footsteps, but it didn’t matter—three drunk elephants were enough of a distraction for their pursuers.
Nicholas edged around the nearest wall, tucking himself between two tall structures, out of sight from the street. A moment later, Sophia followed. He leaned his head back against the stone, looking down at her, brows raised. She returned the look. “Elephants. That was a first. Not bad, Carter.”
He inclined his head, accepting the rare compliment. He wasn’t such a fool to think it would be the first of many; fighting had a way of bringing even the unlikeliest of allies together. Once the haze of excitement wore off, they’d be back to circling one another like half-starved sharks.
And their brief alliance would devour itself.
“We need to find the Jacarandas,” Sophia whispered. “Now. I don’t want them to catch wind of anything strange and guess there might be travelers here before we have a chance to come forward.”
“All right,” he said. “How do you propose we—?”
The clawlike blade caught the light of a nearby torch from above, casting a glow on Sophia’s dark hair. Nicholas shoved her as hard as he could, but not nearly soon enough to prevent her from taking a kick to the face as a cloaked attacker leaped down from the roof of the building behind them.
“You just can’t take no for an answer, can you?” Sophia growled, clutching her cheek.
The fall should have broken his legs, but the man rose, pushing his hood back just enough for Nicholas to see the gleam of his bald head, his pointed features. It was a man well within the prime of his life—a life that had sliced his face into a quilt of scars.
“Give it to me,” he rasped out. “I will spare the woman. Give it to me—”
The tip of an arrow sprouted from the center of the man’s throat. The spill of blood from the wound left him sucking at the air, his claw clicking against the arrow’s crude metal tip. The fear that had coiled so thickly around Nicholas’s chest did not release—not when Sophia staggered up to her feet; not when the frail old man in a homespun tunic stepped out of the night, his bow still in hand.
“Come now,” he said, his voice frayed with fear. “The Shadows feed on the night, and they will not stop until they consume us all.”
IT WAS A STRANGE KIND of procession that wound its way through the entrance of the Winter Palace. Henry led the small flock of them, talking quietly with an elderly man with a bowed back—some sort of courier. Etta studied the two of them from under her lashes, listening to their muted Russian. A long, seemingly unending red carpet stretched out before them, running along the tile and stonework like an invitation into the palace’s hidden heart.
The cold and shock finally began to thaw out of her. Etta was surprised to find that the palace was well heated despite its immense size, to the point where she shrugged out of her absurd coat and let one of the men in suits take it off her hands.
Behind her, Julian was whistling a faint tune just loudly enough to be annoying. Winifred remained behind him, complaining to the Thorn guards about their “shocking lack of foresight” in the route they’d had the party take. Those men, behind even her, kept slowing their pace, as if trying to build more distance between themselves and the mouth spewing venom at them.
“Is there a way to shut her off? Some hidden switch?”
Etta didn’t turn back or even acknowledge Julian. He was forced to lengthen his strides to keep pace with her. When the sleeve of his formal dinner jacket brushed her arm and she took a generous step away, he gave her an amused look.
“The last girl I chased at least gave me a kiss for my trouble,” he said in a low voice, sparing a quick look at Henry’s back.
“Do you often accept kisses from deranged girls?” Etta asked.
His mouth twisted. “Don’t be sore about that, kiddo. For a second it really looked like you were ready to engage in mortal combat. It was just self-preservation.”
More like wounded pride, she thought. He hadn’t expected her to try to fight her way out of that room in San Francisco, never mind back him into a corner.
“So what do you make of all this?” he asked. “The changes, I mean. I’ve only ever known the world Grandfather created, which I’m guessing is the same for you?”
She looked ahead, breathing in the faintly perfumed air, drinking in the sights around her. It didn’t feel real—she knew that this wasn’t her timeline—but she had expected something about it to register as different to her senses, like seeing the world in a mirror’s reflection. This was a glimpse of what Henry and the others had lost. What the world itself had lost.