Nathaniel hesitated, his expression wiped clean. A heartbeat passed. He looked young and very pale in the dark. Then he stepped forward, motioning for Elisabeth to follow.

“Don’t tell me you’ve succumbed to my charms,” he said over his shoulder. “I assure you, no good will come of a passionate affair between us. You, a small-town country librarian, me, the kingdom’s most eligible bachelor—you needn’t scoff, Scrivener. It’s true—go out on the street and ask anyone. I’m quite famous.”

But Elisabeth hadn’t scoffed. The sound that had escaped her had been a stifled cry of alarm. In a nearby alley, behind the extinguished streetlamp, a group of figures stood watching them: hulking and shining-eyed, their breath steaming in the night. She blinked, and they were gone—but she was certain she hadn’t imagined them.

She opened her mouth to warn Nathaniel, who was by now several paces ahead. But before she could make another sound, a rough grip seized her around the waist and yanked her toward the alley. A hand crushed her mouth, and the cold point of a knife appeared at her throat.

NINE

THE HAND CLAMPED over Elisabeth’s mouth reeked of sweat. When she tried to bite it, her teeth couldn’t find purchase against the man’s palm. The taste of his skin filled her mouth: bitter and metallic, like dirty coins. She threw herself against his hold in a panic, only for the blade to press more firmly against her throat. She fell still, rattled by her own helplessness. He dragged her a scuffling step backward. Then another.

She didn’t know what awaited her in the alley, but she suspected it was far worse than this man and his knife.

Nathaniel paused with his foot on the lodging house’s bottom step. “Scriv—” he began as he turned, only to fall silent, calmly taking in the scene. “For heaven’s sake,” he said. “What is all this about?”

Her captor must have smirked, because his breath wafted foully over her cheek.

“What do you want?” Nathaniel persisted. “Money?” He glanced between the knife, Elisabeth, and the man restraining her, whereupon he made a face at what he saw. “No, let me guess. A wart remedy? If I were you, I suppose I would be equally desperate.”

He didn’t seem impelled by any sense of urgency. But as he spoke, he discreetly flicked together his thumb and middle finger, the motion almost hidden by the folds of his cloak. A single green spark flew from his fingertips. Nothing else happened.

“Can’t cast a spell on my knife.” The man’s coarse voice vibrated against Elisabeth’s back. He sounded pleased with himself. “It’s pure iron. Made sure of that.”

“Well, you can’t blame me for trying.” Nathaniel’s gaze drifted toward the alleyway, casually, then back to them. “The alternative causes such a mess. Blood is impossible to get out of silk, and I can’t tell you how many times my servant has had to wash questionable stains from this cloak.”

A soft, resigned sigh came from very close nearby. Her captor flinched and yanked her around toward the source, but no one was there: only a dim expanse of empty street, littered with discarded newspapers.

“I’m afraid I’ve lost count,” said Silas’s whispering voice directly behind them. The ghost of a breath fluttered Elisabeth’s hair.

Her captor spun again, but once more, he was met with nothing. Elisabeth felt his heart pounding through his shirt. The blade trembled in his slippery grip. An image floated to the surface of her mind, like a drowned, ghostly flower rising from a deep pool: Silas standing in a dark wood, his hands folded behind his back. But that hadn’t actually happened, had it? She had seen it in a dream.

“Stay back,” the man warned. “If you make a move, I’ll cut her. Don’t matter to me whether she lives or dies. And I’m not alone, neither—”

“You never did explain to me what some of those stains were, master,” Silas said.

“Best if I leave that to your imagination,” Nathaniel replied.

“Where the bloody hell are you?” her captor roared, and then his roar turned into a scream. Both the knife and the hand fell away at once, and Elisabeth stumbled forward; but Nathaniel was there, and he caught her before she fell.

She gagged and spat on the ground, desperate to rid the man’s taste from her mouth. “There are more,” she gasped, “more men, in the alley.”

“I’m truly sorry to have to tell you this, for both our sakes,” Nathaniel said, “but those are not men.”

As if in agreement, a growl shuddered through the dark. A shadow detached itself from the mouth of the alley and prowled into the glow cast by the faraway streetlamps. The light delineated a long, snarling muzzle, much too large to belong to a dog. Slit-shaped nostrils flared as they scented the air. Steam gusted from them on the exhale. A pair of horns emerged next, curved and frontward-pointed. Mist flowed over black scales, shifting as powerful muscles bunched beneath them. Not a man—and not an animal, either.

“They are demons,” she whispered.

“Lesser demons. Fiends.” Nathaniel glanced behind them. “Highly illegal to summon, in part because they’ll do practically anything for the promise of a . . . oh, never mind.”

“The promise of a what?”

Nathaniel winced. “A meal. That charming gentleman with the knife probably told them they’d get to eat you.”

Given what she knew about demons, Elisabeth wasn’t surprised. As the fiend came fully into view, ribs strained against its starved-looking sides. Vertebrae bulged from its spine like knuckles. It resembled a huge, gaunt hound that had been skinned and armored in scales.

Before she could reply, two more of the creatures prowled into sight, cutting her and Nathaniel off from the route that led past the lodging house. Their breath fogged the air, and their narrow eyes shone red. Whinnies rang out as the horses spooked, but the fiends’ attention didn’t waver, fixed hungrily on Elisabeth.

Silently, Nathaniel nodded toward the building. She caught his eye to signal that she’d understood. Together they moved backward toward the steps, matching each other’s slow, deliberate movements. As they went, Nathaniel muttered an incantation. Emerald light spun out between his cupped hands, coiling like a rope.

“She’s stringy,” he insisted as the fiends advanced, speaking in a conversational tone. “A bit gamey. Do you see all that hair? There’s practically nothing underneath it.”

A snarl came from behind them, reverberating through Elisabeth’s bones. Hot, fetid breath gusted across the back of her neck. They turned simultaneously to find a fourth fiend crouched on the stoop, blocking the door. Saliva hung in quivering strings from its jaw.

“Worth a try,” Nathaniel said, and pulled Elisabeth toward him in a hard embrace.

The world exploded around them. A shower of brick, wood, and metal erupted outward, crashing down amid a billowing cloud of dust. She was aware of Nathaniel’s heart thundering against her own, of the muscles of his shoulders pulling taut as he wrenched something back to him—a rope of emerald fire, a whip. He lashed out again, and this time she saw the whip strike the side of the building, which collapsed so quickly it seemed to turn into liquid, cascading downward in a waterfall of stone. A single high-pitched yelp sounded from beneath.