A trickle of blood ran from the corner of Silas’s mouth, shockingly red against his white skin. He closed his eyes, seemingly in relief. Then, he vanished.

The moment Ashcroft’s sword came free, Elisabeth was there to meet it. Iron clashed against iron as she forced the Chancellor back, sparing none of her strength. He managed a series of clumsy parries; then Demonslayer locked with his sword’s hilt and wrenched the weapon from his grasp, sending it flying out of reach.

Panic flashed across his face. With a jolt, Elisabeth realized that both of his eyes were blue. Not only had his demonic mark vanished, his right sleeve hung in tatters over a normal arm. In Lorelei’s absence, he was no longer a sorcerer, just an ordinary man.

Slowly, he lifted his empty hands in surrender.

“Are you going to kill me, Miss Scrivener?” he asked, his face uncharacteristically solemn. “If you do, it will change you forever. It will set you down a path from which you cannot turn back. Believe me—I know.”

Demonslayer drooped. In Elisabeth’s moment of hesitation, Ashcroft’s boots scuffed against stone. Moving faster than she could have predicted, he dodged between the vines and vaulted over the edge of the pavilion.

She dashed forward and caught herself against the crumbled balustrade, heart pounding, tensed to give chase. She could overtake him easily: he appeared to have twisted his ankle leaping down, for he stumbled as he fled through the tangle of roses. She could pursue him, and catch him, and end his plot for good.

Or she could run in the opposite direction, and find the help she needed to save Nathaniel’s life.

TWENTY-SEVEN

THE REMAINDER OF the night passed in a blur. First there was the disorienting brightness of the palace, followed by the startled faces of the guests Elisabeth encountered in the halls. After that she recalled shouting, a flurry of action. A physician was summoned. Someone inquired after the wound on Elisabeth’s hand, but she claimed that the blood was Nathaniel’s, which got everyone outside in a hurry. The next thing she knew, she stood in the rose garden as two men carried Nathaniel’s limp body into a carriage.

His condition was serious. She could tell that much by the physician’s urgency, the cries that rang out for help. She tried to go to him, but hands held her back. They needed to know what had happened. The Chancellor, she said, and no one believed her. Not until a man called from the top of the pavilion and held up Ashcroft’s sword, the gryphon on its pommel unmistakable in the moonlight.

Pandemonium. Lord Kicklighter’s booming voice cut through the din. A guest helped her toward the carriage—and how strange everyone’s finery looked, marked here and there with smears of Nathaniel’s blood. Her own gown had been ruined beyond repair. Silas would not be pleased about that; they had spent an entire day together shopping, and he had patiently sat through several fittings, during which Elisabeth had had to stand very still, so that the seamstress did not stick her with pins. She could clearly picture his look of disapproval.

Then she remembered that Silas had been run through with a sword, and was gone.

She rode inside the carriage with Nathaniel and the physician. The wheels jostled over uneven ground, and once, Nathaniel groaned. Sweat beaded his forehead, but his hand felt freezing cold. She didn’t remember taking hold of it. The physician was busy applying pressure to Nathaniel’s chest. He glanced once at her injured palm, then at her face, and said nothing.

They pulled up outside Nathaniel’s house, where a crowd had gathered. Half of the ballroom appeared to have followed them to Hemlock Park, now mixed with reporters and sorcerers wearing their nightclothes. Lights blazed in the homes all the way down the street, their windows flung open, people leaning out. Elisabeth barely noticed the commotion, because none of it was a fraction as strange as what was happening to Nathaniel’s house.

All of the gargoyles had come to life. They prowled along the roofline and coiled themselves, snarling, around the corbels. The thorn bushes that grew in the unkempt gardens surrounding the house had stretched to tall, impenetrable hedges, rattling menacingly at anyone who drew near the iron fence. Dark clouds boiled overhead.

“The wards have activated,” the physician told her. “The house recognizes that its heir is in danger, and will do anything to protect him from further harm. The difficulty is, there’s no one else of his bloodline who can safely let us through. Miss Scrivener, does Nathaniel trust you?”

She watched the men lift Nathaniel from the carriage. In order to reach his wounds, the physician had removed his shirt. His skin, where it wasn’t covered in blood, was as white as paper. His head lolled, and one of his arms dangled loose. His black hair fell like a spill of ink around his ashen face—black, without a hint of silver. The wrongness of it left her dazed.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Yes. I think so.”

“It’s unconventional, but we haven’t much time. Try approaching the house. If anything threatens you, retreat quickly. I’d rather not end up with two patients tonight.”

The hubbub quieted as Elisabeth stepped forward. Faces watched anxiously from the crowd. She recognized one of them as one of the girls who had gossiped about her in Ashcroft’s conservatory, who looked stricken now, clutching a friend’s hand.

During the carriage ride, Elisabeth hadn’t let go of Demonslayer. It shone at her side as she crossed the threshold of the open gate, toward the thorn bushes, their crooked boughs looming above her. Instantly, their rattling ceased. A whisper ran through the hedge. Then the branches retreated, creating a path to the front door. One gargoyle sank down, and then another, lowering their heads like retainers welcoming the return of their queen.

Silence prevailed. She walked up the path and ascended the steps. When she reached for the doorknob, the bolt clicked on its own, and the door swung open without a touch.

Stunned, she stood aside to let the physician pass. He hurried up the path, giving instructions to the men carrying Nathaniel, his fingers on Nathaniel’s pulse. A bespectacled young woman hurried alongside them, laden with bags and cases. Behind them, the branches closed back in, weaving together like threads on a loom, blocking out the crowd. The last thing Elisabeth saw before the thorns knit shut was a reporter gazing back at her. Wonder transformed his features, and his pencil had fallen to the ground, forgotten.

She followed the procession upstairs, unable to take her eyes from Nathaniel’s unconscious face. There wasn’t room for her in his bedroom, so she stood outside, flattening herself against the wall every time the physician’s assistant passed with an ewer of water or an armful of blood-soaked linens.

No one said anything, but it was clear that Elisabeth was getting in the way. Numbly, she drifted back downstairs. She took off Nathaniel’s coat and hung it on the coatrack. She noticed a few droplets of blood on the foyer’s floor and used her gown to wipe them up, since its ivory silk was already ruined. Afterward she sat on the bottom step, her head buzzing with white noise. Dimly, from upstairs, she heard the scuffle of feet accompanied by a tense exchange of voices. The grandfather clock ticked in time with the beating of her heart.

As of this moment, Ashcroft was ruined. Everything would come out in the morning papers. The entire world would know him for who he truly was. But this didn’t feel like a victory. Not with Silas lost, and Nathaniel bleeding upstairs. Not with Ashcroft still at large.