Shadow Magic (34 page)

Thorn grinned at K’leef. “Thanks. I owe you. Now if you can do that another ten times, we might just make it out of here.”

The Sultanate boy, leaning against a trunk and ashen-faced, gasped for breath. “I could barely do it the once.” But the exhaustion didn’t stop him from grinning back.

A white-fletched arrow zipped overhead and took a crossbowman in the throat.

“Run!” shouted Vyne as he loosed another.

Thorn took the rider’s sword and handed it over to K’leef. “D’you know how to fight?”

K’leef stared at the weapon. “Not in the slightest.”

“You’d better start learning real quick.”

“What about you? Don’t you need this?”

“I’ve something better.” Thorn ran. Straight to Hades. The beast was flapping his wings with excitement and tearing deep grooves in the earth with his claws. He twitched his shoulders, eager for Thorn to get on.

“You really are a bloodthirsty fiend, aren’t you?”

Thorn leaped on.

Hades surged upward. He rose over the trees, and Thorn gripped for all he was worth as Hades arched backward, readying for a dive.

“Stop showing off and get on with it!” Thorn scolded him. “The fight’s down there!”

Men screamed as Hades swooped over the camp. The monstrous bat grabbed one in his claws as he flew past, lifted him into the air, and hurled him over the treetops.

Thorn’s dad swung an ax now that his arrows were spent. Even K’leef was fighting, waving his sword desperately at a pair of crossbowmen. Tyburn didn’t fight. He slaughtered, chopping men down with gruesome ease.

Hades plunged down in among the soldiers, jaws open wide and fangs glistening. Horses screamed and men tumbled. They were of Castle Gloom and knew, and feared, the monster. A few crossbowmen shot a ragged volley at him, then fled.

Hades beat his wings and growled as he settled himself among the carnage.

It was over, Thorn’s first battle. And he had survived it.

Bodies lay here and there, black-clad soldiers and roaming folk. Streaks of blood ran within the mud and a few men moaned, injured but breathing. A few riderless horses wandered aimlessly in the ruins of the camp.

His stomach churned. A roaming man lay in the dirt with a crossbow in his chest. His expression, frozen in death, wasn’t one of fear or pain, but surprise.

Thorn dismounted, but his legs seemed to have turned into rope and he wobbled. They’d tried to kill him. If a crossbow quarrel had been an inch or two straighter, he’d be lying in the dirt, too.

Hades looked over the dead men, salivating. Thorn knew what
that
meant.

“Hades, I don’t think that’s—”

Hades bit off a head. He crunched down, then spat out the helmet.

“Ah, well. Waste not, want not,” said Thorn with a sigh.

Tyburn handed him a waterskin. “Fighting’s thirsty work.”

“This one’s alive,” said Vyne. He stood over a rider, the man Thorn had clubbed. The horseman groaned as he sat up and struggled with his helmet. When it came off, Thorn saw the bloodied face of Cornwell, the captain of Troll Gate.

Thorn liked Cornwell. He always tipped the stable boys well.

Tyburn squatted down in front of the captain. “You’d better explain what you’re doing here.”

Thorn stood there and offered the man his water. What else could he do?

“You’ve a strong arm, young Thorn,” said Cornwell.

“Give me words, Captain,” warned Tyburn.

Cornwell shrugged. “The earl said you and the boy had freed K’leef. I was ordered to deal with it.”

“You believed him?” asked Thorn.

“Does it matter? He gave an order, and I followed it.”

K’leef looked at them. “Now what?”

“Get back to Castle Gloom,” said Thorn.

“We’ll ride,” said Vyne.

Tyburn shook his head. “We’ll never make it in time. Not on horseback.” He looked meaningfully at Thorn. “It’s up to you, boy.”

Vyne looked horrified. “If you think you’re going off to fight the earl by yourself, you can forget it. I saw what that man did. He just snapped his fingers, and black flames ate his brother and his family. Arrows ain’t no good against sorcery.”

“I’ve got to go back to Lily.”

His father met his gaze. “She’s that important?”

“Lily? She’s stuck up and proud and totally full of herself. And
real
annoying. I can’t stand her, sometimes.”

His dad smirked. “So I guess you like her a lot, then?”

“Yeah. I guess I do,” said Thorn. “She ain’t got no one else, Dad.”

“I think you might need these.” K’leef handed him a bow and fistful of salvaged arrows. “There aren’t many ballads sung about princesses and peasant boys, you know.”

“K’leef, I—”

“But there are plenty about princesses and
heroes
. You go save her, Thorn.”

“Thanks.” Then he whispered, “Got any idea how?”

“The mask,” said K’leef. “It’s both Pan’s strength and his weakness. With it, he’s everything; without it, he’s nothing.”

“Understood.”

Thorn tugged the thick fur at the base of Hades’s neck and the bat reluctantly dropped his second helping of head. Thorn looked down from his seat. “Dad…”

“You get going, son,” he said, his face marked with pride and not a little fear. “I’ll see you again soon.”

Thorn wanted to stay with them longer, but it was getting late.

He just hoped it wasn’t too late.

“K
nights wear armor,” said Mary as she added another layer of jewels to Lily’s hair. “Ladies wear gowns for the same reason. To conquer.”

“And they’re just as cumbersome.” Lily straightened and stretched, trying to get some space between her lungs and the bone corset of her dress.

The underskirts were linen. Then came velvet and silk all covered in precious gems and embroidered with miles and miles of thread, creating legions of demons, devils, ghosts and ghouls and bats, clouds of them. The bodice’s ribbed frame was made of sculpted leather covered with silk.

She wore her hair up and that had taken all day with three maids working on it. Her mother’s diamonds were entwined with small roses made out of glass and mounted on a spiky tiara of iron. Dusty silver shimmered in the iron so it looked as if it had starlight trapped within it.

“What’s that?” said Lily, staring at the small pot and brush Mary had in her hands.

“Paint for your lips.”

“I know, but it’s
red
,” complained Lily. “Don’t you have anything darker?”

“Plenty of vampires in your family.” Mary held up the brush. “Pout.”

Lily did.

Mary turned her to face the mirror. “Have a look.”

The kohl smeared around her eyes transformed their grayness to silver. The lips were the color of fresh blood.

“Now the Mantle,” said Mary.

The Mantle of Sorrows slipped over her like a high-collared coat with a train that turned to tendrils of mist yards behind her. It was cold and caressed her skin, as if the layers of material she wore were finer than tissue.

As solid as smoke, as real as a dream.

“A true princess of darkness,” said Mary, admiring her in the mirror. “No, a queen.” Then she fussed over the pleats. “How does it feel?”

“Heavy.”

Mary carried over a loaded tray and set it down on the dressing table. “Pick one.”

The masks, both horrific and beautiful, looked up at her from the tray. Leering devils and skulls and monsters, their eyes blank, waiting for her to give them life.

“Pick one, Lily.”

Which suited her?

She was Lily. She was thirteen and loved climbing trees and had once had a small puppy named Custard.

She was Lady Shadow. She was heir to Castle Gloom. Her ancestors had been masters of dark magic. She could summon the dead.

Lily and Lady Shadow. They were utterly different but each the real her.

“This one.” Lily picked up a mask made of glass. Trapped within it was black oil that constantly moved, sometimes hiding, sometimes revealing the face underneath.

That was her mask for tonight.

Mary nodded. “That’ll do fine.”

Pan waited, shuffling uneasily, in the antechamber.

“You are a vision, Niece.” He bowed.

Lily returned his bow with a curtsey. “It’s been a while since I saw you in armor, Uncle.”

He tapped the polished breastplate. “I could barely fit into it. Last time I wore it was at the Battle of Ice Bridge.”

“Father told me all about it. He said you were a great warrior.”

“Great? No, I was merely good. That was the day Tyburn made his name. Held the bridge against the trolls till dawn. Then your father arrived with reinforcements and banged out a spell or two, and that was that.” He tapped the sword on his hip. “Your father saved the day again and got all the glory. I just stood on the cliff edge and watched. As always.”

She hated it when he spoke so bitterly. “Where’s your mask, Uncle?”

He seemed to shake himself awake. Then, very carefully, he drew out a mask from under his cape. “Do you like it?”

It was the mask she’d seen him with the night of Rose’s death, the broken one. He’d put a few more pieces together, but it was still ugly and deformed. She hated it but didn’t know why, exactly. It wasn’t just that it was riddled with cracks. “It’s…interesting.”

“I’ve spent a long time repairing it. Bit by bit. It’s been a labor of love, in a way.” Pan caressed it with his fingertips. “Do you know what I love about masks? They let you be the person you want to be, rather than the one you are. Look at this.” He pulled at his jowls. “Look at it. Sagging, sickly. Pathetic.”

“Uncle…”

“But when I put this on”—he settled the obsidian visage onto his face—“I am transformed.”

He stood straighter. He squared his shoulders and raised his head. “There, that’s better.”

Even his voice was deeper, stronger.

Cold, even. Enough to make Lily shiver.

Pan held out his hand. “It would be an honor, Niece, to accompany you to the Halloween Ball.”

T
he steward banged his staff upon the hard marble, and it echoed across the crowd. All the faces, all the masks, turned toward her.

“Lady Lilith Shadow, heir to Castle Gloom. Lady of Dreams and Nightmares. Child of darkness and guardian of the Twilight.”