He brushes my hair out of my face, strokes my cheek. He looks at every part of my face as if memorizing it. A half smile forms on his lips.

Then he drops his hand, turns around, and leaps into the air.

I put my hand over my mouth to keep from calling him back.

The October wind tugs at my hair. Dry leaves float by, lost and abandoned.

Chapter 25

25

I should go.

Turn around and leave this place.

But my feet feel like they’re rooted to the sidewalk. I stand there, worried. Worried that it’s a trap, worried that I won’t see him again, worried that he is yet again in the hands of his enemies.

I’m so lost in all the things that might happen that I don’t hear the footsteps behind me until they’re too close for me to run.

People step out from behind buildings. One, five, twenty. They’re all dressed in sheets, and their heads are shaved.

‘You missed them,’ I say. ‘They weren’t much to look at anyway.’

They walk toward me from all sides.

‘We’re not here for them,’ one of them says. The top of his head is more tanned than the others’ like he’s been shaving his for some time. ‘The masters like to do their business in private. We understand that.’

‘The masters?’

The group keeps closing in on me, and I start to feel trapped. But these are cult members, not street gangs. They don’t exactly have a reputation for attacking people. Still, I put my hand on my teddy bear hanging at my hip.

‘No, we’re not here for them,’ I hear a woman’s voice say. ‘No one has a bounty on your angel friend.’ Then I see her – the woman who offered herself up to Paige.

‘I guess I should have let her eat you.’

The woman glares at me as though I humiliated her by saving her life.

I pull off the bear and wrap my hand around the sword handle. It’s cold and hard and ready for battle. But I’m hesitant to use it on them. We all have more than enough enemies trying to kill us already without going after each other.

I back away from Tan Head. The circle tightens. ‘Are you really going to harm the sister of the Great One?’ Hopefully, they believe in their own story.

‘No, we mean you no harm,’ says Tan Head. He reaches for me.

I step away and pull out my sword.

A hand holding a damp cloth reaches around me from behind and clamps down over my mouth and nose. The cloth reeks of something awful that shoots straight into my head and makes the world fuzzy.

I try to struggle.

I knew it was a trap. I just hadn’t realized the trap was for me.

My thoughts turn into a jumbled mess.