Like one of Grald’s monstrous children, she thought savagely. She had to retrieve the locket, release the heart of the human girl, and free herself.

Dragon jaws slavering, Anora lunged at the wretched human who had done this to her.

Evelina had been about to drop the locket down her bosom when a gigantic claw, growing out of the hand of the Lady Izabelle, made a frantic swipe at her. A monster’s head, sprouting horribly from a human neck, tried to snap off her arm.

Evelina screamed and sucked in a breath and screamed again. Still screaming, her mouth wide open, she stumbled backward, tripped over her long skirts, and fell.

She was up again in an instant, half crawling, half scrambling, slipping and falling and still screaming. Yet, even while trying frantically to escape a terrible death, Evelina remained Ramone’s daughter.

She clutched the golden locket fast in her hand.

Anora had one dragon leg and one human, one dragon arm and one human. Her head was neither dragon nor human, but a grotesque combination of both. Dragon scales stuck out of human flesh, dragon teeth jutted out of a human mouth, dragon wings sprouted from a human back and dragged limply across the floor. Shambling and shuffling, Anora hurled herself at Evelina and grabbed hold of the hand holding the locket. Anora tried to wrest it from her.

Evelina fought like a cornered cat, spitting and hissing, howling and kicking and biting the monstrous thing that had hold of her.

Anora squeezed, attempting to break off the girl’s hand, if she had to. Evelina cried out and Anora seized hold of the locket. She started to wrest it away, when bitter pain tore through her body She looked down to see the point of a sword emerge from her gut. The sword’s point was stained with her own blood.

In her desperate need to retrieve the locket, Anora had let go of everything.

She had let go of Marcus.

Marcus yanked the sword from out of the back of the dragon. He saw the monster fall, but he did not know if he had killed it or not. He didn’t have time to find out.

“Finish it!” he shouted to the knights, who had been staring at the apparition, too stunned to react. Hurling the bloody sword back to its owner, Marcus ran for the enormous double doors and slammed them against the wall with a boom. He ran down the marble stairs and into the courtyard.

“Don’t fire!” he bellowed up at the walls. “Father! Don’t fire!”

Startled faces stared at him. Mouths gaped. Men tried to grab hold of him. Marcus knocked them aside, paid them no attention. He kept running, kept shouting.

“Don’t fire! For God’s sake, Father, don’t fire!”

His tone was so dire that several men joined him, crying out, “Don’t fire! Don’t fire!” though they had no idea why.