I looked at Kathryn and pushed the barest edge of my spirit against her mind. She cringed away from me.

“Stay back,” I said.

The smoke burned my eyes, but I didn’t look away. Kathryn tried to laugh, but her nose was starting to bleed. “You’re a freak. What are you, some sort of fury?”

“Furies can’t affect the æther.”

She stopped laughing.

A muffled scream came from outside. Suhail shoved his way into the shack, past the terrified performers. He took it all in: the smoke, the disarray. Kathryn dropped to one knee and bowed her head.

I stood very still. Suhail reached out a hand, grabbed me by the hair, and wrenched my face against his. “You,” he said, “are going to die today.”

His eyes turned red.

That’s when I knew he meant it.

15 Fall of a Wall

15

Fall of a Wall

The day porter stared as Suhail passed, dragging me by the wrist. My throat was raw, my cheeks streaked with blood. He pulled me up the stairs and banged on Warden’s door.

“Arcturus!”

A muffled ringing came to my attention. Liss had said Warden would kill me for missing the dawn. What would he make of resisting arrest?

The door opened. Warden was there, a massive silhouette against the dim chamber. His eyes were two pinpricks of light. I was rooted to the spot. Having my aura sapped had brought on a kind of fit. I couldn’t feel the æther. Nothing. If he tried to kill me now, I couldn’t do a thing to stop him.

“We found her.” Suhail pulled me forward. “Hiding in the Rookery. The seditious runt tried to start a fire.”

Warden looked at each of us in turn. The evidence was clear as glass: Suhail’s eyes, my blood-streaked cheeks.

“You fed on her,” he said.

“It is my right to feed on humans.”

“Not on this one. You took far too much. The blood-sovereign will not be pleased with your lack of restraint.”

I couldn’t see Suhail’s face, but I imagined him sneering.

In the silence that followed, I coughed: a dry, hacking cough. I was shivering all over. Warden’s gaze moved to the rip in my tunic.

“Who did this?”

I was silent. Warden leaned down to my level. “Who did this?” His voice sent a cold chill through my chest. “A red-jacket?”

I nodded, just the barest movement of my head. Warden looked up at Suhail. “You allow the red-jackets to violate other humans at will, on your watch?”

“I care not for their methods.”

“We do not want them breeding, Suhail. We have neither the time nor the means to deal with a pregnancy.”

“The pills sterilize them. Besides, their fornication is for the Overseer to manage.”

“You will do as I command.”

“No doubt.” Suhail looked down at me with those chilling red eyes. “But back to business. Ask your master for forgiveness, 40.”