“Advance!” a voice yelled, and then the clearing was full of men, soldiers, the crack of explosions, and flashes of light and smoke and bodies. The whir of rifle and pistol balls propelled through the air, chunks of bark flying and the screams of men, hit.

“Gus!” Through the smoke, Evan and Mr. Kent were running toward me, both with pistols in hand.

“Get your hands off her, Luddite!” Morland’s voice yelled behind us. “I will shoot.”

Mulholland wrenched me around to face the captain. Morland had a pistol pointed at us. “What?” Mulholland said, lowering the knife from my throat. “No. I’m not a—”

I grabbed his wrist and bit into his flesh as hard as I could manage through the pain in my jaw. I felt the resistance of flesh give way to the metal tang of hot blood. He screamed, the dagger dropping, and wrenched his hand back, a hunk of bloody flesh ripping under my teeth.

He grabbed me around the neck; then another gun exploded. Fired from somewhere behind us, the heavy thud of a ball hitting meat and muscle, driving us both forward a step. I smelled the sharp stink of spent powder, felt a wet spray of red matter, then heard the gargling rise of blood. Mulholland’s hands dropped from my body.

I turned. He had crumpled to the ground, his neck a ragged, bloody mess. The last seconds of life were still in his eyes, and they were locked upon mine. Perhaps he smiled, or perhaps it was the oncoming rictus of death, but I saw something cross his face. A malign moment. And then his focus shifted beyond this realm and into death.

44

“Gus!”

I whirled around. “Evan!”

He was safe. I staggered into his outstretched arms. He pulled me in against his chest, but it was a fleeting embrace, for he set me at arm’s length, wildly looking me over. “Are you hit? Are you hit?”

“No!” Although…was I? My jaw throbbed; everything was pain. But no, it was Mulholland’s blood. Not mine. “It’s his. It’s his blood.”

I looked down at Mulholland’s staring dead eyes and felt my knees buckle. Evan caught me.

“Talbot,” Captain Morland yelled through the drifting smoke, “get Lady Augusta out of here. Her sister is waiting on the road with a guard.”

Evan and I looked at each other. He was still Mr. Talbot. Duffy had not told the captain the truth.

“Time to go,” Mr. Kent said, running up beside us. “Talbot, help me carry Lady Augusta.” He had heard Morland too. “Now, man!” He looked around. “Weatherly, your mistress needs you!”

Evan slung my arm across his shoulders, Kent taking my other side, and they half carried, half dragged me toward the edge of the clearing. I looked over my shoulder. Weatherly had ducked to the ground to pick up a pistol and was up again, following.