Justice had saved her life. It was the first thing he had ever done for her, taking a bullet for her before they even knew each other.
Maybe we can watch for each other.
The last words she’d said to him. Then she’d left him to face his greatest fear alone.
She felt his absence like a gaping hole. Justice had been a rock, holding everyone steady. If he’d been here, he would have known what to do. She had looked up to him like—
A brother. She could feel the irony of that, like a painful band around the heart. Her brother was a Lion, who bore Simon’s brand and had killed his share of Stewards.
A Lion should have been here. A Lion should have been fighting for the Light. You have Lion blood on both sides, the Elder Steward had said. What good was a Lion if she couldn’t fight?
The crunch of a footstep behind her made her turn, heart pounding. But it was only Grace, a blanket wrapped like a shawl around her shoulders to shield her against the cold. She came to stand beside Violet, leaning her forearms on the battlements, her pendant hanging away from her chest.
‘Couldn’t sleep?’ said Grace.
It wasn’t a question. Violet could see Grace’s profile in the light from the Flame, her high, smooth brow, and her long, elegant neck. There were creases under Grace’s eyes, but they had been there since the morning. Grace’s voice was dulled with more than exhaustion.
‘You saw it, didn’t you?’ Violet asked her.
It. There was no need to explain what she meant. It hung over all of them. Grace said nothing for a long while, but Violet had seen Grace and Sarah both avoid the dark and shadow in the gatekeep in favour of the light.
‘You can ask me,’ said Grace after a long moment.
‘Ask you?’ said Violet.
‘What it was like.’
Violet shivered. Grace had seen something no person had seen in centuries, and when Grace turned to look at her briefly, it was there in her eyes. Grace was the one who spoke.
‘You want to know if there’s a way to fight it. If it could be tricked. If it could be trapped. If it had any weaknesses.’
‘And did it?’
‘No,’ said Grace.
Violet stared at her, feeling the oncoming terror of it, an implacable enemy that could not be fought. She didn’t think Grace was going to say more, but then:
‘It was cold, like the air was frozen,’ said Grace. ‘We saw a dark stain spreading on the door, black, like a hole. But it didn’t crawl through the hole, it was the hole. The Elder Steward stepped out in front of us, telling us both to stay back.’
A muscle moved in Grace’s jaw, though she kept her eyes on the sky beyond the battlements, her voice steady.
‘They grappled hand to hand like two dark whirlwinds. I’d never seen her fight before, nor seen this side of her come out. For a moment, it was as if two shadows fought. She forced it to the wall as it thrashed and shrieked. She held it there until it gave a final scream, and vanished, leaving only its burned imprint on the wall. And then she fell.’
Violet felt her mouth dry, her hands curled into fists again. I should have been here. I would have fought.
‘I thought in their darkest hour the king was supposed to appear. Isn’t that what Stewards believe?’ said Violet bitterly. ‘That they’ll call for the King, and the King will answer?’
Grace was looking back at her strangely, as if the words sparked something internal. But: ‘I asked the Elder Steward that,’ was all Grace said. ‘Sarah was with me. She cried and begged. The Elder Steward said it was not yet time to raise the call.’
‘Why not?’
The flame light on the empty battlements leaped and fell, high and red. But beyond it the night stretched out, endless shadow that covered all the land.
‘Because this is not our darkest hour,’ said Grace. ‘That is still to come.’
A huge, wordless emotion swelled in Violet, its edges painful. She heard the Elder Steward in those words, and generations of Stewards, dutiful in their service. All these people were dead, and for what? For Simon’s own power and greed?
She wanted to shout, to scream, her anger growing until it overwhelmed almost every sense, feeling powerless in the face of the enemy but needing, above anything, to fight.
She pushed herself away from the wall.
It was a two-hour ride to London, but she knew where to find Devon, the warren of streets and alleyways where he did his backroom dealings, chasing down leads on objects in collections for Simon, part of the net Simon used to drag artefacts to himself from across the world.