And then Ambrose swooped forward, spinning about Bran’s bushy head. “Yes! I followed you to Lady Yardley’s and saw the beasts capture you.” The sprite stilled his spinning and hovered a moment, giving Harcourt and Timison a pointed glare.
Millicent recalled the flash of wing she thought she’d spied in Claire’s bushes.
Bran glanced from her to the baronets to the advancing horde. “I cannot fathom what has changed… but at the moment, it appears we have a common enemy. Can we give ye a hand, lads?”
Timison and Harcourt exchanged a look.
“That’s what I thought,” grunted Bran. “Come on out, ye scavengers.”
Jackals, hyenas, and wolverines slinked into the light. Millicent had never felt so grateful to see her fellow creatures of the Underground. But she had no time to wonder at Bran coming to her rescue once again, for a club swung down at her and she leaped aside, only to see Gareth stick his sword into the arm of the giant.
Millicent clamped her teeth around the other arm.
They fought the giant as if they could sense each other’s actions without words. The creatures that challenged them could not prevail against Gareth and Millicent. And she felt something different. Not just that they moved as one. But something…
Her beast. It did not fully control her. She gave mercy when she could. She mourned the creatures she killed. She felt saddened by the necessary violence. Because of Gareth, the blind killing madness of the cat did not consume her.
As the world erupted into fighting, clawing, steel-flashing fury, she hoped the other baronets would not mistake Bran’s army for the enemy. But the spies must have figured out who was fighting whom, for when the last of Ghoulston’s creatures fell, the predators did not attack the remaining scavengers. Instead, they stared distrustfully at one another as quiet descended.
Millicent stood next to Gareth, both of them bloody, both of them winded.
And yet, it seemed over too quickly.
Thanks to Bran.
“The queen,” muttered Gareth, rising from cleaning his blade on the back of a tattered shirt. But Harcourt and Timison and the remaining spies had already sprinted down the road toward two shapes—one white, one black, locked together in a struggle that flattened the trees around them.
Millicent found the sprite hovering near the wreckage of their carriage. Claire still lay atop the cushions, unconscious of the chaos around her. “Stay with Lady Yardley. Call if you need me.”
The little man’s chest puffed. “It shall be my honor to protect her. I may be small—but never a coward.”
Then Gareth and Millicent sprinted after the predators, Bran and his men right behind them.
“Where is the Master?” huffed Gareth when they caught up with the rest of their force.
Millicent had wondered the same. Surely Lord Sussex would not allow his niece to fight this battle alone. But she could see only the dragon and the unicorn-lion.
They had left the Master’s magical light behind them with the coach, but another hazy sort of light with the glow of powerful magic surrounded the area around the carriage. And within it, Millicent could glimpse speckles of blackness swirling in a mass like small tornadoes.
“Do you hear that?” shouted Gareth.
Millicent nodded, the buzzing noise rising in volume.
“Bees.” Gareth grinned. “It’s a swarm of bees… that’s what your Master has conjured to fight the dragon.”
Harcourt’s face sagged in disappointment. “Insects?”
“Do you think another dragon would defeat Ghoulston without hurting the queen in the process? Your Master is clever.”
One of the insects flew past Millicent. It might have appeared tiny in comparison to the dragon, but to her, the bee looked about the size of her fist.
The bees swarmed the dragon’s head. The beast snorted, frying some of the insects, which dropped to the ground like a flurry of black snow. But most of them remained, beyond the dragon’s maw, covering those red eyes. The dragon loosened his hold on the neck of the unicorn-lion and clawed at his eyes.
Millicent turned and gave Bran a meaningful look. The big man stared at her with his liquid brown eyes, then slowly swung his head from side to side. He understood.
She could not leave until she knew the queen was safe. But neither could she tarry long after. Millicent had no doubt Harcourt would give the relic to the Master and doom Gareth to a life of imprisonment. She did not think the were-lion would allow her to walk away, either.
Bran’s men could hold their own against the Master’s spies. But not against a Royal’s magic.
The queen’s creature reared away from the dragon, who was now covered in the dark swirling mass of insects. The bees burrowed into places a blade of steel couldn’t reach, but the majority of them still attacked the dragon’s most sensitive areas… especially the eyes.
The dragon howled and clawed… and began to shrink, to turn back into the odious personage of the Duke of Ghoulston.
“Make it stop,” he screamed. “Have mercy—I am blind!”
The dark, swirling, buzzing mass coalesced into the portly form of the Duke of Sussex, who had just proven to Millicent to be shrewd enough to have actually earned the position of the Master of the Hall of Mages. “Oh, do stop whining,” he said to Ghoulston before turning to look up at the unicorn-lion. “A combination of your royal coat of arms? Well done, Victoria—but kindly change back now. We have much to discuss.”
When Queen Victoria changed back to her normal, diminutive stature, the baronets let out a cheer, followed by another resounding cheer from the underground shifters. She acknowledged their adulation with a wave of her hand, then lifted her skirts and delicately stepped over to her uncle and the duke—who still writhed on the ground in agony.
Millicent felt her lips curl in a grim smile.
It was less than Ghoulston deserved… but her Nell had been avenged.
And yet… she did not feel quite as triumphant as she thought she would.
Millicent turned and glanced up at Gareth, allowing herself to truly look at him. Blood spattered the front of his tunic, obscuring the red dragon embroidered in the thick weave. He’d fought wildly as usual, with little care for his own skin. Moisture curled the hair at his temple and brow into tiny spirals of gold. A cut along one sculpted cheekbone gleamed an angry scarlet, and dirt smudged his broad forehead and angular chin.
He looked… sublimely delicious… heartrendingly beautiful. He had always been an attractive man, but now… now she saw more than his handsome features. She knew his heart and soul, and loved him more than life itself.
Millicent nodded at Bran. He rose a bushy brow, but stepped over to Gareth’s side, and wrapped his arms around the taller man, trapping the knight’s arms in a bear hug, so he could not get to his sword. She shifted to panther and leaped on Harcourt’s back. He went down like a felled tree, flat to the ground, with an oath of surprise. It took a moment for the baronets to react. They were tired and injured. But within that moment, Bran had already signaled to his own men, who now outnumbered the spies, and they guarded the combatants.
Harcourt had no one to come to his defense, but she rather imagined he didn’t mind.
He shifted to lion, threw her off his back. Millicent landed, crouched to attack. They circled each other, looking for an opening. The were-lion’s eyes glittered gold, oddly delighted as he studied his opponent.
But Millicent had an advantage. Gareth had helped her master her beast. She did not think Harcourt had managed the same feat, for she saw little trace of his humanity at the moment.
They clashed, snarled, striking with fang and claw.
Parted. Both a bit bloody.
But Millicent had come away with a clear knowledge of how Harcourt’s beast fought. He did not protect his left side.