Then her thoughts dissolved into a buzz of shock. A small figure was propped on the bronze horse’s back in front of her. A little human girl, with short black hair. She dangled limply in the faerie woman’s one-handed grip, but she was blinking, her face twisted in terror. She couldn’t have been more than four years old—she wore leggings with a cheerful print of bees, and bright pink sneakers.
In her other hand, Ethna held a dagger, the point of it against the back of the girl’s neck.
Julian had gone rigid as marble, his face white. Voices rose around Emma in the room, but they were only noise. She couldn’t distinguish the words. She was staring at the little girl, and in her mind she saw Dru, Tavvy, even Livvy and Ty; they had all been that tiny once, that helpless.
And Ethna was strong. All she had to do was drive that dagger forward, and she’d sever the child’s head from her neck.
“Get back from the window,” said Julian. “Everyone, get back from the window. If they don’t think we’re watching them, they’re less likely to hurt the girl.”
His hand was on Emma’s arm. She staggered back with the others. She could hear Mark protesting. They should go down, he was saying. Fight off the Riders.
“We can’t,” said Julian in anguish. “We’ll be slaughtered.”
“I killed one of them before,” said Emma. “I—”
“They were caught off guard, though.” Julian’s voice reached her partially distorted through shock. “They didn’t expect it—didn’t think it was possible—this time they’ll be prepared—”
“He is right,” said Kieran. “Sometimes the most ruthless heart speaks the most truth.”
“What do you mean?” Mark was flushed, his right hand gripping his wrist; Emma realized, distantly, that the mark of the binding spell was gone from his skin, and from Cristina’s, too.
“The children of Mannan have never been defeated,” Kieran said. “Emma is the first ever to slay one. They have taken the child to lure us out, because they know they will have us in their power when we do.”
“They’ll kill her,” Emma said. “She’s a baby.”
“Emma—” Julian reached out for her. She could read his face. Julian would do anything, brave anything, for his family. There was nothing and no one he wouldn’t sacrifice.
That was why this had to be her.
She bolted. She heard Julian shout her name but she was out the library door; she slammed it behind her and took off running down the hall. She was already in gear, already had Cortana; she barreled down the steps, skidded through the entryway, and burst through the front doors of the Institute.
She saw the blur of bronze that was the Riders, before she swung around and shoved the doors closed, whipping her stele from her pocket. She slashed a Locking rune across them just as she heard the dull thumps of bodies striking the other side, voices calling out to her not to be reckless, to open the doors, open them, Emma—
She put her stele in her pocket, raised Cortana, and descended the steps.
28
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HE
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“That’s her!” Ethna cried, her voice rich and sweet. She drew the child in her grip closer to her, raised the blade in her hand. “That is the murderer who slew Fal.”
“It was a battle,” Emma said. “He would have killed me.” She looked at the other Riders. They stood in their row, facing her, a line of grim statuary. “I would think warriors would know the difference.”
“You should be killed like your parents,” hissed one of the other Riders. Delan. “Tortured and carved with knives, like they were.”
Emma’s heart lurched in her chest. Her fear for the girl was still there, but rage was starting to mix with it. “Let the girl go,” she said. “Let her go and you can fight me. Revenge yourselves on me like you want to.”
She could hear pounding on the doors behind her. Soon enough they’d get them open; she didn’t have any illusions of the locking rune holding forever. Her runes had surprising power now, because of Julian—but Julian would be a match for their capability.
Emma raised Cortana, the morning sun sliding down the blade like melted butter.
“I killed your brother with this sword,” she said. “You want revenge? Let the girl go, and I’ll fight you. Threaten her a moment longer and I’ll go back inside the Institute.” Her eyes flicked from one of them to the other. She thought of her parents, of their bodies, stripped and left on the beach for gulls to pick at. “We despoiled Fal’s corpse,” she lied. “Tore his armor from him, broke his weapon, left him for the rats and crows—”
Ethna gave a high screech and shoved the small girl away from her. The girl toppled to the ground—Emma gasped—but she found her feet and ran, sobbing, for the road. She looked back over her shoulder only once, mouth wide in her tearstained face as she sprinted through the gate and disappeared.
Relief shot through Emma. The girl was safe.
And then Ethna charged, her horse’s hooves silent on the courtyard stone. She was like a thrown spear hurtling through the air, noiseless and deadly; Emma bent her knees and sprang, using the height of the steps and the force of her fall to give the swing of her sword power.
Their blades clanged together in midair. The shock rattled Emma’s bones. Ethna’s arm flew wide; Emma landed in a crouch and drove her sword upward, but the faerie woman had already flung herself from the back of her horse. She was on her feet, laughing; the other Riders had dismounted as well. Their horses vanished, as if absorbed into the air as the children of Mannan surged toward Emma, blades raised.
She lifted herself out of her crouch, Cortana describing a wide arc above her head, striking each sword aside—Emma was reminded of a hand sliding across piano keys, hitting each note in turn.
But it was close. The last sword, Delan’s, caught Emma’s shoulder. She felt her gear rip, her skin sting. Another scar to add to the map of them.
She whirled, and Ethna was behind her. She held two shortswords, gleaming bronze, and slashed at Emma with first one and then the other. Emma leaped back, barely in time. If she hadn’t been wearing gear, she knew, she’d be dead, her guts spilled out on the flagstones. She felt her jacket tear, and even in the cold of battle, a hot spike of fear went down her spine.
This was impossible. No one person could fight six Riders. She’d been mad to try, but she thought of the little girl’s feet in their pink sneakers and couldn’t be sorry. Not even when she turned to find three Riders blocking the way back into the Institute.
The door of the Institute had stopped shaking. Good, Emma thought. The others should stay safely inside; it was the wise thing to do, the smart thing.
“Your friends have abandoned you,” sneered one of the Riders blocking her way. His bronze hair was short and curling, giving him the look of a Greek kouros. He was lovely. Emma hated his guts. “Give yourself up now and we will make your death quick.”
“I could give myself a quick death, if that was what I wanted,” Emma said, her sword outstretched to hold off the other three faeries. “As it happens.”
Ethna was glaring at her. The other Riders—she recognized Airmed, if not the others—were whispering; she caught the last few words of a sentence. “—is the sword, as I told you.”
“But runed work cannot harm us,” said Airmed. “Nor seraph blades.”
Emma dove for Ethna. The faerie woman spun, bringing her blades across in a whip-fast slashing gesture.
Emma leaped. It was a move she had practiced over and over with Julian in the training room, using a bar that they raised just a little bit every day. The blades whipped by beneath her feet, and in her mind’s eye she saw Julian, his arms raised to catch her.