The Masked City

I don’t think I’m going to be invited to the opera again.

Irene hesitated, getting her bearings. ‘Over there, to the right,’ she gasped, pointing with her free hand to where the square led down towards the open water. Her body ached as if someone had taken a carpet beater to it. ‘Keep to the right, as if we were going to the Biblioteca Marciana.’

‘Of course,’ Vale grunted. He was taking more of Kai’s weight than she was. ‘Guantes will think we’re headed towards a library …’

Irene saved her breath and simply jerked a nod. The mob was all round them now, scrambling to get out of the Piazza. She and Vale weren’t the only ones supporting a semi-conscious friend. Even if they were some of the wettest.

The yells of the crowd behind them suggested Guantes’ minions were rapidly clubbing their way through - so Irene needed to hide their destination. She staggered to a stop with Kai and Vale between two lanterns, just before the square’s exit. Then she took a deep breath, bracing herself. ‘Lanterns, shatter and go out!’ she screamed at the top of her voice.

Her voice carried, even over the crowd, and the lanterns above blew out in a fusillade of glass, their flames snuffed in a single breath. Other smaller lanterns within the reach of her voice fell dramatically to pieces, crumbling where they hung in shop windows or on stalls, or as they were carried along by people in the crush.

The area was abruptly that much darker. And the mob that much more panicked and obstructive, but you couldn’t have everything.

‘Now we run,’ Irene gasped, and they did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

They fled through the darkness, the three of them staggering together. Kai was barely conscious, his breath coming in rattling gasps in Irene’s ear, and Irene herself desperately wanted to collapse for a few minutes. But even if she could have ignored Lord Guantes and his minions in pursuit, there was a feeling in the air that she didn’t like, a febrile edge to the turmoil. They were on the precipice of a riot. Or something worse.

The paving stones seemed to drag at her feet, but she gritted her teeth and pushed on. She wasn’t going to be the one to get them caught.

‘Hurts …’ Kai mumbled.

‘We’re almost there,’ Irene gasped reassuringly, not bothering to check if this was true. ‘Just hold on a bit longer.’

‘No,’ Kai said, a little more clearly now. There was genuine pain in his voice. ‘My feet …’

Both Irene and Vale stopped, Vale jostling her to look down. The paving was rising around Kai’s shoes, seemingly grasping at his feet as it bubbled in an unwholesome way in the near-darkness. Irene looked nervously at her own feet, but it didn’t seem to be affecting her or Vale.

Vale took a deep breath. ‘Let go of him, Winters,’ he instructed. ‘And be ready to clear our way.’ With a grunt of effort, he bent over and swung Kai up onto his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. More blood stained the bandage on his arm.

Right. That might work. If Kai’s feet weren’t actually touching the ground … They were nearly at the Train. Perhaps five minutes. If they could just make it.

She ploughed her way through the crowd, using her shoulders and elbows to force a passage for herself and the men. Behind her, the shouting seemed louder and more directed, and she tried not to think what would happen when Guantes realized they weren’t actually heading for the library at all. They had to make that train - and Lord Guantes was entirely capable of working that out. And where is Lady Guantes? Irene hoped not knowing wouldn’t prove fatal.

The bracelets that Silver had given her seemed to be vibrating against her wrists, throbbing with their own heat, and her mask pressed against her face like a suffocating hand. Is it a sign that the Ten are looking for me, too? she wondered. They could be looking for anything that’s not native to this place. And there’s only me and Kai here who aren’t Fae or normal humans …

She shoved onwards through the crowd and stumbled into a sudden emptiness as she reached the waterside. Even the crowd had more sense than to push all the way to the edge, where the darkness of the sea stretched into the distance, wave-tops catching the light of lanterns in pale ruffles of foam. The lights of the island beyond were visible as distantly glowing pinpoints, breaking up the long stretch of shadow where night sky was indistinguishable from sea. The Train was a harsh line of light against the darkness, with the bright squares of lit windows shining like an invitation. But, more practically, it was a good hundred yards further along the quay. At least.

The noise of the crowd was changing, and Irene turned to look behind her as a chill of apprehension ran down her wet back. There was something about the way that they were moving - and speaking …

They were all acting in unison. Like a pack of dogs, all slowly raising their hackles as they focused on an intruder, the crowd was staring at them as if one intelligence animated them all. The Venetians’ eyes shone like cats’ eyes in the gloom and they were even breathing together - in an audible whisper that was louder than the shifting water. The air was full of an inhuman attention, a presence that curdled the blood and froze the mind in panic. The Ten. The Ten have found us.

‘Winters …’ Vale said, very quietly, as though afraid that any louder sound would set off an explosion of violence. Do something went unspoken.

Irene quickly rejected multiple possibilities in her head. The Language could freeze water, but she couldn’t freeze the whole lagoon, or even enough to get across to the Train. And confusing the perception of so many people was beyond her abilities.