Authors: Victoria Schwab
This Savage Song (32 page)
About Sloan.
About Leo.
He told them about Colton.
About running.
About leaving Ilsa.
About the Malchai.
And his brother's treason.
And his death.
He
confessed
, and when he was done, he sank to his knees, and Henry sank with him, and the two sat there on the hall floor, foreheads pressed together.
There'd been a fight, Henry told him, after August's call, and Leo had left, abandoned the Flynns and their mission for his own. They couldn't stop him.
August had.
“I thought I'd lost you,” said his father.
You did
, he wanted to say, but there was more of him left than there was lost, so he said, “I'm here. And I'm so sorry about Leo. About Ilsa.”
“She'll be all right,” said Emily, touching August's shoulder.
His head snapped up. “What?”
August felt himself choking on the hope of the words, and then the fear that he'd misheard. “But Sloanâ”
Henry nodded. “It was a close thing, August. She got away, but . . . well, she got away. That's what matters.”
“Where?” But he was already on his feet and heading past them, toward her bedroom.
He pushed the door open, and there she was, standing at the window with her strawberry curls, watching the sun sink over the city, Allegro watching from the bed. She was wearing a thin-strapped shirt, and even from the doorway, he could see her skin was bare, the thousands of stars that had once turned her back into a sky now gone.
“Ilsa,” he said, breathless with relief.
And then she turned toward him, and August tensedâa vicious red line sliced across her throat. Sloan had told the truth, if not the whole truth.
He didn't know how the Malchai had gotten away with his life, but he was glad Leo had put a pole through the monster's back.
Despite the injury, Ilsa's face lit up when she saw him. She didn't speak, only held out a hand and he crossed the room and pulled her into a hug. She still smelled like mint.
“I thought you were gone,” he whispered. Still nothing. He pulled away to look her in the eyes. He didn't know how to tell her about Leo. Ilsa had been the first Sunai and Leo the second, and Leo might not have loved herâor anyoneâbut she loved him.
“Our brotherâ” he started, but she brought her fingers to his lips.
Somehow, she already knew.
“I'm scared,” he whispered against her hand. “I lost myself.” And it was more than that, of course. He'd taken in the soul of another Sunai. Even now, it burned through him like a star. “I don't think it all came back.”
She shook her head sadly, as if to say
it never does
.
Her lips parted, as if she wanted to speak. Nothing came out, but her eyes, those bright blue eyes, were full of words, and he knew what she would say.
Nobody gets to stay the same.
She turned back to the window, and looked out toward the city, and the Seam. Her fingers drifted to the still-cracked glass, and against the dark she drew a star, and then another, and another. August wrapped his arms around his sister's shoulders and watched her fill the sky.
Kate drove west.
Through the red, and yellow, and green of the city, through the Waste and the towns beyond. The car reached the border before the sun, and she handed the man the papers, and waited while he looked from page to her and back againâshe'd pried off the photo of a smiling child from the upper corner, glued one of her school pictures from Wild Prior or St. Agnes, she couldn't remember which. Most of the details lined up, but according to the papers, she was Katherine
Torrell
. It was her mother's maiden name.
She kept her hands on the wheel, fighting the urge to rap her nails while the guard read through her details.
There were three more men at the border control station, one on the ground and two on elevated posts, each decked out in gear and artillery. Her father's gun was strapped beneath the driver's seat. She hoped she wouldn't need it.
“Purpose?” asked the checkpoint guard.
“School,” she said, trying to remember which of the boarding schools was out this way, but he didn't ask.
“You know these papers don't grant you come-and-go privileges, right?”
She nodded. “I know,” she said. “I'm not coming back.”
The man went inside, and Kate tipped her head back and waited, hoping they would hold. Her eyes ached from tears, but they'd stopped falling hours ago, and her shades were down against the glare of the setting sun. The radio was set to a news station, a man and a woman talking about the mounting tension between Harker and Flynn. A riot at the Seam. The fact that Callum couldn't be reached for comment. She shut the radio off.
“Miss Torrell,” said the man, handing back the papers. “Drive safe,” he added, and she almost smiled.
“I will.”
The gates went up, and Kate pulled forward, out of Verity, and into the world beyond. It was ten miles of buffer zone to the nearest crossroads. Ten miles for Kate to decide where she was going.
She switched the radio back on. The Verity news feed was already losing its signal, and a few moments later it crackled out entirely, surging up with a different voice in a different city in a different territory. Gone were the reports of North City, of the Harkers and the Flynns,
and she drove on, half listening, until a line caught her ear.
“. . . violent murders have people shaken and police stumped. . . .”
Kate reached forward, and turned the volume up.
“Yes, that's right, James, disturbing reports out of Prosperity, where enforcement is still investigating a string of grisly murders in the capital, originally thought to be gang-related
.
”
She reached the crossroads, and stopped.
Temperance to the left, Fortune to the right, Prosperity straight ahead.
“While the police refuse to release any details, a witness called the murders ritualistic, almost occult. The killings come in the wake of another attack last week that left three dead. Crime in the territory has been on the rise for several years, but this marks a frightening new chapter for Prosperity
.
”
“Scary times, Beth
.”
“Indeed.”
“Indeed,” echoed Kate, hitting the gas.
August ran a finger over the single black tally at his wrist.
It was a new day.
A fresh start.
He rose, and dressed, but not for Colton.
He checked himself in the mirror, the dark fatigues hugging the slim lines of his body, the blocky white FTF
stitched over his heart. His hair still fell into his eyes, but they were darker now, the color of pewter, and he found himself avoiding their gaze.
August sank on the edge of the bed, Allegro toying absently with his laces as he cinched his boots. When he was done, he lifted the cat onto his knees and looked him squarely in the face.
“Am I all right?” he asked, and Allegro looked at him with his massive green eyes, and cocked his head the way Ilsa did sometimes when she was thinking. And then the cat reached out, and rested a small black paw on the bridge of his nose.
August felt himself smiling. “Thank you.”
He got to his feet. A case sat waiting on the stack of books. A gift from Henry and Emily. The violin inside was new, not polished wood, but metal, stainless steel, the strings heavy. A steel bow sat beside it.
It was a new instrument, for a new age.
A new August.
He took up the violin, nestled the cool metal beneath his chin, and drew the bow across the first string.
The note that came out was more than sound. It was high and low, soft and sharp. It filled the room with a steady pitch that vibrated like a bass through August's bones. It was unlike anything he'd ever heard, and his fingers itched to play, but he resisted, lowering the
instrument, letting the bow slip back to his side.
There would be time to call the music.
Time to summon the souls.
With Harker gone, North City was already sliding. Malchai with the
H
s torn from their skin were attacking the Seam. Corsai were feeding on anything they could catch, even if it wore a Harker medal. The citizens were panicking. They didn't know how to find safety when they couldn't buy it. It was only a matter of time before the FTF would have to cross the Seam and step in.
And when they did, August would be with them.
He wasn't Leo, but without his brother's strength, his sister's voice, he was South City's last Sunai. And he would do what was needed to save the city.
He could be the monster, if that kept others human.
August had killed Harker so that Kate wouldn't have to. He hadn't relished the murder, but it wouldn't stain his soul, not the way it would have hers. It hadn't been just about the sinner in the end, it was about the sin itself, the shadow that ate away a human's light.
And August wasn't human.
He wasn't made of flesh and bone, or starlight.
He was made of darkness.
Leo had been right about one thingâit was time for August to accept what he was.
And embrace it.
The house beyond the Waste lay empty, except for the corpse.
In the bathroom down the hall, the faucet still dripped into the half-filled tub.
The blue front door hung open on its hinges, and loose leaves blew in across the threshold.
The sun was going down, stretching shadows across the wooden floor.
Most of the shadows stood still, but one began to crawl, spreading like the pool of blood, now stiff, away from the body and up the wall. It stretched, and twisted, and drew itself upright, off the blood-flecked wall and into the room.
She was tall and thin, with pointed nails that shone like metal, and eyes that glowed like cigarettes.
The monster stepped over the corpse and wandered down the hall, into the bathroom where the pieces of a violin lay strewn across the floor. She toed the shards of wood, the broken wire, saw her reflection in the mirror, and flashed a smile full of silver teeth. In the bedroom at the end of the hall, she found a photograph of a man and a woman, with a girl between them. The man and the woman meant nothing to the Malchai, but the girl she recognized.
She took the photo and left, humming as she stepped
out into the dark, crossed the gravel path and the field beyond. The monster ran her hands over the wild grass as she made her way to the glint of the distant warehouse, following the scent of blood and death.
She found the first Malchai in the passageway with his heart ripped out. She stepped over him, and made her way toward the second one. He was lying in a pool of light, a metal bar speared through him, suit and skin and bone.
Suit and skin and bone . . . but not heart.
She cocked her head, considering, then took hold of the blood-slicked pole and drew it free with a wet scrape.
The Malchai didn't move.
Nothing, nothing, and then a sudden rattling sound escaped the monster's chest, and his red eyes flicked open. He sat up and spit a mouthful of black blood onto the concrete before tipping back his head and looking up at her.
“What is your name, little Malchai?”
She thought about it for a long second, waiting for a name to surface. And then it did, welling up like blood, and she answered, “Alice.”
The Malchai's lips curled into a wicked smile, and he began to laugh, the sound ringing through the warehouse like a song.
Every time I sit down to write acknowledgments, I freeze. Not because there are so few to thank, but because there are so many, and I know with increasing dread that the harder I try to remember them all, the more of them I will forget. With that in mind, I have taken to using broad strokes, but know that every single reader, supporter, friend, fan, has a hand in this book, and in every book.
To my mother and father. Ten books later, and you still haven't given up on me, or told me to get a real job. I promise never to put you in a book.
To my agent, Holly Root, for your steadfast support and serious hustle. You are the best champion, and I'm so glad that you're mine.
To my editor, Martha Mihalick, for being both a sharp editor and a lovely person, and for demanding the best I can give. It's an honor to work with you.
To my entire team at Greenwillow, from the designers to the marketing and publicity stars. To my UK team at Titan, from Miranda Jewess to Lydia Gittins and so many more.
To the six C's who keep me afloat, three on each side of the ocean. You are my buoys, my bests.
To my housemate Jenna, for somehow turning random ingredients into delicious meals, and for reminding me to leave the house.
To the incredible network of writers and readers in the Nashville area, for making this community a true joy to be a part of.
And most of all, to my readers. Through thick and thin, high and low, you're with me.
