Page 101 of Staff of Nightfall

“Adelaide—”

“No, you’re wrong.” She was supposed to save him. To save them all. “Where is he?” She broke free of Dresden’s grip, sobbing as tears made his face difficult to see. “Where’s my father?”

“I’m sorry. Your father is gone.”

She rubbed her eyes and his face came back into focus. In the shadowy light of the torch on the floor, she saw the truth in his eyes.No.

“Take me to him. I—I can—” She gulped back her sobs, trying to talk past the ache in her throat. “I can save him. I can heal him. You have to take me to him!” She’d heal him, and he’d laugh and say she was as stubborn as Mother.

Dresden shook his head. “I’m sorry, Adelaide. It’s not like Regulus. He’s gone. I don’t think even you can resurrect the dead.”

“No, please...” What was left of her heart broke with a pain that was physical. Father’s green eyes filled her mind. The sound of his voice as he teased Mother. The love and protectiveness in his face every time he called hermy daughter.She had failed him.

Light flickered in the doorway behind the dais. “Clear,” someone said. “Lay them out on the dais.”

Adelaide stared at the doorway as guards carried bodies into the hall. Her chest constricted. Dresden tried to turn her away. “Adelaide, don’t—”

She released a blast of light against his chest, knocking him to the ground, and ran to the dais, ignoring Dresden’s cry of pain. She recognized the faces of the guards on the ground but didn’t know their names. Another guard carried in a body not wearing a royal guard’s uniform. She froze while the man placed the body on the dais next to the others. She stumbled forward as Dresden came up behind her, holding his torch in one hand and clutching his side with the other.

“Adelaide...”

She stared down at Father’s ashen, lifeless face. His glassy eyes stared at the ceiling. The blood covering his chest glistened in the light of Dresden’s torch.

Adelaide sank to her knees. “Father? I—I’m...here.” She brushed her fingers over his cheek. His skin was too cold. His unseeing eyes didn’t move. Her jaw quivered. “No, you can’t, you have—you have...to stay.”

She moved her trembling hands over his body. Her palms glowed as she searched for a spark of life. Nothing. She could sense the wound that went through his still, unmoving heart. She tried to heal it, to pull his heart back together and force it to beat again. “Tell me it—it’s going to be all right. Pl...please, Father.”

His heart didn’t beat. His lips didn’t move. Adelaide lifted his stiffening torso and cradled him in her lap as she rained tears on his unblinking face.

“I’m sorry, Father. I—I—I... I tried—” A sob swallowed her words. Her soul shattered like the stained glass covering the hall floor. She clenched his shirt and buried her face in his shoulder, choking on the sharp and bitter scent of his blood.

Dresden pulled her to her feet and Father’s body fell back to the floor with a sickening thud. She screamed. Dresden dragged her away. Her legs shook and she collapsed, nearly pulling Dresden down on top of her. Her wails echoed in the vaulted ceiling. She howled her pain into the air until her throat was so raw, she couldn’t make a sound, and then she pounded her fists against the floor.

Bits of broken glass cut her hands and her blood dripped onto the floor, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t feel the pain. There was too much pain in her heart for her body to feel anything. Dresden knelt and pulled her against his chest, preventing her flailing. She wept silently into his shoulder until she fell asleep, too exhausted to keep her eyes open.

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WHEN ADELAIDE AWOKE, she was lying in the dark on top of the bed in her and Regulus’ little room. Her head throbbed. Everything came back at once. Regulus had been taken. Kirven and Nolan had escaped with the staff. And Father was... Father was...

Dead. The word bounced around inside her skull, making it pound more. She turned onto her side and curled into a ball. Her throat felt like it had been tied in knots and then untangled. She made a sound like an injured dog. Movement somewhere in the room made her freeze.

“Adelaide?” Dresden’s sleepy voice. “Are you awake?”

After a moment, she said “yes,” but no sound came out of her mouth. She cleared her throat. “Yes.” Her voice sounded scratchy and thick.

“Do you need anything?” Dresden murmured. “I have water...”

She licked her dry lips. They tasted of tears. “Water would be good.”

She managed to conjure a small orb of light. The light hurt her eyes and made her headache worse, which seemed impossible. Dresden sat in one of the chairs by the table, squinting. Dark bags circled under his heavy eyelids. He picked a large canteen up off the table and handed it to her. Swallowing was almost painful, but the water soothed the tightness in her throat.

Adelaide stared at the canteen in her hands as the question she both wanted and dreaded to ask burned in her chest. She took another drink. The water helped her headache, if only a little. Blood from her broken nose had dried on her chest and the bodice of her dress. Cuts and scrapes covered her hands, especially the fleshy sides of her palms. Parts of her skirt and sleeves were singed. And none of it mattered.

It took a moment to find her voice. “What happened?” The words came out in a croak. She took another drink and cleared her throat again. “How did my father....” Her eyes filled with tears. “How’d he die?” She finally met Dresden’s eyes. “Were you there?”

Dresden hesitated. “We followed the royals. A guard or two was left every so often to slow down anyone who might try to pursue. We got to a locked brass door. The king unlocked it, and the guard captain and a few other guards accompanied the royals inside. It leads to some underground maze with several exits for the royal family to escape if need be.”

He took a deep breath. “Three guards, your father, and I remained to guard the door. Good thing, too, because Carrick ripped the door off its hinges—after he caught me in the side,” his hand drifted to the new, clean bandage on his left side, “cut off the hand of one of the guards, and severely wounded the other two. Your father stood his ground the longest. He bought the king time to escape.”

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