Page 10 of Claim the Twilight
She has a point. It’s strange and eerie, and my stomach quivers with the wrongness of it all. I stick my head out the window and look up at the sky where Godor forms the point in the arrowhead of batlings providing our escort across Old Town.
They fly high, but even then, their huge forms cast shadows that surely would be noticed. But no one looks up.
The carriage slows before stopping outside a confectioner, and a moment later, Holly appears at our window. “I need to check something,” she says before breaking away from us andapproaching a young couple standing by the window of the sweet shop. She chats with them for a few moments, then points up at the sky. They look up and frown, shake their heads, then go back to window watching.
Holly rejoins us. “There’s some kind of magic at work here,” she says. “They don’t see the batlings. They don’t see the shimmer either. I think Loviator’s done this, whatever it is, to keep humans calm.”
“But I’m human, and I can see…” I trail off as a cold spot of revelation blooms across my chest. If humans are affected by Loviator’s spell and I’m not, it means that I’m no longer human. It means that the mullo infection in my body has changed me irrevocably. “Get us to the mansion. Please.”
Holly nods curtly. “You got it.”
The forest closes around us,burying us in the earthy fragrance of nature and cutting off the midafternoon sun. I’ve made this trek in the dead of night too many times to appreciate its daylight charm where the ground is dappled and birdsong fills the air.
When I travel this route, the air is wet and cold, and dark, spindly branches loom in, reaching for me like spectral fingers.
We’ve lost sight of Godor and his batlings, but I doubt they’ve lost sight of us. I catch movement in the trees—a flash of pink followed by a flicker of white—and a moment later, the horses whinny and the carriage clatters to a halt.
“I could have killed you!” Holly shouts at someone.
I jump out of the cab and hurry to the front of the carriage, where the horses paw at the ground in agitation.
Holly remains in the driver’s seat, her eyes wide, her face flushed as she glares at the young woman and man standing in our path. They must have run across the road. Shit.
I take a couple of steps toward them. “You’re lucky my friend has good reflexes.”
“So sorry,” the guy says. “We were…” He frowns and blinks rapidly. “Having a picnic?”
He looks to the woman, who stares blankly at the carriage.
There’s a streak of dirt on her cheek and more across her skirts. Her pink parasol is torn, and is that blood on her fingers?
“Are you okay?” I take another step toward them, and she shrinks back against the man, who puts his arms around her protectively. There’s blood on his hands too, but I can’t see a wound. “You both have blood on your hands…”
They look down at their hands in unison then up at each other in obvious confusion.
“Padma…” Merry joins me by the carriage. “What’s going on?”
“Where are Benji and Dolly…” the woman says. “What? We were?—”
A sharp crack splits the air. A gust of icy wind slaps me in the face, and a large dark shape materializes out of nowhere, sweeps across the road, and swallows the couple before vanishing into thin air.
It happens so fast that my scream of shock doesn’t leave my throat until after it’s over.
Godor lands on the road in the exact spot where the couple was a moment ago, his head whipping back and forth, nostrils flaring.
“What the actual fuck…” Holly says.
“It’s Loviator. It has to be…” Merry says softly.
A batling lands in a crouch at the side of the road. “Godor, we find blood and food.”
“A picnic?” Merry says. “They were attacked while having a picnic?”
And I had no doubt that the thing that attacked them was affiliated to Loviator.
“Loviator is here,” Holly says. “Somewhere between here and…wherever she was before.”
Which means she could be anywhere, for all we know.
