Page 105 of A City of Smoke and Demons
‘Neither of them is stupid,’ Jem declared. ‘But—’
‘Something isn’t right,’ Ezra mumbled. Every beat of his heart was strangely slowed, his blood pulsing with … magic, he realised. Analise’s magic. It pulled at his insides. Frowning, Ezra rubbed his chest as Tobias raised his eyebrows. ‘Once upon a time, you trusted my instincts, Tobias.’
That was enough for Jem. He stood, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair and sliding it on. Without a word, he strode towards Maddog’s office, returning with three pistols. Wordlessly, he handed them over.
Maddog hurried out, worry etched in every line of his face. ‘Your sister ... I promised your parents.’
Jem turned to look at him, face tight. ‘I’ll find her,’ he vowed, then marched towards the door. Ezra and Tobias hurried after him; it wasn’t until they were outside and hurrying down the street that Ezra realised Hernan was with them.
The concern on his face made Ezra shut his mouth. He knew nothing about Hernan, only that he’d worked for Maddog since he was a boy. Hernan was older than Ezra and suddenly, it madea strange sort of sense. Maddog, and therefore Lira, were family to him.
At the corner of Blackcoln Road, Jem stopped suddenly. The fingers he pressed to his temples were trembling. ‘Alright. We don’t know where they are, so I think we should—’
‘No,’ Ezra said sharply. ‘We don’t split up.’
‘Ezra…’ Tobias began.
‘This way,’ Ezra mumbled, and broke into a run. He couldn’t explain what he was feeling, or how he knew where to go. It was like there was a compass inside him, pulling him around corners and down dark fog-slicked streets. He was a block away from the Canem Club and tearing down Blackcoln Road when the others caught up to him. Ezra didn’t slow down, turning a corner so quickly his feet skidded on the pavement.
‘Ezra, wait,’ Jem called.
Ezra dodged a pair of drunks stumbling along. He raced to the other side of the street, heart pounding. He could hear the others behind him, feet slapping the pavement, as they passed the lodging house Analise had roomed at.
‘Stop fucking running!’ Tobias shouted.
Ezra allowed the others to catch up to him.
‘How are we going to find them?’ Jem asked. His voice was brittle, his taciturn expression nowhere to be seen. ‘They could be anywhere in the Credges by now.’
Ezra had vowed he wouldn’t do this again, and apart from finding Analise for the fucking Devil, or for Father Blackwood, or Jem, or the Order, or whoever else wanted her, he hadn’t gone back on the promise he made himself, the one he’d silently made Agnes.
But now, he threw all those promises aside.
‘We’ll find them because I’m going to track Analise,’ he declared.
‘Ezra—’ Tobias began.
‘Shut up and let me do my job,’ Ezra cut in viciously. Tobias fell silent. No one mentioned the slip of the tongue, but Ezra needed to think of it like that. He needed to turn the clock back, depersonalise it, or else his panic, his fear, would overwhelm him.
For now, he was once again Ezra Ives, infamous witch-hound of the Unseen, and he was tracking a death witch through London’s dark, fog-slicked streets.
Two streets over, they found Lira, staring at the night sky.
The pavement beneath her was a slick of blood.
Jem dropped to his knees, pulling his sister into his arms, but they were too late. Lira was dead. The air left Ezra’s lungs and for a moment, his heart paused, then surged again so quickly it was painful. Lira was pale, the front of her shirt soaked and her palms scarlet, like she’d tried to stop the bleeding herself.
No one spoke. Ezra didn’t know what to say, couldn’t think about anything other than Analise. For a moment, it was her he saw, lying on the pavement in a pool of her own blood. Then it was Agnes, and all the others. He blinked, sucking in a sharp breath as he realised something else—Analise would never have left Lira to die like this.
Jem screamed, making them all jump, and the pain in his voice ripped into Ezra like a knife, so sharp his eyes pricked with tears. He crouched beside Jem, reaching out to touch Lira’s hand. She was cold—she died alone on a dirty street in the Devil’s Credges.
Shock slipped away, replaced quickly by burning anger. Tobias knelt beside Jem, whose face was caught somewhere between despair and rage. ‘I should have … I should …’ hemuttered, his voice breaking. Tobias murmured something to him.
‘Jem,’ Ezra whispered. His friend looked up. ‘Jem, I—’
‘I’ll kill him,’ Jem seethed. Ezra had never heard someone sound so viciously resolute. He exchanged a glance with Tobias, a silent communication that said they needed to move, now.
‘I’ll rip him to pieces with my bare hands,’ Jem went on. His grip on his sister’s body tightened.
