Page 96 of Reap & Sow

“Bitch.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Eda only fully understood Fane’s plan when he abruptly left. She rolled to her knees and watched as he ran past the fiends, past the bodies strewn across the gravel path. When he tripped, it was hard to say if he’d meant to do so.

He fell at Martine Tenelle’s feet.

“C-Commander!” He gripped the hem of her doublet. “Commander, she’s here! The Shaw girl! She has a Gateway—she slaughtered my men!” He pointed back at the mausoleum with a trembling hand. “Look!”

As one, the three fiends raised their bloody maws. They stared at the wall of Blades guarding Tenelle’s back, clawed excitedly at the gravel. As though the glut of flesh they’d already devoured meant nothing.

They leaped, snarling, to meet silver swords.

The fight was brief but bloody. Fearsome as the fiends were, there were simply too many Blades, and they were overrun. Martine Tenelle herself drove her sword between the shoulder blades of the third fiend with a cry, teeth bared. The thing thrashed and clawed at her, but she merely twisted the steel until it stopped moving.

Tenelle did not pause for breath. She withdrew the blade, shining with black ichor, and pointed it at Eda. “Come out with your hands raised.”

Two Blades trained their crossbows upon the mausoleum door.

There was nothing to do but comply. Eda stepped outside. She caught sight of the full scale of the fiends’ carnage: crushed cartilage, loose brain matter, the half-eaten string of intestine lying like some bloodied snake across the gravel. One of the bodies twitched. A high, wheezing noise of agony—the man’s face had caved in, and he looked more like a pile of offal than a person. But he was still alive.

Eda’s gorge rose. “I did not do this.”

Tenelle ignored her. With a single, clean thrust, she drove her sword down a second time into the butchered man’s heart. He fell still.

“I did not do this,” Eda repeated. “This was Bishop Fane’s doing. All of it has been his doing. His Gateway, his creatures—”

“Saints be good,” Fane cried, making a show of holding on to a nearby Blade as though he might swoon at any moment. “The girl has a serpent’s tongue. My own men lie butchered, and she dares accuse me?” He pointed at his bleeding cheek. “She tried to cut me down herself!”

“And what of you, Bishop Florian? Why is it you and your fellow Faithful were here in the dead of night…” Tenelle nudged one of the fallen priest’s swords. “Armed?”

“I spotted her,” Fane said without hesitation. “These good clerics insisted they accompany me to confront the witch, and I bade them bring protections. What good it did them.” Remarkable, how his voice wavered. As though their deaths truly upset him.

Tenelle was silent.

“Commander,” Eda hissed in the lull, “please, listen to me. You know it was me who sent warning to Wolfram tonight. I was the one who brought you here.”

Tenelle came close. The woman really was very tall, a presence commanding as her title, towering as her station. She held her sword like a staff in the gravel between them. “The High Governor informed me of your intent to prove your innocence,” she said in low tones so that only Eda could hear. “Alas, it was not Wolfram who bid me come here this evening. Your message never reached me.”

Eda’s thoughts scattered like leaves. “What? But then…who did?”

“Severin Lich.” Her mouth thinned. “A play at endearing himself to the Order, no doubt. He has the ear of many powerful figures in this city. This latest act of good citizenship will make bringing him to justice even harder.”

Eda stared.

Lich had warned Tenelle about the Blades. But he’d also warned Fane. He sent them both here. The only person he hadn’t kept in his confidence…

Me, she realized numbly. He wanted them to arrest me. Eda had tried to pit Lich and Tenelle against each other, and Lich saw right through her. He’d used her ploy against her, and here was her punishment—caught red-handed at the scene. But that still didn’t answer why he was willing to let the Blades discover the mirror. Lich wanted it for himself. Didn’t he know they’d destroy it? Eda’s capture and Fane’s good favor could not be worth so much.

Her lungs felt tight and small. Where is Kit?

“Search the mausoleum,” Tenelle called.

Her men piled into the dark chamber. “It’s here,” one cried. “A Gateway!”

Tenelle began tying Eda’s wrists.

“Commander—”