Page 49 of Sharpest Court

And among those flashes—the beautiful young woman who’d saluted me after I’d slapped Briar.

Her name rose to my mind on a tide of loathing.

Mara Capewell.

14

Mara’s eyes widened, and her shock was so unexpected that I hesitated—and didn’t see her reach behind her back until a flash of silver whistled toward me.

A hard body slammed into me from behind, tackling me aside. I hit the floor under Keil’s weight as Mara’s blade skidded across the hardwood, its tip red.

I didn’t have time to consider where the blood had come from. I was already lurching after Mara through the inn’s back door.

I blinked into the darkness, scanning in all directions around the empty street.

Keil pounded to my side. “The roofs!”

I snapped my eyes up. Mara was bounding over the buildings, her leather jacket streaking across the horizon.

“Cut her off!” I said, then raced in the opposite direction, heart pounding.

The wind zipped past my ears, the buildings whizzing on either side as I chased the banner of her golden hair. Dust gritted my lashes, but I didn’t take my eyes off her. So I saw the exact moment she stopped running and dropped through one of the roofs.

I halted, breathing heavily. She must have found an opening into the building below.

My fists curled at my sides. I had her.

My specter teemed under my skin as I entered the abandoned workshop. I stepped forward cautiously, my ragged breaths echoing in the cool silence. Rafters crisscrossed the ceiling and a single skylight gaped open, a shaft of moonlight illuminating the dimness. Mara must have landed somewhere close by.

A scuffle sounded from behind. I whipped around—

And something thwacked across my cheek.

I gasped, staggering—and another blow caught the back of my knee, buckling me.

I cried out as I landed on my wounded arm. My eyes watered, my cheek stinging from Mara’s backhanded strike.

Her dark laughter rumbled from above. “You chased me down just to whimper at my feet? How disappointing.”

My fury rekindled and my specter flared out—a hot, rolling wave, aiming wildly.

And missing.

The edge of my power just about connected with Mara’s shoulder, no more effective than a sharp shove.

I panted, scrambling to control the rampant waves, when leather crowded my vision, and Mara pinned me; her rear settled onto my stomach, her knees crushing my wrists to the floor. Remembering the compass at my hip, I began thrashing, my specter going liquid with panic inside me.

I had sacrificed too much to keep this compass from Hunters. I couldn’t lose it now.

But as the pressure on my torso made me wheeze, and my bruised back shrieked with new pain, Mara paid no attention to my hip bag. She only gripped my wounded arm.

“Oh, dear.” She angled the stitches to the light. “Did Aunt Briar do that? That was very naughty of her.”

She wrapped a hand around the wound—squeezed—and I saw white.

My scream rang out, and I realized she’d lifted herself off my stomach just enough to hear my agony echo across the stones.

She thudded onto me again, and the sound choked off.