Wystwood

77. Bridge under the water

The streets were aflame with chaos. Yue evidently hadn't been the only member of the Stone Circle to step out from hiding that morning, as the scent of sulphur was still choking even outside of the Barrack's courtyard. Broken vials rolled beneath Ada's thin slippers, glass catching on silk and shredding it to tatters. Her feet were cold and numb, but her mind was sharp despite her sleepless night.

She was grateful that Spindlewen had made her dress such a dark shade of navy, for it swirled around her as she ran as though she wore a cloak of smoke itself. She kept to Wysthaven's darkest passageways, her ears growing sensitive as her eyes struggled to pick out the cobblestones ahead. At each corner, she waited to hear the rattle of chains, and if they came close she would double back and find a new path to creep down. Once, a group of Circle members had assembled a street over and shattered an overhead window with a long, bloodsoaked chain. Ada had held her breath until they had disappeared into the smoke, her corset fighting against her lungs.

She came eventually to a ravaged square and looked out over the destruction. Stood amidst the rubble, Ada couldn't help but wonder how life in the city would change if the Stone Circle was to gain control. Yue had promised execution and exile, two concepts clearly not so different from the Lady's regime. Whilst it was true that the Hounds themselves would be gone, how many families would be ripped apart for the sake of it? Ada had seen the Hounds in the ballroom, large numbers of them only just breaching adulthood. If Diane hadn't chosen her life for herself, how many of the Hounds had ventured onto their path of their own accord?

A grating laugh shivered out from the smoke, and Ada heard the wet thud of a body hitting pavement. She slipped from the square through a narrow cloister, and was abruptly on the banks of the canal. The tower of Wysthaven had drawn a fury to it, with fae from the Circle fighting the Hounds quickly gathering. Amongst the rattle of chains came the shattering of glass, and more smoke poured from vials like a liquid, their silver flecks bursting into flames.

It seemed that the canal itself was alight, its waters reflected as red as the cobblestones, which lay slick with blood. Above the canal rose the tower, strangely stoic in its untouched magnitude, and ringed around with archways. They stood as stone sentinels, the smoke drifting through them like veils between realms. Ada squinted across the canal, holding back a cough even as her chest tightened. She could see no bridge across to the island.

A cry dissolved into a gurgle at her feet as a young fae stumbled and fell before her, their long arm torn at an obscene angle, fingers twitching then falling still. Ada ran without thinking, Hounds lumbering out from the smoke on all sides, only to be ripped back by disembodied hands on their chains. Sound was all but lost to the shriek of metal and the crushing of glass, and between it all whistled the wind. It tangled Ada's feet in her dress and ripped away her panted breaths.

Then a claw closed tightly around her elbow, jerking her through a doorway with such strength that she was sent tumbling onto a bag a grain. Too late she was grasping for the iron dagger strapped to her thigh, silk slipping under her fingers, the weight of a chain undoubtedly about to crack down upon her hands.

"Ada!" said a sweet voice, and an even greater terror descended upon her.

"Min," Ada gasped. "No, no. Min! What are you doing here? It's too dangerous!"

"It looked like you were the one in danger," Min replied pointedly, as though a barrage of Hounds weren't a wall away from them. "Not us."

At the doorway was Hester, her hands still outstretched as the wind calmed to a breeze within her palms. Her arms quivered under the strain of her Casting, and her wrinkled face was pale against the firelights outside. But despite it all, she stood upright and ferociously alive.