The Unnaturalists

CHAPTER 24

Syrus ran until he thought his lungs would give out. His back paw was sore, and his heart even sorer, but he drove toward New London like a phantom arrow. The Forest parted for him as if it knew the dire urgency of his errand.

He barely slowed when he came to Lowgate, which was just opening for the earliest Tinkers and other merchants to bring in their wares for market. The banshee alarms screamed as he passed, warning of magical intrusion, and the paralyzing pain of the nullwards nearly knocked him to the ground.

He expected the null magic to change him, to find himself stumbling through the crowd on two legs, naked and cold. But the change didn’t come. He was still a ghostly white hound and the crowd drew back from him—Tinkers making warding signs and other people screaming in terror at the sight of his red eyes.

Then the sentry wights came, pelting him with stinging darts as they chased him through Lowtown. He knew the Raven Guard would come next and probably carry him off to the Refineries or to the Waste. If he could just get to Bayne before then . . .

He dodged through Lowtown and across the Night Emporium bridge. He lost most of the sentries there, but the Emporium wights crowded around him, asking if he wanted flavored ice or perfumes. He snapped at one and it shrank back with a shriek like a punctured balloon.

A shopkeeper screamed when he saw him and ran inside to sound his own banshee alarm. With the bridge alight with wailing, Syrus loped out of the tunnel and up into Midtown. The sentry wights found him again soon enough, stinging him with jabs of energy that made him wince.

Only a few more streets. Please let the gates be open. . . It became the only thing he could think. His hind legs dragged as he pulled himself through the iron gates and up onto the front stoop of the Grimgorn estate. A banshee alarm went off down the street. The sentry wights jabbed at him, but he was sprawled across the porch, too exhausted to do more than growl at them.

His relief when the door banged open was so great that his tail pounded against the stone seemingly of its own volition.

“Athena’s Great Grimoire! I came down when I heard the alarms, wondering if it might be you,” Bayne said. He was in his dressing gown, a teacup in one hand. He waded into the swarm of wights, banishing them left and right. “Begone!” he said.

He lifted his hand and whispered for silence. The banshee alarms ceased mid-wail.

Bayne drew Syrus in and shut the door behind him. Then he carried him upstairs to his bedchamber before anyone could find them. He set his teacup down on his bedside table.

“By the Founders, boy, but you do try your damnedest to get me into trouble, don’t you?”

Bayne’s fingers searched his head and shoulders where the sentry wights had stung him. Then he whispered a word and Syrus felt himself shrinking, his paws returning to hands, his tail disappearing, his fur shriveling until it disappeared into skin.

A maid came just in time to see Syrus standing naked in Bayne’s sitting room.

“Saints alive!” she exclaimed.

“Make us more tea, Bet,” Bayne said. His voice was deadly calm.

She threw her apron over her head and disappeared back down the hall.

Bayne put his dressing gown around Syrus’s shoulders, and Syrus slipped into its warmth gratefully, though it hung off his small frame and trailed far past his feet.

“You lied to me,” Bayne said, as he led Syrus to the fire.

The Architect went and looked out the front window. He looked odd and certainly not at all menacing or powerful in his pajamas.

“Well, you lied to everyone,” Syrus said.

Bayne said nothing, his back still turned.

“I’m sorry,” Syrus said at last. “I just didn’t want to believe . . .”

Bayne faced him. “But if you had told me, I could have given you a potion that might have helped reverse the effects of the bite before the damage was done. It may be too late now, I fear.”

Syrus nodded.

“I should probably just have given it to you anyway, as a precaution,” Bayne said, “but it’s a deadly nasty thing to have to swallow if you don’t need it. Makes you deathly ill. Didn’t want to risk that with the illness you already had.” He seemed almost sheepish, as if Syrus’s predicament was his fault.

Syrus squirmed. After the near-death experience he’d had, considering the rest of his life as a werehound was too much. “I promise I’m house-trained,” he said. Then he thought of the night of his first change in the Virulen servant’s quarters and blushed. “I think,” he added.

Bayne blinked. Then he half-smiled when he realized Syrus was joking.

“No worries. We shall find a way to reverse it. There must be something left in the Archives.”

Syrus nodded.

“But that isn’t why you came here. Or is it?” Bayne asked.

Betula brought a tray with tea and meat, cheese, and bread. The smell made Syrus drool and he tried not to wipe his mouth on his too-long sleeves.

“Thank you, Bet,” Bayne said. “And see if you can find more boy’s clothes, will you? Our young friend can’t wander around in my dressing gown.”

“Yessir,” she said. She disappeared, and a few moments later, Syrus heard footsteps exiting the estate.

Bayne handed him a cup of tea and looked at him quizzically, waiting for his response.

“No. That’s not why I came,” Syrus said. His hands trembled on the china as he stared at the food.

Bayne saw the direction of his gaze. “Hungry? Help yourself, by all means.”

Syrus set the teacup down and lunged toward a plate of food. He ate as if the wights were after him again. He burped happily afterward, then covered his mouth in shame.

Bayne frowned. “So, were you successful in getting Vespa to the Manticore?”

Syrus ran his fingers through his tangled hair. “Yeessss,” he said.

“What happened?”

“Charles,” Syrus said. “That is, Charles caught us as we were going there.”

“What do you mean?”

“He made Vespa capture the Manticore and he’s holding her now.”

Bayne set his china cup down so hard that he broke the handle.

“Damn it!” He dug at his eyes with the heels of his hands, cursing vehemently to himself.

Syrus shrugged. “He’s taken them, yes, but he said something about giving the Manticore as a wedding present to you and Lucy Virulen. Maybe there’s still time.” Syrus eyed the last cream cake on the tray. Hunger eclipsed everything.

Bayne dropped his hands. “Why can nothing go as I plan? Why?”

Syrus thought of the clans at Tinkerville, of Truffler who had only recently cared for him so tenderly when he was ill. He’d left him thinking that he’d be safer in the Forest, and now that the Manticore had been captured, Truffler wasn’t safe at all. He thought of Vespa and how she’d said something had happened to her magic. And then he thought of Nainai reading his face and telling him he was meant to do great things. A great person didn’t sit around eating cream cakes or bemoaning his fate when destruction threatened.

“We need to help them,” Syrus said.

Bayne sat very, very still, his jaw working with tension. He stared at some distant point below them, as if he could see through the floor.

“Yes,” he said finally. “Yes, we do.”