Lu limped forward. She couldn’t hear her pursuers anymore; had she lost them? No, she realized with dawning horror as she dragged herself across a dark street, just missing getting smashed by a passing electric trolley, mercifully empty of passengers. She couldn’t hear them because she couldn’t hear anything.

The only sound now in her ears was a high, tinny buzzing, and that was all.

We’ll get you out. We’ll get you out.

Her left leg had gone numb. She dragged it behind her, clinging to the chain link fence, forcing herself forward. It was an eternity. It was a never ending fight, a slog of left foot, right foot, pulling, dragging . . .

Then she saw it, and sobbed in relief: the Schottentor gate.

It was there, just beyond the plant, hidden beneath a tangle of overgrown shrubs, a break in the tall expanse of solid, curving stone that comprised the city wall. It was deserted, dark, one of the lesser gates kept always locked.

With her final dregs of energy, Lu limped past the plant into the dense shadows created by the stand of ancient trees that flanked the wall. Her heart felt as if it was going to give out. Her lungs burned like fire. Her vision was watery, at best, and she knew she had only moments left before she would lose consciousness.

But the rabbit? What, and where, was it?

And who was waiting to help her? Who was watching? There was no one here, no one—

Her gaze fell on a small patch of wall that had been cleared of the dense thicket of vines. There, high above her head, was a crude spray painting, crude but perfectly clear.

A white rabbit. Looking down.

Lu fell and crawled the final few yards, rashing her palms on the sharp gravel, tearing her trousers, skinning her knees. The buzzing in her ears grew to a sound like a hive of angry hornets, but she didn’t stop, not even when she thought she saw something move from the corner of her eye, not even when the spear of fire in her chest flared up anew and became not one, but a thousand brilliant points of burning pain.

There was a break in the thicket. A space, no wider than her shoulders, a hidden place where the mess of tangled vines and leaves and overgrown shrubs opened to reveal a passageway. A low black tunnel through the ancient stone, concealed by the mass of old growth. You’d never know it was there unless you were right on top of it, and even then, you might miss it.

A few more feet. Just a few . . . more . . . feet.

A hand reached out and grabbed her.

She tried to fight, but she had nothing left. Pain had leached all the fight from her body, so when the hand became two and flipped her onto her back, she didn’t resist. She just gazed mutely up at the man who stared down at her, waiting for him to do whatever it was he was going to do.

He was saying something. She couldn’t make it out, and it didn’t really matter. All she was interested in was his face. He looked familiar. But no—she would’ve known him. She would’ve remembered this face if she’d seen it before.

It was ruined.

The entire right side was deeply scarred, with whole chunks missing and a vicious gouge that ran all the way from one side of his forehead to the opposite cheek. His nose had been broken and never properly fixed, he was missing half an ear, and his chin was notched, not a natural cleft, but as if a piece of flesh had been purposefully cut out.

But he had a superhero’s jaw and beautiful soft, dark eyes, in spite of the horror of that face, and Lu found herself smiling up at him. With the last of her strength, she smiled.

What was he saying? It was a single word, repeated over and over. She concentrated on his mouth, on his lips—full and surprisingly sensual, a startling disparity against that face—and just before she sank down into the warm, welcoming arms of darkness she realized what it was he was saying.

Hope. He was calling her Hope.

Then, mercifully, there was nothing more.

FIVE

Gentle rocking. Warm wind caressing her face. The hollow, repetitive plunk of wood slapping water, a smattering of moisture on her cheek. Lu inhaled and smelled damp earth and river and the musky, pleasing scent of a man, very near.

She’d never smelled anything like him. A lush mix of forest floor and spice and moonlight, his scent was rich, exotic, and tinged with danger, nothing at all like the human men she’d spent her life surrounded by.

Wild, she thought drowsily. He smells like a wild thing hunting in a nighttime woods.

She fought to open her heavy lids, swimming up from the blackness that had claimed her . . . how long ago? When her eyes blinked open, she found more darkness, but not quite as opaque. High above, dark shapes moved swiftly past, whispering, a sly rustle, the music of a breeze stirring leaves.

Tree branches, arching gracefully overhead. It was still night, but a faint glow of crimson glimmered on the eastern horizon, promising dawn.

Where am I?

She was so tired. Her body was so, so heavy. And her mouth, God, her mouth was baked to desert dryness.

“Water,” she whispered in German, her lids fluttering closed. “Please.”

She felt the man’s attention snap over, heard his fleet step as he quickly came beside her and knelt down. If he smelled different, he moved differently, too, not even disturbing the air as he passed through it, silent as a ghost.

Then a hand—strong, calloused—cradled her neck.

“Drink.”

The soft command was spoken in English. She could tell nothing about him from that one syllable, but understood in spite of the fog in her brain that she was at his complete mercy. Whoever he was, he could do whatever he pleased with her, and she’d be unable to resist.

But his scent . . . it did something to her. It was almost comforting.

She drank greedily from the flask he held to her mouth, too exhausted to examine that ridiculous notion.

When she’d had her fill, she turned her head. He withdrew his hand from beneath her neck. Though she tried again and again, her lids refused to open. She felt his fingers brush her forehead, pause briefly at the pulse beating jaggedly beneath her jaw.

She tried to push out with her mind, to see this stranger’s thoughts, determine his intentions, but came up against a solid resistance. It was nothing she’d ever experienced before, smooth and cold, like putting her hand against a dome of ice. She pushed harder, concentrating, without result.

That couldn’t be right. She frowned, pushing harder still, searching for a chink, any tiny crack in the ice—

Was that low sound a chuckle? No, not quite. More like a noise of satisfaction, nearer to one of Liesel’s grunts.

At the thought of Liesel, Lu’s concentration snapped. She whined, high and soft, in the back of her throat. The man shushed her softly, murmuring something in a mellifluous language she didn’t know, but somehow, impossibly, understood.

Sittu, heleti. Salamu itti manaz pani.

Sleep, My Lady. You’re safe with me.

You’re safe with me.

She managed to drag her lids open long enough to see his face above her, a dark, featureless oval, only the shine of his eyes visible. Then, in a brilliant burst of color that flared the night sky into a prism of sapphire and gold and green, the first of the Thornemas Day fireworks erupted in the distance with an echoing boom, and his face was illuminated.