Home > Defy the Night (Defy the Night #1)(7)

Defy the Night (Defy the Night #1)(7)
Author: Brigid Kemmerer

“Shh,” says Wes. “The night patrol will hear. Tessa?”

I take a deep breath for the first time since we came through the doorway. “Here.” I hold out the vial. “Gillis, you have to drink.”

He coughs wetly. “Yes, Miss Tessa.”

While Wes helps him drink, I dig through my pack hurriedly, pushing the vials of elixir aside, looking for my bottle of morningwood oil. A few drops will help rouse a drunk or someone with a head injury, but I’ve learned that it will also help the Moonflower elixir work more quickly.

Mistress Kendall is kissing his forehead, his cheek, her breath shaking, her hands fluttering. “Oh, Gillis,” she whispers against his temple.

His hand lifts weakly to touch her cheek, but I pull the dropper of morningwood free. “This too,” I whisper.

His dry lips part, and I tap three droplets into his mouth. His throat works as he swallows.

“There,” says Wes. He finds Gillis’s hand and gives it a squeeze. “You’ll be slipping through the shadows with us in no time.”

Gillis blinks, but then a slow smile finds his mouth. “Promise.”

“I promise.”

Mistress Kendall presses a kiss to his cheek again, murmuring nonsense, but the love in her tone is pure and clear. I put a hand on her shoulder. She looks at me, tears gathering in her eyes.

Gillis coughs, hard, then tries to inhale, but the muscles of his neck stand out as he fights for air. His fingers dig into Wes’s arm.

“Slow,” Wes says, but I can hear the concern underlying his tone. “Slow, Gillis. Breathe.”

The boy’s jaw clenches tight, and his back arches, his fingers grasping at nothing.

Then he flops back against Wes’s shoulder, his entire body limp.

Kendall is frozen. I’m frozen.

Wes is the one who moves, laying the boy flat, pulling the blankets free. He presses two fingers to Gillis’s throat, then drops to put an ear against his chest.

Gillis doesn’t move.

Wes looks up. His eyes are blue pools of sadness.

“No!” Kendall’s voice is a sudden shriek, full of rage and pain and fear that echoes in my own chest. “No!”

Somewhere in the distance a dog starts barking.

She keeps screaming. “This is their fault! That horrible king or his horrible brother or any of those other horrible people who live on the other side of that wall. I hate them! I hate them! I hate—”

Weston grabs her arm and slaps a hand over her mouth. His voice is a low rush of words. “Kendall. Get a hold of yourself.”

“Wes,” I whisper.

“It’s treason,” he snaps at me. “If the night patrol hears, they’ll kill her, too.”

“I don’t care,” she moans. She’s sagging against him. “Let them kill me. Let them see what they’ve done to my boy.”

I take a long, shuddering breath. “Kendall—I’m so sorry.”

“He was just a boy.” She inhales, then seems to steel herself, and she runs a hand against her son’s face. “It’s their fault, you know.” Rage fills her voice again. “They sit in there healthy, and they leave the rest of us to live or die.”

We’ve heard this a hundred times. We’ll hear it a hundred more.

It’s why we do this. Because she’s right.

Wes pulls a vial from his bag and holds it out. “You need to take yours, Kendall.”

She takes the vial in her shaking hand, and I think she’s going to pull the stopper and drink it, but instead she moves to hurl it into the darkness. I gasp.

Always quick, Wes snatches it out of the air before it goes far. “Don’t let your grief make you stupid.”

His voice isn’t unkind, but she flinches and all but crumples onto her son’s body. “Give it to someone who wants to live. I don’t.”

I hesitate, then put a hand over hers. “Kendall,” I whisper. “Kendall, I’m so sorry.”

She turns her hand to clasp mine within hers. “You know what it’s like,” she says. “You lost someone, too.”

“Yes,” I say. My father. My mother. I’ll never be able to erase the moment of their death from my memory. Unbidden, tears form in my own eyes.

“Someone needs to stop them,” says Kendall, her breath shaking. “Someone needs to stop them, Tessa.”

“I know,” I say. “For now, we do what we can.”

She nods, then lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles.

“You should drink your medicine,” Wes says gently. “Gillis would want you to.”

“Gillis can’t care anymore.” She draws a shuddering breath. “Go. Both of you. Don’t waste your potions on me.”

I inhale to refuse, and her face contorts with fury. “Go!” she shouts. “Go! You remind me of him. Go!”

I jerk back.

“Tessa,” says Wes. He catches my elbow.

I don’t want to leave. We shouldn’t leave her like this, a broken husk of a woman sobbing over the body of her son.

But Wes is right.

“We’ll tell Jared Sexton,” I say to her quietly, referring to a woodworker a few houses away. He’s big and burly—and usually the one who drags bodies to the pyre for burning. “I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

She doesn’t answer. She’s sobbing into her hands now.

We slip away into the shadows, our feet practiced at making no sound on the pathways. Weston must see or hear something, though, because he quickly jerks me into the pit of darkness by the corner of the next house. My back is against the building, and he’s all but pressed against me, his head ducked, partially blocking mine.

“What—” I begin, but his eyes jerk to mine, and his head shakes almost invisibly.

I peer past him. There’s little light, but now I can hear the booted footsteps of the night patrol. Wes was right—they likely heard Kendall’s screams, and now they’re here to check it out. It’s too dark for me to see her. Maybe they won’t see anything, and they’ll pass by.

But no. Kendall comes flying through her door. “You killed him!” she screams. She has a rock in each hand. One flies, and a man cries out. “You tell that pig of a king and his evil brother that they’ll burn for their—”

A crossbow fires. The arrow hits with a sickening sound. Her voice goes silent, and her body drops.

I whimper. Against me, Wes goes rigid.

One of the patrolmen kicks her body.

“Leave it,” says one of the others. “They’ll find her.”

Another one spits at the ground. Maybe at her. “They’ll never learn.”

“Tessa.” Weston’s voice is a bare hiss in my ear. “Mind your mettle, girl. They’ll kill you, too.”

His weight is against me, pressing me into the wall, his hand over my mouth. I don’t realize I’m struggling against him until I stop. My eyes meet his, and when I blink, he goes blurry.

“I know,” he whispers.

My breathing shudders. I clench my eyes closed. His hand comes off my mouth.

I press my face into his shoulder, shaking with tears like a child.

After a moment, his hand presses to my cheek below the mask, his thumb brushing away the tears that slip down my face. “I know,” he says again. “I know.”

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