Chapter 50 Burning Night
Madison tipped his head back. Firelight painted his gentle eyes a feverish red, and moisture shimmered along his lashes. In a voice
Madison tipped his head raw, he whispered, “Please… don’t leave.” In that moment, the eighteen-
year–old looked less like a lordling and more like a frightened child.
Alarm flared through her. “Madison, what is it?” she asked, searching his face for an answer that refused to
appear.
“Don’t go…” he murmured again, the words breaking apart as his long, pale fingers crept up her sleeve and locked around her wrist. “Don’t… go.”
Firelight sculpted his features into something almost unreal. The demon mask he still wore, half–askew, turned grotesque and absurd against the rolling flames, and beneath it, his whole body shook so violently that she feared he might shatter. Terror squeezed his breath into shallow gasps.
She dropped to one knee and unfastened the crooked mask. “Is it the fire that frightens you, Madison, or something even worse?”
His thin lips drew into a hard line, yet the elegant face crumpled as two clear tears slid free.
He lunged forward, crushing her against him. “Don’t leave… Don’t leave…” the plea rasped, harsher each time.
Sadie felt every tremor tearing through him. She had no idea what horrors lay in his past to twist a nature so fine into this knot of dread, but the strength with which he clung to her stole the breath from her chest.
Keeping her voice low, she said, “I’m right here. You’re safe. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
Something about this feels dangerously wrong.
Flames were already eating their way down from the top floor. If they waited until the smoke thickened, disorientation would trap them here for good.
She steadied herself and said, “Hold on to me. I’m getting us out of here.”
Madison shook his head so hard his hair whipped across his brow. Curled at the foot of the wall, he whispered, “No! I won’t go. I can’t.” Something feral glinted in his eyes, as though he would rather let the flames claim him than move an inch.
Sadie gritted her teeth. “I don’t know what kind of nightmares your past left behind or what scars are eating at you, but if you stay here any longer, we are ing to die. Madison, I fought too hard for this life. I’m not dying with you!”
She pushed herself upright and reached for him, determined to drag him to his feet.
Even when she threw every ounce of strength into the effort, he would not budge, as though trying to fuse his body into the stone itself.
Sadie yanked too hard and accidentally tore the sleeve of his white robe.
The sudden loss of balance sent her crashing down; she landed on her tailbone, pain jolting a sharp hiss from her lungs.
When the staircase erupted in flames, she abandoned Madison and bolted for the exit,
Chapter 50 Burning Night
Halfway down the steps, she could not help looking back.
The snow–robed youth knelt there, arms locked over his head, face bloodless, eyes crimson–rimmed, lips moving in frantic prayer, lost in a nightmare no one else could see.
Against his chest, he cradled the fish–shaped lantern Sadie had bought for Alexander.
She remembered tossing that lantern aside when she fled the top floor and had no idea when Madison had She remembered tossing that lantern as retrieved it.
A jagged, unnamable emotion twisted through her chest.
When the flames licked toward his robe, her resolve collapsed; with a sigh of resignation, she hurried back to the landing.
From close by, she heard his broken mumble. “Don’t kill them. Please don’t kill them… I’ll obey. I’ll be good… I’m begging you…”
Despair hollowed his voice; tears streamed down to soak the front of his robe.
Snatching a fallen pole, Sadie swung and knocked him unconscious with one desperate blow.
She heaved his limp body onto her back and began the punishing descent, one grinding step at a time.
He looked slender, yet the weight of him pressed on her like wet stone.
Face flushed crimson and lungs burning, she staggered downward, panting, “I turned back because of you. If I die here, Madison, I’ll haunt you till the end of days.”
Thick smoke billowed all around them.
Sadie’s breathing grew ragged, her vision blurring at the edges.”
When she reached the third floor, she thought she had finally found a sliver of hope, only to see the first and second floors ablaze as well.
Flames raced along the stairwell and walls, trapping them in the heart of the tower; whoever set this fire meant to roast them alive.
Sadie’s knees buckled beneath the combined weight of terror and Madison’s body.
She tumbled down the steps, his unconscious form pinning her painfully to the floor.
Smoke coiled through the inferno like black snakes.
Wild–haired and streaked with soot, the girl pressed a hand over her mouth, coughing without pause.
Typical. I’m going to die here, all thanks to Zephyr.
Through the haze, she heard someone nearby sobbing for mercy.
“Commander Gates, my father planned all this, not me! Please have mercy. I beg you!”
Sadie forced her stinging eyes open. At the far end of the gallery, she made out black–clad guards, their faces frosty, swords leveled at the throats of several officials. Between them, a silk–robed youth knelt trembling.
21 10 Thu 14 Aud
Chapter 50 Burning Night
The young man sobbed. “My father planted spies among the actors and smuggled barrels of powder into the pavilion, all so you would be drunk and asleep when the flames rose, Lord Zephyr. It was entirely his idea. I only slipped a mild paralytic into your wine. Please, spare me!”
106
