Ghostlight (The Reflected City Book 1) by Rabia Gale (i can read with my eyes shut TXT) 📗

Trey. He had wards around his house, hadn’t he? And he lived in the City, near the Keep. Arabella flew upwards to orient herself while the monster crawled on the ground in a jellied mass.

How would she ever find his house? If she strained, she might see the runes around it, but their glow would be lost at this height.

After all, he wanted to protect his home, not light it up like a beacon.

Bat shapes swooped around her, uttering shrieks. She thought they were bats, until one of them bit down on her arm.

Agony flared through her. Arabella screamed and tore off the spectral vermin. To her horror, her arm had lost its shape. It sagged bonelessly, trailing glowing strings of whatever aethereal substance it was made of.

She was dizzy with pain and nausea. Arabella thought she would faint, but that relief was not to be hers. The swarm dove for her again. Her first attacker leapt into the sky.

She dodged out of the way just in time. The larger mass sailed up, scattering scolding bats. They set upon it with tiny cries.

Arabella didn’t wait to see the outcome. She fell to the ground, cradling her torn arm.

Where could she run? Where could she hide?

Where was safe?

The cathedral caught her attention, held it.

That’s it. There’d be wards around the place.

The saints and the God-Father would keep her safe.

If they let her inside first.

The shadow monster dropped out of the sky and surged for her on hundreds of tiny, thundering feet.

Arabella screamed, “Trey!”

She ran.

Trey stood in the Elliots’ fashionable drawing room, trying not to tap his foot with impatience, as Harry Elliot’s halting confession wound its way to its conclusion. The boy sat on his mother’s elegant chaise longue with claw-footed legs, head hanging in shame.

It was not an uncommon tale. A sheltered youth, away to university on his own for the first time. The excitement of making new acquaintances and indulging in pursuits hitherto closed to him. Boxing matches, horse races, cards of all kinds, all accompanied by wine or ale. Before he knew it, Elliot had gambled away his generous allowance. Desperate, he threw all his resources into one last wager, hoping it would pay off.

It didn’t.

He was too ashamed to confess his mistakes to his adoring parents, not wanting to disappoint them. He borrowed money and pawned valuables to pay his debts of honor. But the tradesmen weren’t easily disposed of, and now they were threatening to go to his father.

“I told Arabella about it.” Elliot raised a haggard face to Trey. “I didn’t mean to… but I was so down in the dumps… and she saw it… and asked me… I swear I didn’t make her pawn her mother’s ring! I didn’t even know she was going to, didn’t even know she had, until she went missing and my mother sent the servants after her and they brought her back and her reticule fell on the floor…” He shuddered and burst out, “By the saints, I wish I hadn’t said anything to her!”

Trey hefted the reticule, heavy with guineas. On his palm, next to it, lay a scarred wooden counter with the number 13 scratched on it—the sort pawnshop owners gave to people they shouldn’t be doing business with.

The underage, for instance.

“She went of her own will, Elliot,” said Trey crisply. “Can’t be undone. We can only move forward, so show some steel. Blubbering isn’t going to help Arabella—or you.”

Elliot looked up, startled. Trey realized once again just how unsuited he was to dealing with the finer feelings of the very young.

It made him feel very old.

“What you should do,” he said, “is lay it all out before your father. Yes, I know he might ring a peal over you or worse, be disappointed, but from what I know and what Arabella said, he isn’t going to disinherit you.”

Elliot’s lips parted in a But.

“You have to learn to take your punches like a man,” added Trey. “You did it to yourself, but you aren’t the first stripling to do so.” He gave Elliot a thin-lipped smile. “Learn from it and face forward. Here, I’ll take the token.” He held the money out to Elliot.

The young man rose shakily to his feet. He looked Trey right in the eyes. “I ain’t taking Bella’s money. ’Taint right.”

His face was set in resolute lines. He’d be all right.

Trey nodded and slipped the reticule in his pocket. He tossed the token up in the air and caught it again. “This’ll help us put your cousin back together. Now to find the little fool.”

Indignation kindled in Elliot’s face. “Bella’s the sweetest, kindest little thing—” he began.

Trey started, holding his hand up for silence. Elliot cocked his head, also listening, gaze darting from dark corner to dark corner.

A familiar scream pierced through Trey’s skull. He winced at the intensity and pain in it.

It was soon followed by a voice yelling his name.

Arabella.

Trey snapped to attention. He held out his left hand. “Come, Sorrow!”

The wraith sword appeared, misting out of the Shadow Lands. His hand grasped a hilt the color of starlight, the short blade gleamed a sea-grey.

Elliot said, stuttering, “I-is that what I th-think it is?” Then he looked at Trey’s face and inhaled. “Bella?”

“In trouble.” No time to run through Lumen, trying to get to her before the other specters did. He had to take the quick way.

Trey spun on his heel. Looking about the room, searching for the best place.

Ah, right there.

He lifted Sorrow and made three neat cuts in the air. They shimmered purple.

“Don’t worry, Elliot. I’ll get her back,” Trey told the shaken youth, and stepped through the portal into the Shadow Lands.

Spectral bats flew above Arabella’s head, their high-pitched squeaks drilling into her skull. A black ooze reached out grasping tendrils from the side of a brick building; she kicked it off and kept running.

Her bigger problem galloped behind her. She dared