commanded. “If they hide the son from me, I’ll have the father.”
The witch produced the globe from wherever she had hidden it. Stilcho clutched
his sleeve where the bloody cloth was hidden and backed toward the door. They
didn’t notice him leaving-or perhaps they did. They were laughing, a laughter
that rose in pitch until it blended with the maniacal whine of the globe itself.
But they didn’t call him back as he edged around the newel-post and slunk
upstairs.
It was not difficult to find Moria. She had only gotten to her bedroom doorway
before succumbing to the horror around her. Stilcho found her with her arms
wrapped around her ankles and her Rankan-gold hair spilling past her knees onto
the floor.
“Moria!”
She lifted her head to look at him-blankly at first, then wide-eyed. Her breath
sucked in and held, ready to scream if he came any closer.
“Moria, snap out of it,” he demanded in an urgent whisper.
Her scream was nothing more than a series of mewling squeaks as she scuttled
away from him. She froze, except for her eyes, when her spine butted into the
wainscoting. Stilcho, no stranger to utter terror himself, felt pity for her but
had no time to give in to it. Grabbing her wrist he hauled her, one-handed, to
her feet and slapped her hard when the mewling threatened to become something
louder.
“For godssakes get control of yourself-if you want to live through this at all.”
He shook her hard and she went silent, but alert, in his arms. “Where’s a window
that overlooks the street?” He had never willingly come to the uptown house,