Christ. Blade would tan his hide. “And what about the other Falcon?”

“What Falcon?”

Leo gritted his teeth. “Morioch knew his Falcons’ bomb attack on the Warren had failed. Did you never ask yourself how? There’s someone else in the rookery ranks that shouldn’t be there.”

Charlie paled. “But…why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“Did they have to?” Leo snapped. “You were given your bloody orders. Keep Honoria and Emmaline safe. Did you think it was a jest?”

Charlie fell silent, a thousand emotions dancing through his eyes. Leo bit off his temper and checked Lark. “Fuck.” What a bloody mess.

“Why isn’t she healing?” Charlie demanded helplessly. There was a world of guilt in his blue eyes. “I gave her my blood. That’s how Blade healed Rip when he had his throat torn open!”

Leo examined the wound. Lark gasped as he shifted her shoulder. The bullet had gone through her steel-plated over-corset. What the hell kind of bullets were they? Not firebolts, but hard enough to tear through protective armor as if it were nothing.

Blood bubbled on her lips. “It’s pierced her all the way through,” Leo said gently. “She’ll be bleeding inside. You’ll only heal the superficial wounds.”

Despair filled his brother’s eyes. Then determination. “I can infect her.”

Not in time… Not before she bled out. Blade had done so to Rip, but the amount of craving virus in his blood had been abnormally high then. Leo caught Charlie’s hand as the boy went to butcher his other wrist. “Here, let me. My CV levels are in the fifties.”

A quick slash of his wrist, then he dripped his own blood into Lark’s wounds. “Roll her over and let me see the front.”

It was worse, as though the bullet had fragmented on its way through her. Leo guided Charlie to hold her head up, then pressed his wrist against her lips. The craving virus would already be infecting her wounds, but the more blood they could get into her…

She couldn’t swallow it. Charlie clutched her tightly, rocking her gently no matter how much Leo tried to stop him. A low keening sound was coming from his throat. “What about…Tin Man?”

Leo shook his head.

“Why? Why did he do it? He had to know I’d heal.” Charlie stared blankly. “Oh God, this’ll kill her. He’s her world. If she finds out he’s dead…”

Leo didn’t have the heart to say she probably wouldn’t find out. “Maybe he thought it might kill you. You’re not invincible, Charlie, and that man was a Falcon, someone who knows how to take down blue bloods.”

“It shouldn’t be like this.” Charlie’s voice was broken.

“No, it shouldn’t.” Tin Man’s death had taken far more than just his life; it was also the death of the child that Charlie had still been. He’d never be quite the same after this. Mortality now had meaning for him. Grief had substance. This was what we tried to shield you from.

Something that, in the end, none of them had been able to do. Charlie and Lark were both verging on adulthood, but they couldn’t see it. Sneaking after the group who’d marched the Cyclops on the Tower had been a romp for them.

But it wasn’t a romp; it was war. And people died, including those who probably shouldn’t have. All across the courtyard, there were sounds of celebration, but also slumped figures kneeling over the still and bloody forms of their fallen comrades. Leo felt sick. This was the price, and they’d all known they had to pay it, but it was one thing to plot a coup, and quite another to see the results in gruesome detail.

Time was ticking slowly by. Lark’s head lolled against Charlie’s chest, that dreadful whistling sound echoing in her lungs. Leo sat there beside him, one hand on the lad’s shoulder as they waited. He squeezed tightly, feeling the mass of sinew and tendon beneath his grasp, knowing how it felt to realize that he’d been the one responsible for nearly killing someone important to him.

After what seemed like forever, Lark erupted into a hacking cough, blood spattering Charlie’s face. Leo grabbed her shoulders and helped Charlie tilt her onto her side as she gagged up copious amounts of semi-congealed blood.

“She’s healing,” he said in disbelief, wiping her mouth on his sleeve as Charlie eased her against his shoulder. Bloody hell.

“Thank you.” Charlie hugged her tightly enough to squeeze the breath from her lungs. There were no tears in his eyes, but Leo felt that grateful look like a punch to the gut. One victory among so many other failures.

“She’ll need blood,” he said. “The moment she can swallow. There’s still no guarantee that she’ll survive.”

“She’ll survive,” Charlie said fiercely. He stroked the dark hair off her brow, his expression softening as he looked down into her face. “She’s stubborn like that.”

No need to comment on what Leo saw in the lad’s expression. Trouble, that’s what it was, but he could completely understand the lure of it. Then he glanced at Tin Man. The fellow would have followed wherever Lark and Charlie went. There’d be a price for this; Charlie just hadn’t realized it yet.

Footsteps sounded nearby. Byrnes dragged Stanton across the yard, the unconscious man’s arm slung over his shoulder.

“Stay here,” Leo murmured to Charlie, finding his feet and pocketing the detonator very carefully. “I need to tell Blade about Honoria. Maybe send Rip back to the Warren to make sure she’s safe.”

Then it would be time to climb those thousand stairs in the Tower again. Time to find the missing piece of his heart…if she was still alive.

Twenty-seven

Mina was pressed hard, dancing out of the way as the Falcons lunged. Whoever they were, they’d been trained well, using each other’s strikes to counter their own until she staggered, the backs of her legs hitting the throne.

Malloryn appeared out of nowhere, deflecting a blow meant for her.

“Thanks.” Mina lunged forward, stabbing a Falcon in the thigh as Malloryn parried another blow. For a second they worked together, but then she realized he was trying to shield her with his own body. Mina tripped on his boot, frustrated. I’m not some pampered princess. But he’d always been smothering, especially when she’d broken off their affair.

“Behind you!” she yelled.