Corsets and Crossbows: A Drake Chronicles Novella in Letters by Alyxandra Harvey Page B

chains in the corner.
    “I bloody well don’t think so,” Dante snapped.
    “But you must die, surely you see that. You’re an abomination, boy.”
    “You’re the abomination,” I said hotly.
    Winterson glanced at his bodyguard. “Gag her.”
    He took one step toward me but I was already leaping into the air. I landed some distance away, hairpin in my hand.
    The bodyguard blinked. “Ladies aren’t supposed to do that.”
    He was stronger than me, which was painfully obvious. He might have crushed my skull like a melon with one hand. But I was faster. I twirled and leaped around him until his breath huffed out and he went red with sweat. “Here now, no more games.”
    On the other end of the attic, Winterson lifted his walking stick and a sharpened stake flipped out of the bottom. Dante danced out of the way. The candle flame fluttered. The return descent of the stick caught Dante’s chest, cutting through his jacket and through the skin below. Blood dripped onto the floorboards. Another blow and he stumbled, falling to his knees so quickly the candle tipped over.
    The flame caught the tattered curtains and ate though the thin fabric. Another row of curtains caught almost immediately and the rotted wood of the windowsill began to smolder. Smoke poured into the room and I coughed. Before long there’d be no air left to breathe at all. I hurled a discarded vase at the glass, shattering it into pieces. Smoke and flames licked outside, kissing the roof. Someone down in the gardens screamed.
    “We have to get out of here!” I yelled.
    “Go!” Dante yelled back, clutching his seeping wound. It was too near his heart and weakened him. “Don’t wait for me.”
    I ignored him, of course. Men are so silly sometimes.
    Winterson shoved past me and before I realized what he was about to do, he and his bodyguard were safely on the landing. The door shut and I heard the ominous scrape of something being pushed against it to lock us in. Lord Winterson meant for us to die in that attic.
    I had no intention of indulging him. I used a coat tree to break the other windows, coughing the black smoke out of my lungs. Dante pulled himself to the edge of the window and peered out. Guests were pouring out of the doors, panicking in their fine silk slippers and brocade frock coats.
    “I can’t get us out of here in this condition,” he said as I crouched down beside him and tried to breathe clean air.
    “I can get us out.”
    “You can’t carry me, Rosalind,” he said. “But you can heal me.”
    I stared at him.
    “Please,” he whispered.
    My fingers trembled but I held out my wrist for him. He clutched it as if it were fine pastry filled with strawberry cream. His lips were hot on my skin, the bite of fang was quick. The pain soon faded and a kind of pleasure swooned through me. He drank and drank, making greedy sounds. This moment was more dangerous than any power-mad earl with a stake at my heart. Dante could drink me dry, could give into the bloodlust and finish me here. No one would know. I would be part of the ashes of the burned-out house, a scrap of silk and bone for the inspectors to discover.
    “Dante.”
    He swallowed slowly, like a glutton testing a fine wine.
    And then he pulled away.
    Smoke drifted between us, obscuring the blaze of his eyes. And then his arms were around me and he was hurling me through the open window, tossing me up onto the rooftop. I swung through the air, the shock of it compressing my lungs. I landed hard on the roof and slid and might have fallen entirely if he hadn’t followed, gripping my arm hard and lifting me to my feet. The shingles were already hot under our feet. The smoke ate the stars.
    “Hurry,” he urged, and we ran, leaping onto the roof of the next house.
    We finally hired a hack and are even now on our way to the docks and then to Spain perhaps, or the New World. Who can say? I know what you must be thinking. But Dante is a good man. And I love him. There is no place