Flight into Shadows
The travel from royal study desk to wayside inn hideout consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The clock cut the corner off the silence. Killian straightened to his full height, his hand still on the ledger, and measured the space between Owen and the woman who had stood in the rain outside his gates for eight years, carrying his son’s name in her chest like a wound that would not heal. “Touch her, Owen, and your house ends tonight.”
Owen Covington’s mouth opened, then closed. The old man was not used to being spoken to in such a way, not in his own foyer, not by a man who had once been a guest at his table. But Killian was no longer a guest. He was something else entirely—a father who had just learned the shape of the lie that had been carved into his life.
Reid Covington stepped forward, a sneer curling his lip. He was younger than Killian by a handful of years, but the arrogance in his bearing belonged to a man who had never been denied anything. “You threaten my father in his own home? You forget yourself, Ashby.”
Killian did not look at him. His eyes remained fixed on Owen. “I forget nothing. I remember everything. The date on the marriage certificate, the name of the physician who attended my son’s birth, the account of the midwife who was paid handsomely to keep her silence. Do you think I assembled that ledger by accident?”
The color drained from Owen’s face. Reid’s sneer faltered.
“You will leave Waverly and the boy alone,” Killian said. “You will have your solicitors withdraw the petition for the child’s wardship. And you will do it by the time the sun sets tomorrow.”
He turned, taking Seraphina’s arm. Her hand was cold against his sleeve, but she did not flinch. She let him guide her toward the door, Max’s small hand clutched tight in her own.
Behind them, Owen found his voice. “You cannot protect them forever, Ashby. A treason warrant has a long arm.”
Killian paused at the threshold. “Then I shall simply have to cut it off.”
The door closed on their silence.
—
The carriage rattled north through the twilight, lanterns swaying as the driver urged the horses along the rutted road. Seraphina sat with Max pressed against her side, her fingers absently stroking his hair. The boy had not spoken since they’d left the Covington estate. His eyes were dark, watchful, too old for his eight years.
Killian sat across from them, his knee bouncing with a restless energy he could not contain. His attention kept drifting to the window, scanning the tree line, the shadows between the oaks, the distant smoke of a farmhouse chimney. They had taken the long road to the inn, doubling back twice, changing horses at a way station where the ostler asked no questions and kept his eyes on his own boots.
Celia sat beside Seraphina, her hands clasped in her lap. She had not asked where they were going. She had simply climbed into the carriage when Killian’s man Cole had opened the door, her expression set in the same quiet determination she had worn for eight years.
“The Black Fox,” Killian said finally, breaking the silence. “It’s a wayside inn on the old post road, three miles past the river crossing. No one will look for you there.”
Seraphina looked at him. “And you? Where will you be?”
He met her gaze. The weight of the question hung between them, heavy with the memory of the warrant Owen had threatened. “I’ll be in London, calling in every favor I’ve ever earned and a few I haven’t. There’s a judge who owes me a debt. A clerk in the Crown Office who remembers the name Ashby with some fondness. And a man who knows where the Covington family has buried a few secrets of their own.”
“That’s not an answer,” she said quietly.
“It’s the only one I have.” He leaned forward, his voice dropping. “You trusted me once. Trust me now. The inn is safe. Cole will be with you. No one knows about the Black Fox except a man who has been dead for nine years.”
Cole, seated beside the driver above, was a wall of muscle and silence. He had served Killian since before the army, had taken a bullet for him in a skirmish outside Calais and a knife wound in an alley in Vienna. He knew the weight of his duty, the cost of failure. He did not speak unless spoken to, and he did not miss anything.
Max stirred, rubbing his eyes. “Papa, are the bad men coming?”
The word hit Killian like a blow to the chest. Papa. He had heard it for the first time less than an hour ago, in the foyer of the Covington estate, when Max had looked up at him with those dark eyes and asked if they were going home. He had not corrected him. He could not. The boy had waited eight years for a father, and Killian had waited eight years to learn he was one.
“No, son,” he said, and the word felt both foreign and right on his tongue. “They’re not coming. And if they try, Cole will send them packing.”
Max considered this, then nodded, satisfied. He leaned into Seraphina’s side and closed his eyes. Within minutes, his breathing evened out into the soft rhythm of sleep.
Seraphina looked at Killian over their son’s head. “He asked about you every night. For the first three years, he asked where you were. I told him you were far away, doing important things. He said he wanted to be like you when he grew up.”
Killian’s throat tightened. He had to look away, out the window, at the dark shapes of the trees rushing past. “He barely knows me.”
“He knows what I told him. That you were brave. That you were kind. That you would come for us if you ever knew.” Her voice caught. “I never thought you would.”
He turned back to her. “I never knew to.”
The carriage slowed. Cole’s voice called down, “We’re here.”
—
The Black Fox was a low stone building that had once been a coaching inn, crumbling into disrepair before Killian had bought it under a false name a decade ago. It stood at the end of a long, overgrown lane, hidden from the main road by a stand of ancient yews. The windows were dark, the door locked with a rusted chain that Cole removed with a practiced hand.
Inside, the air was musty. Cole lit a lantern, its glow revealing a common room with a long oak bar, a fireplace filled with old ash, and a staircase that creaked with every step. He checked the windows, the back door, the cellar hatch. He found nothing out of place. The inn had been undisturbed since Killian had last used it, three years ago, as a way station for a message that needed to disappear.
Celia climbed the stairs with Max, settling her in a small room at the end of the corridor. The bed was narrow but clean, the blankets smelling of cedar. She pulled them up to his chin, smoothed his hair from his forehead, and left the candle burning low on the nightstand.
Seraphina stood in the common room, her arms wrapped around herself. She had not taken off her coat. She was looking at the boarded windows, the dust on the floor, the shadows that gathered in the corners like old secrets.
Killian came to stand beside her. “You’ll be safe here.”
“Will I?” She turned to him. “A treason warrant, Killian. Do you know what that means? If they take me, I’ll be tried before a commission that’s already decided the verdict. I’ll be hanged as a warning to anyone else who might think of challenging the Covingtons.”
“They won’t take you.” He said it with a certainty he did not entirely feel. “I will tear down every pillar of their house stone by stone before I let them touch you.”
She looked at him for a long moment. Then, without a word, she stepped forward and pressed her forehead to his chest. He stood still, his arms at his sides, before slowly raising his hands to rest on her shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I was so afraid—”
“You were alone,” he said. “You did what you had to do to keep him safe. I don’t blame you for that. I blame myself for not being there.”
She pulled back, swiping at her eyes. “It’s late. You should go before the road becomes impossible.”
He nodded. He wanted to say something more—something that would bridge the eight years of silence—but the words wouldn’t come. He settled for squeezing her hands, then crossed the room to where Cole stood waiting by the door.
“Two days,” Killian said. “No longer. If I’m not back by then, take them across the channel. You know the safe house in Calais.”
Cole inclined his head. “I know it.”
“Keep them alive.”
“Always.”
Killian glanced back at Seraphina, then at the stairs where his son slept. Then he opened the door and stepped out into the night.
—
The first sound was the creak of a floorboard overhead.
Cole’s eyes snapped open. He had been asleep in an armchair in the common room, a pistol in his lap, the lantern trimmed low. He did not move, but his hand closed around the grip of the weapon, his finger finding the trigger guard.
The creak came again, closer this time. Someone was moving across the landing, stepping carefully, trying not to be heard.
Cole rose from the chair in one fluid motion, his boots silent on the floorboards. He moved toward the staircase, pressing himself against the wall. The shadows swallowed him.
The figure appeared at the top of the stairs—a man, tall, wearing a dark coat. He had a knife in his hand, the blade catching the faint glow of the lantern. He did not see Cole until Cole’s arm hooked around his throat, pulling him backwards into the dark.
The man struggled, a grunt escaping his lips. Cole drove him into the wall, the impact dislodging the knife. It clattered to the floor. Cole’s hand clamped over the man’s mouth, crushing his jaw against his teeth.
“Who sent you?” Cole’s voice was a low growl, barely audible.
The man thrashed, kicking out. Cole shifted his weight, pinned him, pressed his forearm harder against the throat. The man’s face began to redden.
“The Covingtons,” the man rasped, the words leaking out between Cole’s fingers. “Reid sent us. Wants the boy.”
Cole’s grip tightened. “How many?”
The man’s eyes widened. He was trying to speak, but Cole’s arm was cutting off his air. Cole eased the pressure, just enough.
“Four,” the man gasped. “Two at the front, one at the back. I was supposed to find the boy.”
Cole twisted, dislocating the man’s shoulder. The man screamed, but Cole muffled the sound with a fist to the jaw. The man went limp.
Cole dragged him to the cellar, bound him with rope, and gagged him with a strip torn from his own shirt. Then he climbed the stairs, moving fast now, his pistol drawn.
In the room at the end of the corridor, Celia was awake. She had heard the scuffle, had risen from the chair beside Max’s bed and pressed herself against the wall, one hand over the boy’s mouth to keep him silent. Her other hand gripped a cast-iron candlestick.
Cole reached the door just as the front entrance shuddered under a heavy blow.
—
They came through the door with axes, splitting the wood, splinters flying. Cole fired twice into the dark, hearing a cry of pain, then the rush of bodies.
Celia dragged Max from the bed, her arm around her, her other hand still clamped over his mouth. The boy was awake now, trembling, his eyes wide. She pulled him toward the wardrobe, shoved him inside, and climbed in after him, pulling the doors shut.
A bolt slid across the inside of the wardrobe. It was not much, but it was something.
The door to the room burst open.
Cole was in the corridor, engaging the first man who came through. He used the butt of his pistol, cracking it across the man’s temple, then turned to face the second. The man swung a blade, Cole caught his wrist, twisted, broke it. The man screamed.
A third man appeared at the top of the stairs. He had a pistol, brought it up—
Cole tackled him, driving his shoulder into the man’s gut. The pistol fired, the ball whining off the wall above Celia’s head. She pressed Max closer, her heart hammering against her ribs.
The fight moved along the corridor, a tangle of grunts and blows and the sharp smell of blood. Cole was outnumbered, but he was also better. He always had been. He fought like a man who understood that losing was not an option, because somewhere in the room behind him was a woman and a child who would not survive if he did.
The third man went down, his head cracking against the edge of the nightstand. The fourth appeared at the far end of the corridor, saw the chaos, turned, and fled down the stairs.
Cole pursued. He caught the man at the bottom of the staircase, drove him to the floor, and clamped a hand around his throat. The man’s eyes bulged. Cole held him until his struggles weakened, then eased off, leaving him conscious but dazed.
He dragged the two men who were still alive to the cellar, joined them to the first. Then he stood in the common room, breathing hard, and counted the cost.
He was bleeding from a cut above his eye, blood dripping into his vision. There was a dark stain spreading on his coat where a blade had found the gap between his ribs and his arm. He pressed a hand to it, feeling the warmth, then bound it with a strip torn from his shirt.
Celia emerged from the wardrobe, Max in her arms. She carried him down the stairs, her face pale but composed. She saw the blood on the floor, the splintered door, the bodies that were no longer there.
“Cole—”
“I’m fine.” He motioned to the cellar door. “Three of them are downstairs. They won’t be going anywhere.”
Max’s eyes were fixed on the blood. “The bad men,” he said, his voice small. “They came.”
“They came,” Cole agreed. “And they lost.”
The boy said nothing else. He buried his face in Celia’s shoulder.
They waited through the rest of the night, listening to the silence.
—
Killian arrived at dawn, riding hard, his horse lathered with sweat. He saw the splintered door, the blood on the threshold. He was off the horse before it stopped moving, crossing the yard in three strides, his hand on his pistol.
Cole met him in the doorway. He had cleaned the cut above his eye, bound his ribs with fresh linen. The weariness in his face spoke of a night that had not been kind.
“They came,” Cole said. “Four of them. Three are in the cellar.”
“Seraphina? Max?”
“Unharmed. They’re upstairs.”
Killian moved past him, taking the stairs two at a time. He found them in the room at the end of the corridor, Seraphina sitting on the edge of the bed, Max asleep beside her, Celia asleep in the chair by the window.
Seraphina looked up at him. There were dark circles under her eyes, but she was whole. She was safe.
“You came back,” she said.
“I said I would.” He crossed the room, sat on the other side of the bed, took her hand. “The warrant is being withdrawn. Owen Covington is going to discover that a few of his secrets have found their way to the Crown Office. He’ll be too busy saving himself to bother with you.”
She let out a breath, something breaking in her chest. “And Reid?”
“Reid is his father’s problem. For now.”
He looked down at Max, sleeping peacefully, his small hand curled against his cheek. Then he noticed the coat—the boy’s coat—lying across the foot of the bed. Something pinned to it glinted in the morning light.
Killian reached for it, his fingers brushing the metal. It was a ring, heavy and black, a wolf’s head carved into the face.
His blood went cold.
He turned it over. Words were engraved on the inside of the band.
The ring bore the Covington wolf and a single message: “Claim the heir and lose him.”