“Bex.” Henry grabs my wrist so hard my fingers go numb. “Look.”
There’s a door in the building to our left, and a thin slit of light shines through. A tiny prickle of a memory of something I’ve read pulls at the corner of my brain.
“Get his sack,” I say between my teeth.
Henry does a double take. “Say what?”
“Just do it.”
Moving in tandem as only two people who’ve known each other for a lifetime can do, Henry jerks the sack out of the monster’s hand. I jump behind the crates and push them over on Krampus just as Henry clears the space. Henry slams his hand against the door to open it, and we run inside the building.
The smell of rot is replaced by the smell of baked goods.
“Yes!” I slam the door behind us and fist pump. “Geek research for the win! If Krampus loses his sack, he loses his power. We did—”
Before I get the words out, Henry takes my face in his hands. His kiss is serious, scared, and full of all kinds of promises. When he pulls away, I’m dizzy.
There’s a roar and a crash, and claws begin to scratch relentlessly at the closed door.
“If you want to do that again—”
“I do,” I interrupt. “Many, many times.”
“Then run.”
When I was seventeen and he was eighteen, Henry Bishop and I went to Bavaria, stole a sack, escaped a monster, and fell in love.
Christine Johnson
Shadowed
The clash of swords rang across the field. The sound climbed the stone walls of the tower and danced through Esme’s window, accompanied by a chorus of cheers. She pressed against the tapestries that lined the walls, the parchment window covering she’d ripped down clutched in her hands. Carefully, slowly, she peered through the narrow window like a thief.
Why did it have to be sunny on a Tournament day? After a week of gray skies, when she’d been able to stand at the window and watch the pages set up the benches and decorate them with standards, she’d been heartbroken to wake today to such shining weather. She’d harbored no hope of leaving her rooms, but it would have been nice to see the mock battle without the sweating fear that the light would shift and her shadow would spring to life behind her.
From the field below the tower, the chime of steel against steel came faster and the crowd roared. Two knights staggered to the edge of the field and into Esme’s view. Their armor gleamed, still new enough to shine. The hair at the back of her neck stood on end as she watched them fight. One was significantly larger—a bear of a man with a stomach built to accommodate long nights of too much food and drink. He should have overpowered his opponent with little trouble. But the other knight, with a brass cap across each shoulder of his armor, ducked and danced as though the metal skin that he wore weighed nothing at all. His sword flickered through the air, the sun glinting off the blade as it swung.
The light hit the gleaming steel and shattered into a thousand rays. Esme caught her breath. She had never seen anything so bright. The mirrored flat of his sword turned the pollen-yellow glow into a white-hot beam that lanced painfully across her vision. After seventeen years of nothing but the dimmest and darkest, it was too much to bear. Her eyelids flew shut and she raised a hand to cover them, pitching forward as her knees turned weak beneath her.
Hers was not the only hand that brushed her skin, and the other was not so gentle. Her eyes sprang open, and in the mirror across the room, she saw her shadow pressed in close behind her. Panicked, Esme clawed at the inky hand that gripped her throat. She’d swayed too close to the window, too close to the sunlight.
With her voice crushed beneath the obsidian palm, she struggled toward the darkness in the room, but her shadow shoved her closer to the window. Stars exploded across her vision, a rainbow of lights that would have been beautiful if she weren’t so terrified.
For one instant, her gaze fell on the field below her, and she saw the more nimble knight crouch and spin, avoiding the clumsy arc of his opponent’s sword. Instinctively, Esme copied him, her skirts pooling on the floor as she bent her knees and swept in a half circle. The weight of her own shadow crashed against her back, its feet momentarily lifted from the floor. She fell, her knees cracking painfully against the cold, dark stone. But the crushing pressure disappeared from her neck.
She’d made it out of the sunlight.
Her shadow was gone and she was safe. For now.
Unsteadily, she got to her feet, stumbling over the hem of her skirt. As her breaths ripped through her battered throat, she realized that the only ringing she heard was in her own ears.
The tournament was over? Could that be?
Curiosity beat at her, forcing Esme closer to the window in spite of the patter of her heart. She gripped the edge of the nearest tapestry, ready to duck behind it if needed, and peered down. The two knights were still at the far edge of the field, but the larger one was on his hands and knees, his sword abandoned in the grass.
A cheer rose from the crowd, startling a few birds that rose in unison and flapped off into the distance. The smaller knight removed his helmet, revealing waves of auburn hair that nearly brushed his shoulders. From the horizon, a bank of clouds swept in, bringing with them the sort of rumble that promised a sudden storm. As the sunlight faded, Esme dared step directly in front of the window.
The knight turned and waved his helmet, acknowledging the crowd. Esme caught sight of his profile. A square jaw framed a smile that gleamed almost as brightly as his sword. Esme’s heart galloped yet more unevenly. He was so handsome. It was as though his face had been shaped to satisfy the particular hunger of her gaze.
He started to step toward his opponent, but a trumpet sounded at the base of the tower, reminding the knight that he hadn’t acknowledged her, and the knight stopped.
Slowly, he turned and faced the tower where she stood. His eyes scaled the walls and his smile faded as he stared at Esme. She didn’t dare breathe. Behind him, the clouds roiled in the sky like a dark blessing.
She stood there, protected by nothing but the clouds. The knight dipped his head to her, and she wondered if his acknowledgment was anything more than a nearly forgotten politeness.
But then he straightened. And the look he gave her glowed so brightly that, for a moment, she couldn’t see anything else. Unbidden by custom, he dropped to one knee. The crowd murmured loudly enough for Esme to hear it. Their surprise mirrored her own.
Dizzy with the lingering effects of her own battle and the sweetness of this unexpected attention, Esme pulled out the wide blue ribbon that twined through the gold net that held her hair. She let one end flutter through the window, accepting his tribute. She was grateful that he couldn’t see that it wasn’t the breeze, but rather her trembling that shook the length of satin in her hand.
The crowd began to rustle and point, relishing a rare glimpse of the girl who terrified and entranced them at the same time. The gasp that came from behind Esme startled her so badly that she spun away from the window, half expecting to see her shadow reaching for her again.
“What are you doing?” Margaret came rushing in with her arms full of fresh linen sheets.
“Just—they were announcing the winner, and the clouds had come. I was only at the window for a moment, I swear.” Esme started to cross the room, intending to pick up her needlework and stitch tiny red flowers until the blood quit galloping through her veins.
Margaret caught her by the sleeve. “A moment at a cloudy window doesn’t leave marks like that on your neck.” Her usually ruddy cheeks were nearly as pale as Esme’s snow-white skin. “You got shadowed.”