Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Laini Taylor [61]
Karou glanced back to Karlova, then ahead to the next curve in the alley that could provide her with cover. It was too far down; she couldn’t chance it. She could almost feel her stalker drawing nearer.
Svetla drawled, “If you’re looking for Kaz, don’t bother. He told me what you did.”
Jesus, thought Karou. As if any of that mattered now. She said, “Svetla, shut up,” and thrust herself into the niche right along with her, shoving the other girl back against the stones.
Svetla gasped and tried to shove her out. “What are you doing, freak?”
“I said shut up,” Karou hissed, and when Svetla did not, she whipped her knife from her sleeve and held it up. It curved at the tip like the claw of a cat, and its edge caught a thread of light and glinted. Svetla gave a little gasp and fell silent, but not for long. “Oh, right. I’m so sure you’re going to stab me—”
“Listen,” said Karou, low. “Just be quiet for a minute and I’ll fix your stupid eyebrows.”
Shocked silence preceded a rasped “What?”
Svetla’s hair was cut in a long, hard bang, so low it brushed her eyes, and it was shellacked with hairspray so it scarcely moved, all in order to hide her eyebrows, on which Karou had wasted a shing in a fit of spite around Christmastime. Black and bushy under her hair, they were likely not working any wonders for her modeling career.
Svetla’s expression hovered somewhere between confusion and outrage. There was simply no way that Karou could know about her eyebrows, always kept so carefully covered. She would think Karou had been spying on her. Karou didn’t care what she thought. She just wanted silence. “I’m serious,” she breathed. “But only if I’m still alive to do it, so shut up.”
Voices drifted over from Karlova, along with strains of music from nearby cafes, and the purr of engines. She couldn’t hear footsteps, but that didn’t mean anything. Hunters understood stealth.
Svetla’s expression remained aghast, but for the moment, at least, she was quiet. Karou stood rigid and fierce-eyed, listening intently.
Someone was coming. Footsteps like the ghosts of footsteps. Out in the alley, a shadow seeped into view. Karou watched it lengthen on the ground in front of her as its source drew nearer. Her palms throbbed; she clasped her knife tighter and peered at the shadow, trying to make sense of it.
She blinked, and words spilled across her thoughts. Not Bain’s words, but Razgut’s.
My brother seraph was looking for you, lovely.
The shadow. The shadow had wings.
Oh god, the angel. Karou’s pulse went jagged. The distraction of Bain’s warning lifted like smoke to reveal what had been there all along: in her palms, a coursing energy. Her hamsas were on fire. How could she not have realized sooner? She turned a ferocious warning glare on Svetla and mouthed, Quiet. Svetla dropped the snarl. She looked afraid.
The shadow advanced, and behind it, the angel. He was peering ahead, intense. His wings were glamoured, his eyes glowed in the gloom, and Karou had a clear view of his profile. His beauty was as shocking as it had been the first time she’d seen him. Fiala, she invoked her drawing teacher, if you could see this. Though there was a pair of sheathed swords crossed on his back, his arms were passive at his sides, hands slightly raised and fingers splayed as if to demonstrate he was unarmed.
Good for you, thought Karou, tightening her grip on her knife. I’m not.
He drew even with the niche.
Karou gathered herself.
And leapt.
She had to launch herself upward to hook him around the neck—he was tall, six foot four at least—and she slammed into him hard and sent him staggering. She clung to him, feeling immediately what she couldn’t see: the heat and mass of wings, invisible but real. She felt too the warmth and breadth of his shoulders and arms, and was keenly aware of their powerful vitality as she brought her blade against his throat.
“Looking for me?”
“Wait—” he said, making no move to fight her or throw her off.
“Wait,” Karou scoffed, and, on impulse, she