Isadora ran.
She did not think. She did not pause to grab the knife from Caelan's bedside or to check whether the Duke was conscious enough to follow. She simply heard her brother scream, and her body moved the way bodies move when the people they love are in danger — without permission, without hesitation, without anything resembling a plan.
The corridor was dark. The sconces had guttered while she sat with her father, and the only light came from the thin, grudging line of moonlight that crept through a window at the far end of the hall. She ran through it, barefoot now — she had kicked off her ruined boots somewhere in Caelan's chamber — and the flagstones were ice against her soles, and she did not care.
Bram screamed again.
