Chapter 25
The boy was half-conscious as Jack drove the car closer to the castle, the engine softly thrumming. They'd all become quieter in preparation of what lay ahead. Even the buoyant treasure-hunter Jack seemed unnerved.
"How're you feeling?" Sarah asked the fighter-boy softly. His eyes were dazed, unfixed but a lovely hazel colour with short, blunt eyelashes and large, serious darker brown eyebrows. His nose looked like it had been broken, otherwise would have been delicate and nearly too pretty to be masculine. His lips were swollen with bruising and cold but had the crimson flush that would severely tempt a girl to kiss them. His chin was jutted with instinctive determination. Cuts ran down his arms and chest, tapering to scratches, his tanned skin mottled with bruising. His breathing was a whistle through broken ribs.
"I feel like a pack of wolves has been chewing on me," the boy said hoarsely. "Did they? Chew on me?"
"And spat you out," Kelly said with a nasty cheerfulness.
The boy laughed, his voice a rough rasp and closed his brown eyes again. "How near to the castle are we?"
"As close as I can get," Jack answered as the car slowed. "Is Daybreak still in there, boy?"
"Tom," the boy said hoarsely. "I'm Tom. And…why do you care about Daybreak? I recognise you from somewhere." He was talking to Jack.
"Jack Harman," he said cheerfully. "Daybreak's secret info-feeder. Treasure-hunter extraordinaire."
"Traitor!" Tom spat, eyes opening wide. He turned his head slowly and painfully to look at Jack's companions: at Roseclear, Kelly and Brooke. His gaze stopped on Sarah. "Don't let him do whatever he plans," Tom whispered furiously at her, his breathing shallow and fast, his skin flushed. "He does everything for personal gain."
"I sold the prophecies to Daybreak, didn't I?" Jack asked cheerfully and the car sped up slightly, bouncing over the rocky ground.
"But you'd have sold them to Hunter if he'd paid the higher price!" Tom growled, eyes filling up with hatred.
Jack nodded amiably. "I am a businessman," he admitted guilelessly.
"We're getting Kierlan out," Sarah said softly to Tom. "That's all."
"And why should Jack Harman want a Wild Power!" Tom spat bitterly. "So he can sell Kierlan to the higher paying side!"
Jack rolled his eyes and turned his head at Sarah. "Just ignore him."
Then Roseclear lunged out from the backseat, pushing the steering wheel: far stronger than Jack for she had vampire strength. Jack yelled, trying to push her away as the car screeched and skewed sideways. Tom grabbed Sarah, pulling her against him to shield her from hitting her head on the car window.
A gleam in her violet-blue, icy eyes, Roseclear backhanded Jack who gritted his teeth and slapped her away. "Are you mad!" he yelled, violet fire lancing from his fingertips. Roseclear just laughed: Anthony fixed a glare on Jack and the treasure hunter froze in more than terror as though he was being electrocuted, his violet fire dying on his palms. "Sarah Strange," Roseclear said calmly, her eyes on her distant Harman cousin. "Get out of the car. We're walking."
"Leave her alone," Tom countered hotly, eyes flashing almost black.
"It's okay," Sarah whispered, a tremble in her voice as she got up: she was scared of Anthony. She got out of the car and stepped onto the ground, rocks digging into the soles of her shoes. Tom got up and got out of the car on the other side, his jaw clenching as he struggled against pain to stand up straight, shivering from his wounds.
Roseclear had got out now, too. Anthony's lips were curved and thin in a nasty smile at Jack, who couldn't move, even to do a counter-spell against Anthony's dragon magic.
"Now come along," Roseclear said in a singsong voice.