Ruins Read Free Page A

the countryside. The evening air was warm, but Nicholas shivered. He noticed orange flickers as they approached the forest and he looked at Sam nervously, hoping they were safe out in the open.
    A ring of poplar trees bordered a wide clearing. The sky was a cheek-blushing pink, and at the clearing’s centre, a large crowd had already gathered. Nicholas’s insides leapt when he realised every one of them must be a Sentinel. He could count the number of Sentinels he’d met on one hand, and he scanned the horde keenly, discovering Sentinels of all shapes and sizes. They looked utterly normal. Supermarket people. The fear that he was under-dressed in shorts and a T-shirt – summer clothes Sam had fetched for him from Midsummer Common – quickly evaporated. Aside from the odd raven feather or silver pendant, the others were completely unremarkable. He couldn’t help feeling a twinge of disappointment.
    A breeze stirred and Nicholas couldn’t help trembling. “Is it safe? Out here?”
    “Oh yes,” Sam said. He pointed to the trees. “Don’t you see them?”
    Nicholas peered at the band of poplars and noticed that a figure stood between each trunk.
    “Sensitives,” Sam told him quietly. He winked.
    Nicholas’s eyes widened. Sensitives. Like him. If that’s what he was. After his parents’ deaths, he’d become aware that he could sense things before they happened. In one of the library’s books, he’d read that Sensitives could do that, too.
    Sam led him further into the clearing and they joined the crowd. The Sentinels had gathered for a memorial ceremony. After they had dealt with Diltraa’s remains, Jessica told Nicholas about what had happened in Cambridge in his absence. Sentinels were attacked and turned, including one of Sam’s friends, Richard. A lot of people had died in a tomb beneath a cemetery, and Nicholas was relieved Sam wasn’t one of them. No wonder the old man looked so tired.
    His insides squirmed when he thought about Malika and her demon master, Diltraa. They had orchestrated a plan to break into Hallow House and they’d succeeded, almost killing Jessica. A swell of pride briefly stilled the squirming anxiety. He’d been responsible for chasing Malika away. He’d used his powers to buckle the witch’s defences and even glimpsed some of her own dark thoughts.
    He frowned at the memory. He’d seen Malika huddling naked in a corner of the Pentagon Room. The image felt old, like a piece of the past, and he still didn’t understand what it meant.
    Meanwhile, Diltraa had been slain by Esus, the silver-masked phantom who guided Jessica.
    Shaking off those troubling thoughts, Nicholas contemplated a crude wooden structure at the centre of the dell; it was a platform with a set of steps. The Sentinels crowded in front of it eagerly, though they were disarmingly solemn. Firelight filled the clearing; night had yet to fall, but a number of wooden posts had been driven into the ground and set ablaze. They reminded Nicholas of Guy Fawkes Night.
    A sudden murmuring rippled through the Sentinels. Nicholas saw that the crowd had parted and people were craning forward, straining their necks, clawing at the rows of shoulders in front of them to get a better look at something. At first, he only glimpsed silver and black as somebody approached. Then he saw Jessica and his breath caught in his throat.
    The leader of the Sentinels glided like a scythe through the congregation. In the firelight, her skin was mercurial, her eyes dark and enchanting. Stiff black feathers were fastened in her golden hair and fanned about one shoulder. A silvery-white dress – cut at an angle to expose one gleaming shoulder – swept the ground behind her. Perched on her bare shoulder was a raven, and the bird assessed the crowd with uncommon interest.
    The Sentinels dipped their heads.
    Every nerve in Nicholas’s body hummed, as if Jessica’s presence had forced them to spring awake.
    He scowled. Behind her, swaggering with