The Glowing Knight Read Online Free PDF

figure out where I’d follow him from.
    No time to doubt myself. I surged across a stretch between the door and the nearest outbuilding, tempted to pause there and wait for them to pass. But no, the gardening storage was too obvious. Instead, I put on a burst of speed and whipped around the northeast corner, then took a hard right toward the next building. A flagpole, sans flag, rested on the ground nearby.
    The door was unlocked. Thank saints. I slipped inside and drew the door closed. Breath rattled through my chest as I fought to restrain a panicked laugh. Chased by my own guards. Not mine mine, but guards who answered to my family, nonetheless.
    Footfalls slammed by. Paused.
    Quickly, I glanced around the room. It was dim, but enough light shone through the windows to reveal the hulking shadows of storage shelves and crates, and enough floor space for a fairly energetic sword fight. Bits of crumbling wood lay scattered. At least, I hoped it was just debris, not dead animals.
    As I feared, the guards had figured out where I’d gone. The door pulled open and light splintered in across the dusty floor, but as silently as I could, I knelt and grabbed a piece of shattered plate—or a cockroach shell; it was hard to be sure—and stayed low. Where I crouched beside the hinges, they couldn’t yet see me.
    I forced myself to breathe soft and even, and as the men began to peer into the building, I tossed the plate shard toward the back of the room.
    â€œThere!” They thundered by me, deeper into the dim storage building, and I slipped out, shutting and barring the door with the flagpole braced under the knob.
    It wouldn’t take long for them to get free; already, the doorrattled and the flagpole shifted.
    I sprinted away. I’d given myself a head start, but it wouldn’t be long before they caught up.

SIX
    I TOOK TO the shadows as soon as possible.
    Until now, I’d never realized just how many places there were to hide in the King’s Seat: in the shadow of the palace, between outbuildings, and behind statues of saints and long-dead Pierces. I darted from one black shadow to another, quickly heading out of the King’s Seat and into Hawksbill.
    I headed toward the Bome Boys’ Academy, where Knight had an apartment like all the other professors. Maybe he hadn’t left yet. Wherever he was going, he needed to be there at midnight. That was an hour from now.
    Silence pushed around Hawksbill as I hurried on, trying to stay ahead of the guards. My biggest advantage, at least that I could guess, was that they’d assume I’d either go back to the palace to finish the job, or head straight for the wall to make an escape.
    Then again, it turned out I knew much less about palacesecurity and servants than I’d previously thought.
    Hopefully James was faring better.
    Hawksbill was knots of streetlights and dark pockets between. I kept to yards and forced myself to pause—listen for voices or footfalls—whenever I came to an intersection I needed to cross. And every time I saw a lamp burning by the road or on a house, I was tempted to step into the sphere of light. But that was the prince in me, who’d never considered the need to hide in the darkness.
    With the curtain pull growing heavier on my shoulder and the silver mask still hampering my vision, I sneaked past the Chuter home, the small but very ornate Roberts Chapel, and Manily Plaza, where I’d attended several outdoor plays. Lights shone in a few mansions, but many were already dark. Ahead, too, where the large box of a school rose above the wall and houses and trees, lights burned in the northern wing: the student dormitories. They must be up late studying. Jealousy simmered in me.
    There were still several buildings between the school and me when I spotted him. Professor Knight was swathed in a large coat, in spite of the summer heat, and his heels thunked on the paving stones as he made his way down