Something cold pressed into the heel of my hand where I was braced against the table. Warm fingers closed my hand around the length of silver.
I gasped, and Birsha's voice clouded around me like a storm cloud. "The only pleasure you will bring me is the moment I crush you like every other irksome little—"
And then the air reached my lungs. My arm shot forward, and the words on his lips ended abruptly as the knife in my hand jarred against bone. Ezra's hand closed around mine, twisting the knife, and it slid the rest of the way in, Birsha and I both moaning, his agony and my relief, our eyes going wide and locked on one another.
Genuine surprise crossed his features and something almost like amusement.
Auguste bellowed from the tree, feet kicking the floor, and Ezra ripped me away from Birsha, a silver dinner knife jutting out from the tidy man's chest.
"Esther!" voices cried from the tunnel.
"In here!" Ezra answered as I gaped at the knife. At Birsha.
He grinned then, black tongue licking his own red spittle from his lip, and opened his mouth to speak.
I lunged forward with a scream, yanking the knife from his chest and then jamming it down again, into Birsha's throat before he could spew any more poison in my ear. His hands snapped around my wrist, holding me in place.
"Smarter than you look," Birsha garbled, and he groaned as Ezra's fingers pried him off my hand.
"Yes, I am," I breathed, stumbling away, colliding into the strong arms of Mr. Tanner.
"Shit, Amon! He's—" Ezra shouted as Birsha began to glow with that same eerie light that illuminated the room before fading quickly and thoroughly into the shadows. “—Getting away."