I hadn’t eaten since yesterday, but that would change soon. I’d watched him for twenty minutes. Rake-thin, with a pale face and black hair strangled into a ponytail. Scowling as he walked, narrow lips pressed together. The huge guy next to him was his exact opposite, so loud and bald that people flinched away even on the other side of the street. He swung his arms around, laughing so hard windows rattled up and down the street.
What an odd couple. Who wore black robes that thick to the city?
I peeled off from the group of people I had been pretending to beg from. Got a single copper, which I pushed into my pocket. Two might have got me something to eat, but they might have jingled as well. Thanks, you cheap bastards.
”Ha!” the big guy shouted. ”Your tone is pushing on insolence, lecturer.”
”Your mother was insolent when she was pushing you out, chancellor,” the sour guy said in a voice surprisingly low compared to how thin he was.
Bowing my head low, I walked toward him. I lifted my hand, gave him my most desperate look.
The man wrinkled his upturned nose like he smelled something bad. “Out of my way, girl.”
Nice.
I flinched to the side, letting him see I was just a frightened nobody. My hand slid into his pocket, where the pressure came from, the feeling that something was wrong with the world. The guy was obviously not a local. Didn’t know to look out for frightened nobodies, keep his valuables where they couldn’t be reached.
My fingers touched the object and twitched involuntarily. It felt like a rectangle, slightly porous, fitting snugly in my hand. A taste of mold filled my mouth. My eyes shot wide, and I gagged. The reaction made me fumble, snag my hand against the cloth.
“Huh?” the guy said, head snapping up.
Always the same with magical crap! The big guy roared with laughter and slapped him on the back, the impact making the smaller man’s knees wobble. Great distraction. He stumbled ahead, and I pulled the thing out of his pocket. That strong a reaction meant it would be worth something.
I moved it into my own pocket, wanted to stop touching it as soon as I could. The thing had called out to me a block away, familiar in a way that made my skin crawl, in a way that I refused to think about.
I would eat well this week. Just needed to get away first.
I shuffled ahead, keeping my eyes down on the worn cobblestones. I had to reach the alleyway fifteen steps away, and then I could bolt. After I turned the corner, they would have no way of finding me. When I took the third step, the rectangle reacted. Almost like it wanted to stay behind, pulling back in my pocket.
“Wait,” the sour guy said. “It’s gone. Thief!”
I dropped all pretense, charged ahead at full speed. Damn it! Shouldn’t have expected him to be quite that dumb. I pushed through a group of people standing and talking, hoping they would stumble in the way of the couple. People shouted behind me as I kept running. I hazarded a look back and saw the whole group being pushed aside at the same time by the bigger man. He tackled all five of them, bowling them over.
“Jextor! Don’t bother!” the sour man shouted. His voice carried easily, like he was used to shouting over a crowd.
I snickered as I ran. Dumb, after all. Hoping to track me, eh? Not in Tenorsbridge.
The smile fell from my face as the big guy completely ignored the shout and kept barreling after me. He didn’t look fast, but every step covered so much ground, he would catch me if I didn’t stop glancing over my shoulder and focus on running.
I needed to get to the rooftops. Might run into one of the regulars up there, but I’d talk my way out of it. Turn it into a joke, play the damsel in distress. I knew a spot, not far from here. People shouted and hopped aside as I ran. The stomping couldn’t keep up, falling further behind. Just a few steps to the alley.
A man gasped, eyes going wide at something behind me. I ducked low, instincts flaring. A cobblestone smashed into the wall, ricocheting off. It cracked a large chunk clean off a cinderblock, throwing shrapnel and dust into the air. The big guy was already ripping a new stone up from the street with his bare fingers. What the hell!
I dived behind the corner of the alleyway. A second rock passed by, flying wide and smashing into glass. The rectangle jostled in my pocket. It was oily and cold even through the thin cloth of my pocket. I ignored it, jumping to grasp the lowest windowsill. A woman screamed something behind the window. I stuck my tongue out at her as I went past. This is one of the best climbing spots around this block, so how come she’s still screaming? People must climb up here daily. Well, her other window had just got a cobblestone thrown through it, so maybe she was slightly on edge.
I grabbed the lantern hung on the wall, pulled my feet up behind me.
If he had kept running instead of ripping up the street, I wouldn’t have had time to climb up. Lucky. Way too close. What kind of mage pulls stones off a street to throw at someone?
I clambered up the roof. The Highway started behind the roof ridge. The leak was one block away. I hopped over the ridge and slid to the duckboards on the other side. The Thief’s Highway, a route connecting all the good spots to shake magical tracking above the streets of the city.
Some roofs over, I breathed out, sighing and leaning my back against the warm chimney. The magic buzzed on my butt and toes, bleeding up through the roof tiles. Like going through a stream when trying to avoid a pack of dogs, except tingly. Nothing could follow me now. I would catch my breath, then pass through a couple of more spots. The sun was just about to dip below the wall in the west. I closed my eyes and lifted my face to the sun, bathing it in the orange light.
The warmth disappeared. I opened my eyes. The sky was still pretty, but not pretty enough to gawk at. I turned and started running, following the wooden planks laid along the roofs.
“You shouldn’t be here, Lina,” the grunt said, crossing his arms over his chest.
His name was Jordan or something dumb like that. A full head taller than me, built like a barn. Suitable for guarding something and being out of the way of everyone else in the gang. And in the way of everyone not in it.
I worked up a smile, making sure it reached my eyes. “Don’t be like that, big guy.”
“You scrawny twerp,” he said. “Hormens says you have to be one of us to use the Highway. Or pay for the privilege.”
He looked so smug for pronouncing the word right. I held back a scoff. “I barely got away from the guards, can’t you just let me squeeze past this time?” I said, wiggling my shoulders and making sure to push my chest out for him. I stuck the tip of my tongue out and kept my eyes crinkled. This crap always worked on guys like him.
He smiled, and I stepped forward, pushing my hands into my pockets. My fingers brushed the rectangle, and I flinched. Touching it now felt like licking steel at winter, my hand clenching around it by itself, the thing not letting go of me.
I scowled as the taste of a moldy mushroom filled my mouth.
Jordan flinched, frowning at my expression. “Hormens said no except—”
“Whatever. I’ll leave.” I looked back, checking how far I’d come. I’d already passed through a couple of leaks. Getting farther would be better, but not worth flirting more with the—
A hand gripped my hair, yanking my head back.
I yelped. My teeth clacked together as he pulled again. Stupid, stupid. Never turn your back.
“I don’t like your attitude. I was going to let it slide, but now you gotta pay,” he said, sliding a knife into my view. “Offer me something—“
I kicked. My heel cracked into his knee. I knew what the proposition would be. No reason to wait.
He screamed, yanking my head back. He’d gut me for hearing him squeal like that if I gave him the chance. The knife scraped a long gash on my neck and right shoulder. Unlucky, that.
I backed toward him, driving my left elbow blindly at his groin. I hit something soft, so I elbowed him two more times.
The grip loosened. I turned around as he stumbled back, bending over. His feet slipped off from the path, the two planks laid on the red tiles. Snot ran down his face as looked up, holding his stomach. “Goddamn crazy orphan, I’ll—“
I punched him in the face with the rectangle still in my fist. “Shut your mouth!” I spat.
His head snapped back like I’d hit him with a brick. He flopped backward, legs kicking in the air. He landed three steps down, his head bouncing off one of the red tiles.
“Shut your mouth, right now,” I hissed, the hate cold and hard in my chest, as I watched him tumble down.
The clattering went on as he kept sliding, arms and legs flailing and flailing around. The building was three stories tall. If he survived the fall, he’d tell them it was me, they’d come after me. Hormens’ crew. I should climb down, stomp on his face until he stopped moving, until no one could recognize him, and he wouldn’t grab anyone else ever again. But he’d fall in the middle of the street in broad daylight, so there was nothing I could do about it.
I watched him roll over the edge, wrinkled my nose. I should get away. No one would care about some thug falling from the roof. If he was irrelevant enough to die in Tenorsbridge, he was irrelevant enough to ignore. But if there were more people on the roofs, on the Highway, they could come looking, find me standing here with a trail of cracked roof tiles starting at my feet and a body down on the street.
I looked at the rectangle still in my hand. It fit into my fist, cream white filled with pockmarks and engraved symbols. It was slick with blood running down my arm, the blood running into the engraved symbols on its surface. It throbbed against my wet fingers, the pulse like a reversed heartbeat, pulling at my hand. I shivered despite how numb I felt, and slid the thing back into my pocket. I let go of it, planning to wipe my hand on my shirt.
The nausea and pain hit me.
I had been sliced open from neck to shoulder, but it was nothing compared to the way Jordan’s face had crumpled, caved in on itself.
I stumbled and grabbed hold of the plank, one knee landing on the tiles. My eyes fell on another tile, cracked and smeared with blood where his head had hit it, bounced off it. The tile was thick red cinder, snapped in two.
I didn’t let anyone grab me. But I hadn’t meant to hit him that hard. Not that hard!
I didn’t know I could hit that hard.
Something climbed up my throat. A burp forced itself out, tasting rank. I wiped at my face, stuck my tongue out and ran a thumb over it, trying to scrape away the taste of mold. I looked at my thumb like an idiot. There was nothing on it.
I focused on breathing, tuning out the pain, listening for the shouting from down below.
Goddamn. I couldn’t afford this. I was bleeding fast, couldn’t get dragged into some feud, have a whole crew looking for me. They still might, just because I had been caught going around this part of the Highway a couple of times.
My hand gripped the planks harder as the shouting from below pushed its way into my mind. Guards were being called.
I could stay. Let them find me. I had been running for such a long time. Maybe the guards would at least throw me into somewhere warm.
I punched the planks to shake off the impulse, forced the thought back down. The pain in my shoulder cut through the stupor. Ignore the pain, focus on what’s important. Out, out, out.
The planks rattled as I ran, heading east and toward the slums.
I pulled the plank wall, my makeshift door, back into place, grimacing as it made the wound in my shoulder spike with pain. It had stopped bleeding for a moment, but I had torn it open when climbing down. Almost made me slip, but I had got back to my safehouse after that.
Safehouse, hah.
It had probably been a shed at some point. Emptied and abandoned when the area went to the dogs. They would demolish everything here soon. The new buildings kept rolling over the old ones, but for now, for a moment, I had a place to keep me dry when it rained. That was enough.
I would need to figure out something new for the winter as the nights were already freezing, but first I needed to patch myself up. My fingers fumbled for my other shirt. The cloth had frayed thin, which was good. Using my teeth, I pulled the shirt apart. Wrapping it around my shoulder wasn’t as easy, but I would do a better job with the bandaging come morning. I grasped the quilt that I had stolen when someone had put it out to air on a balcony, pulling it around my shoulders, wrapping it tight. The smell of soap and lavender hit my nose, smell of things from a long time ago.
I breathed through my mouth instead.
The tremors hit a moment later. I had got into scraps often enough, but everyone had always walked away from them. I had a knife as well, but I never pulled it on anyone, so they wouldn’t pull one on me. Hadn’t worked this time. I kept my hair longer than I should, up to my shoulders, so I had got it yanked on before. It’d never made me snap like that before.
I trembled all over, let my hands and legs shake. It made the rectangle clonk against the floor. It radiated cold through the cloth.
I shifted, making sure the thing didn’t touch my skin. It hung loose in the pocket. Nothing would make me touch it again. It could stay in the pocket until I could make Lefty pick it off me.
I leaned back my head on the wall, closed my eyes, but saw Jordan’s face as it bounced down the tiles, bump bump bump. I knew his reputation. I told myself not to lose sleep over a guy like that, pressed my eyes shut tighter. The shivering started to grow fainter, leaving behind only fatigue. My face sagged from the pressure. I twitched, my arms jerking as sleep tried to take me. It made the wound in my shoulder flare, making me gasp. The rectangle shifted in my pocket, and I yelped as it brushed my thigh. The touch felt like an electric shock, an icicle through my thigh, making me jerk again.
I steadied my breathing again. Just stay still, be quiet. No one’s here. Not even me.
Tomorrow, I would get rid of the thing. It had to be worth more than anything I’d managed to grab in months. I’d get warm food and bread that didn’t have mold. Buy some fresh bandages.
Whatever.
I’d let Lefty underpay me if he just promised not to tell me what it was.
The smoke was in my lungs. It billowed everywhere, thick and black. I kept my head low, crawled below it. Why now, again? People screamed and shouted outside. Explosions made the walls of my home shake. A fireball blew the house on the opposite side of the street up into the air. The splinters rained on the roof for a long time. I braced myself for when the log of timber would hit.
It did, at the exact moment when I knew it would. The impact made dust fall down from the ceiling, rattled the bones of the small wooden house.
My mother rushed at me. “Lina, love! Stay low, don’t breathe the smoke!”
I know, mom. I know. I tried to tell her, but I coughed too much. I had already inhaled my lungs full earlier. They would hurt for a week after.
“Go out from the back, I’ll be right behind you,” she whispered, glancing at the front door and the flames roaring outside our windows. “Love, go, go now.”
I shook my head, like I did. I tried to grab onto her arms, but she pushed me away, rushed me to the back door.
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll find your dad,” she said, smiling.
I tried to turn my eyes away, tried to avoid seeing it just this once. The arrow punched through her chest, right through the heart. The Kertharian archer stood behind the window, silhouetted against the flames.
“Love…” she said, before falling to the floor.
I knew I should run, but I knew I wouldn’t. I would kneel next to her body, roll her on her side like I had done and would always do. The Kertharian archer would step in, draw a dagger from the sheath on her belt.
Some part of me knew it wasn’t happening, that I was back in the memory. Some part. The rest was terrified, had just seen my mom die. Cradled her face in my hands, leaned my forehead on hers.
The Kertharian stepped forward. She howled at me, singing the litany they all had screamed. Every inch of her face was seared into my brain. Slanted eyes, a ragged scar running from the coppery hair to her chin, left side of lip pulled up.
I would turn, run through the back door. The fires would flare up, blow smoke on her face long enough for me to get away. I would escape through the village, see my dad get killed by three mad soldiers as he shouted for me to run. Find the bodies of Lann and Taum, still holding hands, burnt black. Before the Tenorsbridge militia found and rescued me, coming to save us half an hour too late.
I never forgave them.
The fire stopped crackling. I flinched at the difference. The memory didn’t change. Never. I should be scrambling already. Running the way I had then, still fast like a child, but too-long limbs getting tangled. I looked up at the smoke billowing like disturbed mud underwater, languid, as though the fire was dreaming instead of me.
The Kertharian trembled in place, shivering like someone was shaking her. Her head turned slowly to gaze at me. Then her expressions slackened as flesh started running off from her face, melting like a candle thrown into a fireplace. The skull beneath was speckless. The top of the woman’s body tilted off the skeleton, hanging back off the sparkling white collarbones and spine like the skin of a peeled fruit.
The what-had-been-a-woman took a halting step forward. The skull rotated to look at me with empty eye sockets.
I yanked at my legs, willed my body to move. It didn’t respond. I tried screaming, but only a small whimper escaped my lips. My body was asleep, stubbornly refusing to wake, even if I was wide awake.
The skull pushed closer to my face. The bone was so shiny I could see my eyes staring out at myself on its forehead. Cold, freezing air flowed over me, making my face numb.
It hissed to me, voice like dry reeds.
My lungs burned. I couldn’t breathe. My body didn’t respond. A tear rolled down my face as I struggled, but that was all. It didn’t matter I was in a dream. I knew I was going to die. Another tear rolled down my face. It froze on my cheek, so cold it burned.
The thing kept whispering to me and I would suffocate, my body refusing to breathe.
It was saving me from the rest of the dream. I would have embraced it, if I could get my arms to lift.
It pressed even closer to my face, pushing the black eye socket close. Why wasn’t there anything inside? The cold pressed on me. The whispering grew louder, insistent.
I’m sorry, thing. I can’t understand you, I thought.
A wind blew through me, slamming into my back and through me. The thing reached out and grabbed onto my left arm. It was blown away, its bony claws ripping through the flesh of my bicep as it tried to hold on. The monster flew into the smoke and the wall, crashing through the cindered wood like it was paper. Blood from the cuts on my arm sprayed in the air, following the monster into the nothingness immediately behind the wall of my house. The village and the fire was gone, replaced by matte darkness.
My mouth opened and closed, but I still couldn’t breathe. Something struck my face, hard enough to make me spin. I flew into the air, arms and legs flailing. I gasped as I fell, bumping my head on the dirty floor. Air pushed its way down, grinding through my sore throat, cramping and raw. I coughed and spasmed, spitting and drawing ragged breaths. I had been sure I was going to die.
People spoke around me, the words slowly filtering through my disappointment.
“Was that completely necessary?” a deep voice said. “I could have pulled her out.” He sounded bored, the voice nasal and contemptuous.
“Her face was going blue!” a higher voice boomed. It made the planks of my hovel rattle, shaking me awake the rest of the way.
The world snapped into focus.
I was on the floor of my safehouse. Not in the burning village, not being hissed at by a peeled Kertharian who killed my mom. A massive pair of legs stood next to me. The boots were larger than any I had seen.
The couple.
I had to get out.