She felt him there, fiery and desperate. This wasn’t her dream; it was his. Ireth’s.
What is it? She tried to shout, but she had no voice, no body. What are you trying to show me?
She remembered the sensations she’d felt at Helderschmidt’s, staring at the amarinth. But what does this have to do with anything?
The amarinth’s center flashed like the sun, leaving in its wake darkness lit by a single glowing eye.
Ireth’s fear threatened to smother her.
She needed to know.
She thought about the dream and the amarinth as she stared at the floorboards, waiting for Rone to come out of his bath in Arnae’s side of the flat. She didn’t understand the visions. What was Ireth trying to say? The sole connection she could fathom was that the amarinth was of Noscon make and the numina were Noscon magic—at least, the astral sphere that mapped the numina was Noscon. That sphere helped summoners navigate the ethereal plane, though she didn’t understand how. Could it also help her learn more about Ireth?
Was there something else?
The door opened, and Rone stepped in fully clothed, his hair still wet and his feet bare. There was something vulnerable about him like that, something that warmed Sandis deep within her core.
She considered telling him about her dream. But he had been so strained lately, and right now he looked more himself. She didn’t want to ruin his mood. She owed him so much.
He grabbed his shoes from the middle of the floor, where his bedroll had been before Sandis tucked it away. “Ready?” he asked.
Sandis nodded and stood, brushing off her skirt and stepping into the shoes Arnae had gifted her. That was another person she’d need to repay—Arnae. He’d been so kind to her. In a few years, when this part of her story was over, maybe she’d be able to visit him with her remunerations at his front door. Wouldn’t that be something?
Please protect him, Celestial. Please don’t let our errors put him in evil’s path.
Her stomach growled.
Rone smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that.”
She pressed her hand to her belly to quiet it. “Arnae said we could open one of the jars of pickles—”
He made a face. “Pickles? For breakfast?”
“He said it’d be better to eat them before they expire—”
“Sandis.” He stomped his foot into one shoe, then pulled on the other one. “Let’s get something good to eat. Just this once.”
His gaze made her stomach forget its emptiness and flutter instead. Reality tamped down the feeling. “We should be careful. The grafters—”
“Are still reeling. We’ll head into the safest part of town. I’m not worried.”
He didn’t look at her when he said that. There was something unnatural about his nonchalance, but Sandis was likely overthinking things. So she nodded, and when he smiled at her, she smiled back. Her muscles loosened. Rone was just being Rone, and her dream was just a dream . . . for now. If only she could summon Ireth for longer, somewhere it wouldn’t cause a fuss, perhaps she would learn . . . But no, she shouldn’t think of that. Not now.
Arnae had left the house early that morning, so Sandis was unable to say goodbye to him. She wanted to leave a note, but her penmanship was terrible, and she figured it was safer for him if she left as little evidence as possible of her presence in this place. She wouldn’t come back. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t come back, not until the grafters were off her trail for good. She wouldn’t do anything to hurt this kind man, or the others who had benefited from his generosity.
Rone cracked the hidden door open, surveyed the area, then took Sandis’s hand and quickly pulled her through, shutting the bricked passage behind him. He held her hand as he led the way to the road, whereupon he released it suddenly. He drew into himself, hunching his shoulders. Hiding? But Sandis didn’t see anything remotely suspicious around them. He buried his hands into his pockets, so Sandis placed hers on the crook of his arm. His lip twitched; then he set his jaw to hide whatever emotion had tried to show itself to her.
It hurt her more than it should have, but she pushed the pain away. He had called her wonderful last night. Whatever was bothering him wasn’t something she’d done or said. His mother, most likely. He had to be worried sick about her.
They went toward the Innerchord, down a small, quaint street without any garbage in the gutters, to a tiny restaurant that smelled like sugar. They got a seat in the back. Rone told her to order whatever she wanted; she’d never ordered off a menu before. It took her longer to read it than it did Rone. Having been raised by a high priest, he must have received a good education. Did he fault her for her slowness?
But he called you wonderful, she reminded herself, and hid a smile.
She found something inexpensive and asked for that. Thanked him profusely, until it seemed to make him uncomfortable. So she stopped and enjoyed her food—something called a cream puff. It was a large sugared roll with sweet white filling. It was heavenly. Sandis smiled while she ate it.
“My cheeks hurt,” she said when they left the establishment, her hand back in the crook of his arm. It fit there, which made her heart swell.
Rone turned toward her and rubbed his knuckle into the side of her face. She laughed and pulled away.
“Huh.” He pulled her hand back.
“What?”
He shrugged. “I never noticed you have dimples.”
She lifted her hand and felt the telling spots on her face. Anon had had dimples, too. They’d come from her father.
Did Talbur Gwenwig have them, too?
“Do you think we could look today?” she asked. “For Talbur? I have the map.”
Rone looked away for a moment. “Yeah, sure. Can’t hurt.”
They bummed a ride on the back of a carriage, where the footman was supposed to go, so Rone said. He stood on the step, and she perched on his feet. When the carriage started turning the wrong way, they hopped off. It was a long walk to the closest place Arnae had circled on her map, long enough to give her blisters, but she didn’t mention it. Rone was quiet most of the way.
The mortgage company was on the fifth floor of a six-floor building, tall enough that even Rone wouldn’t have been able to jump from the roof to the surrounding architecture. They got a few glances, and more than once Sandis scanned the room for familiar faces or shadowy men. There weren’t any. Rone must have been right, then.
There were two people in the office, an older man and a younger woman about Sandis’s age. She approached the latter. “Excuse me. I’m trying to find a family member of mine. He purchased a new home in Dresberg not long ago, and I lost the address. It’s very important.”
She had practiced that line a lot. She thought it sounded reasonable. The woman looked at her skeptically.
“Do you have an account number?” she asked.
“I, no . . .” Sandis turned to find Rone lurking in the back of the room. Refocusing on the woman, she said, “His name is Talbur Gwenwig. I’m fairly certain this is the place with his . . . lease.”
The woman looked at her a moment too long. Began opening a drawer at the bottom of the desk. “And you are?”
“Sara Gwenwig.” That was her mother’s name. Pins prickled her back when she said it—it’d been a long time since her mother’s name last graced her tongue.
The woman pulled out a heavy binder, then another. Looked through the first, then the second, then the first again. “You’re mistaken. None with that name here.”
“Oh.” She glanced back to Rone. “I must be. I . . . will try something else.”
She turned, her face warm, and hurried to the door. Rone followed after her.
Outside, Sandis pulled out her map. Some of the charcoal writing on it had smeared—she needed to be more careful with it. Wrapping around the side of the large building, she scanned the streets. Sparsely populated at this hour, and she didn’t see anyone who looked like a potential pursuer.
She
let out a long breath. “All right, that’s done. Which means next—”
“It’s getting a little late,” Rone said, looking at the sky. He’d aged ten years, and the slouch of his body denoted fatigue.
Frowning, Sandis followed his line of vision. Not terribly late, but it was a ways to the next mortgage broker, and it might very well be closed by the time they reached it. Not to mention night was the grafters’ time.
He added, “That place I mentioned . . . it should be vacant now. We should head that way.”
Sandis carefully folded her map and returned it to her pocket. “All right. Will it be vacant until your job is done?”
Rone started walking down the street, hands in his pockets. “I think so.”
“I can look on my own, while you’re gone.”
“You don’t have to.”
She licked her lips. Watched the cobblestones pass underfoot. Her heart doubled its weight. “I’m sorry I took your amarinth.”
He glanced at her. Checked his pocket.
“Before, I mean.”
“I think you already apologized for that.”
“It’s my fault you’re involved in this mess. My fault the grafters want you, too.”
Rone shrugged. “We’ve given them a run for their money, eh? Maybe they won’t bother us anymore.”
But Sandis shook her head. “I know Kazen too well. He hates losing, so he makes sure he never does. Whenever I thought I’d outsmarted him, he always . . . he always knew. He watched us all so closely. If you turned your head the wrong way or said something outside your vernacular, he noticed.”
But could he be getting tired of the chase? Kazen wasn’t a young man, and he’d already expended so many resources chasing her and Rone—resources taken away from his work, his other vessels, and . . . Kolosos. Maybe she simply thought he never gave up because no one else had pushed him far enough.
If we can hold out a little longer and find Talbur . . . it will work out.
It had to. Sandis poured all her faith into this. If the Celestial still cared about her, even a miniscule amount, surely she could appease it with her diligence. Surely she could grasp this one blessing.
Maybe Kazen knew her finding Talbur would ultimately thwart him, and that was why he tried so hard to stop her.
“This way,” Rone said quietly.
He gestured down another street, this one riddled with beggars. She followed him, searching the faces of Dresberg’s poorest. She wished she could help them. So many looked diseased, thin, dirty. She pulled her eyes from one lying too still, not wanting to know if the woman still breathed or not.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as they walked past the helpless beggars. Without Rone, she would have been like these men and women, destitute and desperate, even if she’d managed to stay clear of Kazen.
“What?” Rone asked.
She shook her head. The lump forming in her throat made it hard to speak.
They walked for a long time, until Sandis took off her shoes to prevent further blisters. She was hungry and tired, but they were getting close. This part of town was full of tiny, dilapidated flats; the windows had bars instead of glass. Her gut tightened at the sight of some of them.
“We’re getting close,” she whispered.
“I know,” Rone said, even quieter. “But not too close. See? Just this way.”
He didn’t look at her as he said it. He hadn’t looked at her since they’d left the broker. She wanted to reach for him, but something about the way he moved made her hesitate.
The tall buildings grew closer together. Some looked abandoned, but then again, the families who lived here might be unable to afford lamps. Dusk approached too quickly, yet that might have been a trick of the shadows. It was too quiet, save for the distant wailing of a child and the barking of a dog—
The hairs on Sandis’s arms stood on end.
A numen.
“Rone.” She reached out and grabbed his arm with both hands. Her pulse thundered in her ears. She dropped her shoes. Cold coils of fear laced their way up her legs and knotted in her belly. “Rone, we have to go. Now.”
Rone didn’t look at her. “What?”
“Numen. Kazen is nearby. Hurry.” She pulled him back. Maybe they could hide in one of these flats. Maybe they hadn’t been seen yet. The maybes flooded her mind in a twist of apprehension.
Rone resisted her.
She stared at him. Yanked. “Rone, they’re here!” She struggled to keep her voice down.
He looked at her in a way that made the coils loosen for a moment. Instead of older, he looked younger. A boy. Wide dark eyes full of sorrow. A long face. Why was he looking at her like that?
His gaze dropped to the road.
“What a good delivery boy we have. Isn’t he, Drang?”
Lightning zipped down Sandis’s spine, immobilizing her. She nearly tripped over herself turning around. The wolfish numen, Drang, blocked the road behind them, but her eyes went straight to Kazen. Kazen, dressed well in a long black coat and high boots. The silver buckle on his hat glimmered with a light of its own.
Sandis didn’t realize she’d been retreating until her shoulder hit Rone’s chest. The clicks of cocking guns brought her attention behind him. Ace’s mobsmen, a dozen of them, blocked the other way. All with firearms.
She frantically searched for windows, pipes, doors—there was nothing. She stood in a perfect cage.
The amarinth. Could it get them out of this?
“Rone,” she croaked.
Rone lifted his hands as if in surrender. “We had a deal.”
Sandis’s stomach plummeted.
Kazen petted Drang—a giant creature that looked like a mix of wolf and lion but stood upright like a human, its gnarled hands clawed like Isepia’s—and strode forward, radiating pure confidence. Sandis backed away, toward the mobsmen, sure she’d faint from her speeding heart and hypothermic limbs.
Rone, however, held his ground.
“I am a man of my word.” Kazen reached into his coat and pulled out a stack of papers and a bulging envelope. He handed them to Rone.
Sandis didn’t understand. Rone stood like a statue, watching Kazen’s shaded eyes. Then he lifted his hand and accepted the papers.
Her body split down the middle. “Rone?” she asked, his name chopped and hoarse on her lips. He didn’t fight. He didn’t pull out the amarinth. He didn’t run.
He hadn’t reacted at all to her warning about Drang.
Sandis’s knees trembled. She stumbled, barely catching herself.
This couldn’t be right. There was something she didn’t understand. Rone was her protector. Her friend. Her . . . everything.
She saw bills in the envelope he tucked into his pocket, and the truth struck her like the butt of a rifle.
She was his job.
Tears blurred her vision, then burned her skin as they trailed the sides of her nose. All the running, hiding, rescuing . . . and he was turning her in?
How much money was in that envelope?
“Rone?” She tried again, more pathetic than before. He didn’t look at her. Stepped around Kazen, toward Drang. Kazen held up a hand, stilling the numen.
He was leaving her.
He was leaving her.
He was leaving her with them.
The mobsmen moved forward.
“No!” Sandis screamed, turning and running back the way she had come. Drang roared at her. She fell to her knees and pushed her palm on her forehead.
“None of that,” Kazen snapped, and suddenly the mobsmen were on her, clawing her, holding down her limbs. She screamed and struggled, trying to get a hand free, but there were too many of them. They were too strong. A fist hit the side of her head. Her thigh threatened to break under the weight of a large man’s knees.
“No! No! Rone!” she screamed, then felt a familiar piercing on the inside of her elbow. Through her blurry vision, she saw Kazen with his needle and tube. Saw her blood spiraling through it and
into a syringe.
Ireth! Ireth! Help me! Celestial! “Rone!”
Kazen reached for her forehead.
Sandis screamed.
Chapter 21
Every time she cried out his name, something broke inside him. Broke, snapped, crumbled. Ash filled a cavity deep within, a pit somewhere beyond blood and bone. He’d never felt this way before, hadn’t known he could, though it was similar to the ache he’d felt when he was thirteen, the day his father first refused him at the Lily Tower.
Her scream seared up his spine and popped like a firework inside his head.
He’d promised himself he’d run after the exchange. That he’d get out of there as fast as his legs could carry him and never look back. He’d gone over the plan again and again and again . . . but the pull was too strong. He’d never heard a human being make a sound like that.
He turned around.
At first he couldn’t see anything other than a swarm of darkly dressed men. But within seconds they all ran away like cockroaches under the light of a lamp, and it was no wonder why.
Fire blazed from the road, bright and hot and growing, growing, growing. Rone shielded the heat from his face with a forearm. Burning air rushed into his nostrils and down his throat. He grabbed his amarinth and ducked behind the nearest building to shield himself as a couple of men screamed in surprise.
Go. Go now.
But he had to see her. He had to know—
Rone peeked around the side of the dilapidated building and nearly shat his pants.
Ireth.
The beast stood taller than any horse he’d ever seen—it could eat a plow horse as a snack. Its long, lithe body was the color of tarnished silver and ash, though it glowed a dark bronze where the flames burned brightest.
The flames—Rone could barely look at the thing for the blaze. A wreath of white fire encircled the numen’s breast, and flames cascaded down its neck and back and formed a narrow, whiplike tail, like the appendage was made of molten steel. Its eyes were blacker than coal, and two sets of horns jutted out from the top of its head—two forking skyward, and two curving forward.
It was the most incredible monster Rone had ever seen.
Smoke and Summons (Numina Book 1) Page 24
