Teller, sitting in front of the slates, his hand white with chalk, looked up. Finch was seated to one side of him; she rose.
“Duster?” Finch said, her brow furrowing and her dark eyes narrowing in concern.
Duster took a breath. “We need to move,” she told them. “Jester, shut the Hells up!”
Jester, who had failed to look up when she entered, looked up then. “What’s up?”
But Angel, seeing her expression, vacated the floor. He was, she noted, already wearing his boots, and she could see the hilts of daggers butting against the underside of his tunic.
“You. Or you’d better be. Get your shoes on. Everyone, shoes. Now.”
Arann rose as well, kicking off the blankets that were lying across his legs. “Duster?”
Teller stood. He started to stack the slates.
“Don’t bother with those,” Duster snapped. “Just go and grab the iron box. We need to get out of here.”
Silence. It was the silence she’d feared. She started to speak again, but Teller lifted his hands. It took her a moment to realize that he was signing with them. It was stupid.
But her own hands rose in response. Danger. Now. Run. Speaking their language as easily as if it were her own. Jay said run.
Teller and Finch exchanged a brief glance, and then he did as she’d ordered; he left the slates and the chalk, and ran—ran—to the bedroom. He came out with his boots and the box. Arann was already tying laces, and Finch rushed past Teller to grab her boots and do the same. Jester grabbed his boots as well; the laces were knotted. Angel snorted, and bent to help him undo the knots. Some days she really wanted to smack Jester.
But they were moving.
“Duster,” Arann said, when he’d finished. “Where are we going?”
“Someplace else. Here’s not safe now.”
“What happened?”
She grimaced. Started to tell him to shut up, and bit it back. “I don’t know,” she said, her voice low.
As if he understood what it cost her to admit that much, he simply nodded. He glanced at Angel. “I’ll take the lead.”
Angel nodded. “I’ll pull up the rear.”
Duster inserted herself between Arann and Finch; she was willing to let Arann lead, because she did her best work from the side or the back, and she didn’t have his obvious strength.
They made it as far as the street. It was the usual crowded daytime street, with the usual children, the usual grandparents, the usual pedestrians walking toward the Common or the well. It was even the usual cold but sunny of a Scaral day. But their shadows seemed longer, and without clouds, the sun’s light was too damn bright. No place to hide, here.
Duster watched the road. Glanced briefly at the people passing by on either side; she never looked at one thing for long, bouncing instead between different objects: alleys, wagons, stray dogs, Arann’s broad back. Everything was in motion now. Every motion had a natural rhythm. Rath had taught her that, as well. Look for the false step. Look for the inconsistent movement.
What she hadn’t been looking for was a total lack of movement, but it caught her eye, and this time, her glance was riveted. A man stood dead center in the street, as if he were a large rock in a moving stream. He was dressed for the weather, and had he been walking, she might not have noticed him—he was too old to be part of a den, and too poorly dressed to be important; he didn’t carry an obvious weapon and wore no uniform that could attach him to the magisterians. His hair was a short, cropped brown, his jaw was slightly square. He was of medium height, although he was broad around the shoulders and chest. His eyes were brown.
Brown or something darker.
But he just didn’t move. He didn’t swing his hands, didn’t flex his fingers, didn’t speak or tap his feet or shift his position at all.
People flowed around him to the left or right, some cursing him—at a safe distance. He didn’t appear to care.
Kalliaris.
Duster reached out and tapped Arann’s shoulder, but Arann had noticed as well. He slowed. Behind him, Duster signed, her hands at her sides, her fingers leaving the hilt of her dagger to do so. She hated its absence, and she was terse, to the point. She saw Finch and Teller stop, heard Angel’s single word to Jester as she found her dagger again.
Arann attempted to go to the left, because that’s what Arann did. He never tried to push his way through an obstacle of any kind if he could avoid it. Duster watched, moving behind him at a slower pace, slipping into some of the crowd that wasn’t her den to get a slightly different view.
It was enough.
As Arann went left, the man moved for the first time: he turned. She saw his face in three-quarter profile, and she saw his smile.
She almost froze, then, because she recognized the smile. Not the face that wore it; that was still nondescript. It made the smile that much worse, because it didn’t belong on his face. But there it was.
She’d seen it before. Before she’d met Jay. Before she’d met Finch, although only by a handful of days. Before the den, when all of her life had been bitter pain, degradation, and—yes—fear. She’d seen it in the shadow of Lord Waverly, in the wake of his passing.
And she’d seen it in the mirror. That’s what they were, after all: mirrors. They saw in her what they were. They’d told her as much.
She knew what he was. The knowledge almost paralyzed her.
But Arann kept moving.
Arann, Finch, Teller, Jester. Angel, pulling up the rear, as he’d promised. She saw them, and saw the man turn again, and then he began to walk through the crowd. He knocked four people over without rushing them; he just walked, slowly and inexorably.
This was it. The den. The demon. Jay hadn’t believed in demons.
Jay had believed in Duster. What Jay had seen, the demons couldn’t, or didn’t want, to see. Duster hadn’t either. She hadn’t believed in it. Not until Lord Waverly, and even then, it had been so damn hard.
Her hand closed in a fist around the dagger’s hilt. It was not the right grip for the weapon.
Duster hadn’t believed in what Jay had seen, but she’d wanted it anyway. She almost couldn’t remember why. What had she said? She wouldn’t cook or clean or run errands for Jay or her den because she wasn’t good at that. She was only good at one damn thing.
One. Damn. Thing.
That had been enough, for Jay.
Watching the den, the people she hadn’t obeyed, hadn’t served and hadn’t deferred to, she realized that it had also been enough for them. She’d come on as muscle because it was the only thing she had to offer. And Finch in her kitchen, Teller at his slates, Angel at Jay’s side, Carver, Arann, even Jester with his stupid, stupid jokes—it had been enough for them. She hadn’t cooked, or cleaned, or washed the clothing. She had faced Carmenta down. She had kept the others safe when the streets got too crowded or too rough.
And Jay had told her to keep the den safe. Her order. Jay was the only living person that Duster took orders from, ever. She hadn’t had any doubts that Duster could do it; she hadn’t told Carver to come. She’d sent Duster.
She sent me.
“Arann!”
Arann turned at the sound of her voice, and the demon stepped forward and hit him, twice, in rapid succession. He carried no weapon—no dagger, no sword—he’d hit Arann in the side with his fists, one- two. Arann’s eyes widened and he buckled. She couldn’t be certain, but she thought she had heard the telltale crunch of bone. Broken ribs, maybe worse. Just like that. Arann looked up, and the man hit him hard across the face, twice; he went down.
She came in at the side and she slammed his knee as hard as she could. He shifted his stance, not quite staggering as she drew her dagger.
“Arann!”
Finch and Teller were at his side, grabbing his arms, trying to add their pathetic weight to his attempt to get the Hells up. He staggered, the way the demon hadn’t. The way, she knew, the demon wouldn’t. Arann’s forehead was bleeding; something
had broken skin, and it was deep enough to weep blood.
Oh, she knew.
“Go to the trough! Go now, damn it—run! Angel!”
He’d lined up behind the demon as the demon turned, at last, to face her, his mouth split in a hideous grin. Her dagger had cleared them some space in the streets; Angel’s dagger had cleared some more. Neither of them were the danger that this man was.
Time slowed. She’d heard that it did that sometimes. This was the first time she’d experienced it.
She’d never gotten the hang of Angel—but she knew he meant to fight here. To join her, the way Carver would have joined her. He’d seen what had just happened to Arann, and it didn’t matter.
He’d try to fight. He’d fall. And then—then it would all be over.
Run, she thought. She had to run. He’d fight; she’d make it out alive. She’d make it out.
And she would have nothing, again. There would be no den. There would be no den.
“No! Angel! Trough! Damn you, leave me and go!”
Angel shook his head, and she spit, leaping out of the way, into the crowd, under the demon’s unblinking gaze. “He’s not human! Run!” To prove her point, she drew her other dagger and she threw it. She was a better throw than anyone in the den but Carver.
The dagger bounced. It bounced off a plain tunic, and clattered to the cobbles.
Angel hesitated, and then he met her eyes, and she saw the shadow in them, not of fear, but of something like recognition. He nodded once—that was all she had time for—and then he hurried over to Arann, who had gained his feet. Angel’s hands flew. Just his hands, but the den started to run.
She wondered if they’d be stupid enough to look back over their shoulders, to argue with each other. If they were—if they did, and she somehow survived—she’d kill ’em herself.
But right now, she was in the street alone, in a widening circle of people who knew enough now to be afraid. She took a breath, and it was a clean breath, an easy one. Jay, she thought. Jay, I get it. I get it.
Did she love them? She couldn’t say no. She wanted to say yes. She had no answer: She was Duster.
She had no idea how long she would last. But she laughed in his face. “Do you recognize me?” she said, her voice low and guttural. “Were you there?”
“One mortal is the same as another,” he replied. “But you are almost kin.”
She spit then. Maybe. Maybe she was. Maybe she’d just done the same thing with the den that she’d done for Finch—got them away because it would cost the demons. She felt that triumph now, and it was the same triumph saving Finch had given her.
What had she said to Jay? Saving Finch had been the only good thing she’d ever done. The only thing she’d ever gotten right. Even if she’d done it to strike out at her tormenters.
But . . . it didn’t matter why. Jay had said that: It didn’t matter. What mattered, in the end, was what you did.
And this had to count, didn’t it? This had to count for something. She backed him up, trying to lead him down the street.
She didn’t stand a chance.
She’d hate them, for running. She’d hate herself for letting them run. She knew it. Pain and fear did that, to her. But right now she felt as close to peace as she ever got. There was a fight. There was a death. It was all so close to the bone it was clean.
And she wouldn’t be the one looking at the empty spot in the room, and waiting for a voice or a gesture that never came.
Chapter Fourteen
22nd of Scaral 410 AA Twenty-fifth holding, Averalaan
ANGEL HELPED ARANN; he was the only person there who had the mass to do it. But it was hard to drag Arann away. He’d gained his feet, confused and in pain; when he spoke, blood trickled out of the corners of his mouth. But he made it half the block and staggered to a stop in the lee of the tall, narrow buildings that housed so many people in the twenty-fifth. “Where’s Duster?”
Angel shook his head.
Arann met his eyes, and then tried to turn. To go back. Angel grabbed his shirt and his shoulder, turning him around again.
Arann’s expression made Angel look away, to warped wood and cracked cobbles and the damn weeds that even the cold didn’t kill; to the green and the gray of something that seemed normal. Arann knew.
“Arann,” Angel said, voice low, “we need to get Finch and Teller out of here. We need to get them to safety.”
“We can’t abandon Duster—”
Angel flinched. This time, he didn’t look away. Shadows passed them, colorful shadows that indicated people walking by, minding their own business. “We’re not. She’s holding him off. Arann, she chose. Don’t waste that.” He glanced down the street, at the distant crossroad. They could clear that distance in a minute or two, and this was costing them time they didn’t have.
“But—”
“She’s twice the fighter I am. She’s ten times the fighter you are—more, in your shape. If she can’t take him, none of us can. We’ve got to go. Finch!” He gestured with his dagger.
Arann hesitated. Blood reddened his lips and his teeth; it darkened his brows, sticky and wet across his forehead. He turned, once, to look back through the streets. Duster’s name left his lips in a whisper that was, in its own way, almost a scream.
“Arann,” Finch said, taking his sleeve in one hand and looking at his face; it was white, except for the gash along his forehead, and those lips, that trickle of his own blood. “Arann, please.” Some of it dripped onto the shoulders of his shirt. She pulled at the sleeve, and he looked down at her, his eyes narrowing as if he found it hard to focus. He wanted to say no. They all saw that.
Finch said quietly, “I won’t go if you won’t.”
He closed his eyes for a few seconds, and then he nodded and followed, stumbling over the larger gaps between stones that were so common in this holding. And in the next two, truth be told—but they were staying in the twenty-fifth. Jay was still here.
The den turned at the crossroads.
They ran, but it was hard; Arann was slow and in obvious pain. Something was wrong with his breathing; Finch asked Angel, and Angel, remembering his father’s words, said nothing. “Just get him to the trough,” he told Finch, trying to keep grim out of his voice. “Get him to Jay. We can figure out where we go from there.”
The unspoken nowhere hung in the air.
Arann had taken no obvious life-threatening wounds; the man had held no knife. The gash across Arann’s forehead, while it might scar, wasn’t going to kill him. But wounds or no, it was obvious that he was in pain, and it was not the type of pain that sleeping for a day would cure. It was the type of pain that cried doctor, or worse, healer, and they didn’t have enough money to eat, let alone pay for either.
“Duster said he wasn’t human,” Finch whispered to Angel, when they turned a corner and almost collided with the stream of people moving toward the Common. They were heading toward the river, and they were moving against the crowd. Running wouldn’t be a problem—if they didn’t have Arann.
Arann stumbled; Angel caught him and they both almost went down. “Angel,” Arann said, wheezing, “leave me. I’ll catch up. I’ll be right behind you. Get the others to Jay.”
But if Angel had seen the wisdom of leaving Duster behind, he would not leave Arann.
Arann knew. “You left her,” he whispered, “because she had to stay. Leave me.”
Finch shook her head, almost mute.
“It’ll kill Jay,” Angel told Arann. “I won’t do that to her. We all go, from here on in.”
“You think losing Duster won’t hurt her?” He coughed, choking on the last word.
“Yes. It’ll hurt. But Duster did this so the rest of us could escape. We owe it to Duster. You owe it to her. Come on. We can see the river,” Angel added, his tone as encouraging as he could make it.
Jester was watching the streets; Teller was standing beside Finch, clutching the iron box to his chest. It made a lot of noise when he mo
ved. Angel almost told him to drop the damn thing; there wasn’t all that much in it anyway.
But it was all they had, and if Arann needed anything—anything at all—the scant hope of its contents couldn’t be abandoned.
“Break’s over,” Angel’s voice, terse. Steady. “Jester?”
“We’re clear.” Jester hesitated. “From what I can see, we’re clear. You should be watching the back.”
“I—” He broke off, nodded. He’d trained with Carver and Duster at Rath’s. Jester hadn’t, much. Carver, damn it.
Arann coughed, straightened. He glanced at Angel and said, with a grimace that was only part pain, “I’ll take the lead.”
“I’ll pull up the rear.”
The river had never seemed so far away. Not even on days when Angel was on laundry duty and had to lug a basket full of clothing from the apartment to the water, which wasn’t hard, and back, which was, because it was all wet.
He walked alongside the den, close to Jester, who walked behind Finch and Teller. Jester had given him point, but he helped where he could; they ran in spurts because that was all Arann could handle, but they took advantage of the breaks to scan the street. It was messy. If anyone was following them carefully, neither Angel nor Jester was going to catch them. Duster would have.
Duster.
Angel swallowed. Straightened. This wasn’t the first time that he’d let someone else do the fighting; it wasn’t the first time that that someone else had died because of it. He’d never expected to be faced with the same damn choice in the City of Averalaan. Dens, yes. Street fights, yes. But those weren’t the same.
This was like Evanston.
Angel shoved the thought as far out of his mind as he could when Arann rose and began to move again. He kept his eye on the crowds, looking for the sudden moving ripple that would speak of pursuit. Watching, and dreading it. Because if he didn’t see it, it meant that there was still some hope for Duster.
Hope? he thought bitterly, as Arann staggered and coughed. Her dagger had bounced.
Angel, grim, straightened his shoulders. One way or the other, they were going to make it to Jay. That was what Duster had stayed for, and that was the only thing he could do for her now.
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