What is going on? How is any of this happening right now?
Gregor finally made it into the living room, exhausted and battered, still crawling forward with Whip in one hand. He crawled to the center and looked out the front door.
At first, the way out was clear. But then a man stepped into the doorway, dressed in black. Balanced on one of his arms was a huge device made of metal and wood, like a monstrous, handheld ballista. Nestled in the pocket of the ballista was a long, slender iron arrow. It seemed to be quivering slightly, like a furious animal on a leash.
The man pointed the shrieker at Gregor. Gregor, coughing and disoriented, stared at him.
In a low, growling voice, the man asked, “Is the thief here?”
Gregor stared back, unsure what to say.
But then something flew in through the open balcony door. It was small and round, and it flew over Gregor’s head and landed just before the man with the shrieker.
Then the world lit up.
It was like someone had turned on a thousand lights at once, a sort of brightness Gregor had not known was even possible—and then there was a tremendous, earsplitting, earth-shattering bang.
Gregor almost lost consciousness from sheer oversensation—or perhaps that was due to the blow to the head he’d taken.
The light and sound faded. Gregor’s ears were still ringing, but his eyesight returned. He could see the man with the shrieker was still in the hallway, but he’d dropped his weapon and was rubbing his eyes, evidently as blinded as Gregor had been.
Gregor rolled over and looked at the balcony door, just in time to see a very short girl dressed in black drop in out of nowhere, stand on the balcony, lift a pipe to her lips, and blow.
A dart flew out of the pipe, zipped across the room, and hit the man with the shrieker in the neck. His eyes went wide. He pawed at his throat, trying to pull it out, but then he turned a dull shade of green and toppled over.
Gregor’s savior put away the pipe and ran over to him. She looked at his Waterwatch sash, sighed, grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him up. Even though his hearing was still scrambled, he could hear what she said: “Come on, asshole! Run! Run!”
* * *
Gregor staggered through the alleys of the Greens, one arm thrown on the shoulders of his small but surprisingly strong rescuer. If anyone saw them they’d have assumed it was a friend helping a drunk get home.
Once they were safe, she stopped and shoved him to the ground. Gregor tumbled over and crashed into the mud.
“You,” said the girl, “are scrumming lucky I happened to be watching! What the hell is the matter with you? You and those other fools practically blew up the whole building!”
Gregor blinked and rubbed the side of his head. “Whu…What’s going on? What was that back there?”
“It was a stun bomb,” said the girl. “And it was damned valuable. I’d barely had it for more than an hour too. And a fat lot of good it’s done for me, after you’ve scrummed everything up!” She began pacing around the alley. “Now where am I going to get money? Now how am I going to get out of the city? Now what do I do!”
“Who…Who are you?” asked Gregor. “Why did you save me?”
“I wasn’t even sure I was going to,” she said. “I saw those three bastards watching the room and decided to hold off. Then I see you come and jump from balcony to balcony like a damned fool and break in. And then they see you and try to blow you to smithereens! I think I mostly did it so that one mad bastard would stop shooting up the Greens!”
Gregor frowned. “Wait. What was it you said? Where are you going to get money? You…You mean you came to Sark’s for…”
He stared at the young woman in black, and slowly realized that this person, despite having saved him, was likely one of Sark’s thieves.
And, knowing it was Sark, it was suddenly likely that this young woman was the person who had robbed the Waterwatch and burned down the waterfront.
Without another word, Gregor rose and tried to dive at her—but between her stun bomb and the damage the shrieker had done to him, he could barely walk in a straight line.
The young woman danced aside and kicked his feet out from under him. Gregor tumbled down into the mud, cursing. He tried to stand up, but she put a boot in his back and shoved him down. Again, he was surprised at how strong she was—or maybe he was just that weakened.
“You burned down the waterfront!” he said.
“That was an accident,” she said.
“You robbed my damned safes!”
“Okay, well, that wasn’t. What did you find in Sark’s?”
Gregor said nothing.
“I saw you reading. I know you found something. What?”
He considered what to say—and then he considered her behavior: how she’d acted, and what she’d done, why she was here. And he started to develop an idea of her circumstances.
“What I found,” he said, “is that you have either stolen from, or stolen for, some of the most powerful, merciless people in the city of Tevanne. But I think you knew that. And I think your arrangement has gone quite wrong, and you are now desperate to escape. But you won’t. They will find you, and kill you.”
She pressed harder into his back and crouched down. He couldn’t see her face—yet he could smell her.
And strangely, her smell was…familiar.
I know that scent, he thought. How odd…
He felt something sharp being drawn along the side of his neck. She showed it to him—another dart. “Know what this is?” she asked.
He looked at it, then looked her in the eye. “I am not afraid to die,” he said. “If that is your intent, I suggest you hurry it along.”
She paused at that, clearly surprised. She tried to gather herself. “Goddamn it, tell me what you fo—”
“You are no killer,” said Gregor. “No soldier. That I can see. The wisest course of action here is to surrender now and come with me.”
“What, so you can have me harpered?” asked the girl. “This is some shit negotiation you’re trying.”
“If you surrender,” said Gregor, “I will plead mercy for you personally. And I will do everything I can to prevent your death.”
“You’re lying.”
He looked over his shoulder at her. “I do not lie,” he said quietly.
She squinted at him, surprised by his tone.
“Nor do I kill anymore,” said Gregor, “unless I have to. I have had enough of that for one life. Surrender. Now. I will protect you. And though I will see justice done, I will not allow them to kill you. But if you do not surrender—I will not stop coming for you. And either I will catch you, or they will kill you.”
She seemed to be considering it. “I believe you,” she said. She leaned close. “But I’m still willing to take my chances, Captain.”
There was a sharp pain in his neck. Then everything went dark.
* * *
When Gregor Dandolo awoke, he was no longer convinced that consciousness was the best choice for him. It felt as if some foundryman had swung by, opened up his head, and filled it with smelted metals. He groaned and rolled over, and realized he’d been lying facedown in the mud for what must have been hours, since the sun was now out. It was a miracle someone hadn’t cut his throat and robbed him blind.
But then, it did look as if the young woman had covered him in trash and refuse so no one could see him. Which he supposed was a generous gesture—even if it made him smell like a canal.
He sat up, whimpering and rubbing his skull. Then his thoughts turned to the young woman, and he remembered how she’d smelled.
Her odor had been distinct. Because it had smelled like she’d been in a Tevanni foundry, or near a foundry’s smokestacks.
And as Ofelia Dandolo’s child, Gregor knew a great deal about Tevanni foundries.
He laughed to himself in disbelief, and stood and hobbled away.
10
The next morning, Gregor held his head high as he walked through the southern gates of the outermost Dandolo Chartered wall. As he moved from Commons to campo, the change was abrupt, and severe: from muddy pathways to clean cobblestone; from the odor of smoke and dung and rot to the faint aroma of spiced meat being grilled nearby; and then, of course, there were the people in the streets, whose clothing changed to being clean and colorful, whose skin became clear and unblemished, who suddenly walked without any ailment or deformity or drunkenness or exhaustion.
It never failed to amaze him: you walked exactly one dozen feet, and fell out of one civilization and into another. This was the outer campo too, not even one of the nicer parts. Behind each door, he thought, another world waits. And another and another and another…
He counted his steps as he walked across the threshold. “One,” he said. “Two…Three and four…”
The guardhouse door popped open, and a Dandolo house guard in full scrived armor trotted up to keep pace with him. “Morning, sir!” called the guard.
“Good morning,” said Gregor. Four steps—they’re getting slow.