‘I don’t know if I’m strong enough for that. I’ve already done too much damage, I—’ Noon stood up, scraping the chair across the flagstones with a screech. ‘It doesn’t matter now, though, because you’re here.’ The cuts that traced a pattern up her arms were almost too red to look at. ‘We’ll get Tor better together, and it’ll all be as it was.’
‘I can’t, Noon, my darling. I have to leave you. I have to go, immediately. There will be things I must pack, of course, and since it sounds to me like poor Esiah won’t be coming back, well, I’m sure he won’t mind if I avail myself of his supplies. But I have to go.’
Noon stood as if frozen. ‘Leave us? What do you mean, leave us?’
‘Listen.’ Vintage stood up and went to the girl, taking hold of her arm. Her skin felt feverish. ‘There was something I have missed, over all these long years. Something brought home to me by what we found inside the Behemoth remains. It’s possible I have made an enormous mistake, and that someone I care about very much has paid the price. It has been so long, my darling, that I cannot possibly wait any longer. I have to go now.’
‘What do you mean, a mistake? What are you talking about?’
Vintage sighed. ‘It’s probably best you don’t know. I have already caused you and Tormalin enough pain, and besides which, neither of you are fit to travel. Take care of him, and yourself, and, hopefully, I will come back for you.’
Noon tipped her head, as if listening to some internal voice again. She winced as she did so. ‘You really mean to go? Now?’
‘I do.’ Vintage patted her arm. ‘I’ve got a way to go before I come to the first reasonable town, and I need to do it before the long rains come. Believe me, Greenslick is the most miserable place in the rainy season. Now, my dear, help me pack up some of this food. Thank goodness for Esiah’s overly packed larder.’
Noon did what she could to talk Vintage out of it, following her from room to room, presenting her with reasons to stay, but the strange voice and alien images in her head kept intruding, causing her to stop mid-sentence, unsure of what her point had been. She saw that Vintage noticed her distress and confusion but did not comment on it. That in itself shook Noon – Vintage, always so kind and so nosy, had apparently decided she would have to cope with this, whatever it was, by herself. They stopped together at Tor’s room, and Vintage went to his bedside, fussily plucking at his bedclothes until they were neater.
‘He sleeps well, and deep,’ she said. ‘I believe that is a good sign. Sometimes the body just needs to rest, and by the vines, Eborans are tougher than most.’
‘He moves when I . . . feed him,’ said Noon. Vintage hadn’t commented further on that either. ‘But he doesn’t talk or open his eyes. It’s like he’s closed himself down somehow, like a hibernating bear.’ She wondered if she should mention their shared dreams, but that already seemed too personal somehow. And besides which, Vintage had made it very clear that she wasn’t interested. She had other things to deal with. ‘Vintage, have you ever heard of parasite spirits talking?’
The question was out before she’d thought to ask it. Vintage turned to her, her eyebrows raised. Her scorched skin looked tight and painful. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I mean, no one has ever spoken to them? That you know of?’
‘No, no of course not.’ Vintage was looking at her very closely now. ‘Why do you ask that, my dear?’
‘I just wondered. I mean, I thought I heard something in the compound, but it must have been shock, or my head being bashed around. I landed quite hard myself.’
Vintage looked like she might ask more, and then she nodded shortly. ‘I’m sure that was what it is, my darling. It was a strange place. After all these years of waiting to explore it, I have to say, I shall be quite glad to leave it behind.’
With that she pushed Tor’s hair back from his forehead, patted his face once, and left the room. When she took her leave of Esiah’s house, she embraced Noon and kissed her firmly on the cheek. Noon blinked. Who had last kissed her like that? Her mother, probably. She had kissed her forehead when she served their breakfast, and then kissed her cheek when she was tucked up in bed for the night. She hadn’t thought of that for years.
‘Vintage, I . . . please keep yourself safe.’
The woman grinned at her. ‘My darling, I have been keeping myself safe since before you were a twinkle in some rogue’s eye. Stay here, get the pair of you better. This is as safe a place to hide as any.’
She took one of the ponies, which looked glad to leave. She rode out across the courtyard to the gates, a new hat – scavenged from Godwort’s wardrobe – wedged jauntily on her head, and her crossbow bouncing at her hip. Noon watched her go through the gate, wondering if she would wave. She didn’t. Overhead, the clouds were bruising, ready for more rain, and Noon felt goosebumps break out across her arms. To be alone in this broken landscape . . . She went back inside.
From her camp on the lonely hill, Agent Lin watched the black woman leave the gates, moving slowly but steadily up the road that led away from Greenslick. She waited, but her prey and her companion did not follow. Eventually, the rain that had been threatening all morning finally broke, and she moved into her makeshift tent, still sitting at the entrance so that she could watch the distant gates. Behind her, the bulky form of Gull made a muffled trilling noise. At first she had tried to chase the creature off, but the nights were cold in this miserable place, and the warmth of the bat filled the entire tent at night. Now he was asleep, his big ugly face tucked under a wing.
‘Are they dead already? That’s the question.’ Lin squinted through the rain. There had been a fire in the compound, the smoke billowing up over it like a great cloud. Before it had been dispersed by the rain that came and went constantly, the smoke had briefly blotted the whole property from her view under a shifting veil of black and grey. The rain was so heavy now she could barely see the great house and its walls, and a worm of anxiety twisted in her stomach. When it rained, she could see very little. A teeming grey curtain stood between her and the mansion. ‘Wounded in the compound, or killed outright. How would I know?’
Gull trilled again, as if he were answering her in his sleep. It was almost amusing to her that the bat responded to the sound of her voice.
‘If they’re already dead, I will have to go in and retrieve the body. Take it back to that bitch, and they’ll have to leave me alone.’ Leave my boy alone, she thought. ‘You can bet I’ll be fussier about what missions I’ll do for them in future. Let some other agent deal with this nonsense.’
Fell-Noon could be leaving now. Sneaking out the gates under the cover of the rain, following on behind her friend. Lin would have to go right down to the gates themselves to check, and risk being uncovered. If she revealed herself too soon, all would be lost.
‘I can’t let them see me,’ she said aloud. ‘Not until I know I can take them. And in this weather . . .’
Winnowfire was unreliable in the rain. And she wanted everything to go smoothly. She needed everything to be under control.