Rone muttered every curse word he knew as the ball in his gut began shredding his intestines.
The folks huddled around him chattered about nothing. A few hurried out, pulling their collars up as high as they could. They talked about how long the rain would last. About being late for their shifts. About the stains on their skirts. Oh, to have such problems. Rone sighed and looked out over their heads, watching the gray rain pelting the gray cobbles. Another, smaller crowd had formed beneath a mobile fish stand—he didn’t envy them. Even if they avoided the rain, they’d stink of fish when they got to wherever they were going. Someone stepped out from around the corner, hawking pieces of scrap metal and cardboard—anything wide and flat enough to keep off the sludge. A few darted across the street to make a purchase.
Rone blinked at the lingering group. Rubbed his eyes. Squinted.
God’s tower, that was her. That was her. Sandis. The thief who’d lifted his amarinth while he saved her neck.
He pushed past some of the huddlers to get a better view, and they happily took his prime spot against the wall. Yes, it was her. Her clothes were the same from before, except they looked dirtier now. She had the hood of her coat pulled up, but kept looking up and down the street, searching for something. Giving Rone a good shot of her face again and again.
Sludgy precipitation forgotten, Rone charged toward her.
Sandis turned too soon and spotted him. Eyes wide, she bolted into the slick street, her dainty shoes slapping against the wet cobbles as she ran.
He was faster. He gained on her, slowly and surely.
She dashed behind another shop, then down a road packed with flats. Took another sharp turn, and another, buying herself a few extra steps of distance that Rone closed within seconds. They barreled past more people taking refuge beneath eaves. A drop of brownish water hit Rone in the eye. He wiped it off, never slowing. He reached out, and— His hand snagged her upper arm. She jerked, and they both fell to the road—a packed-dirt one, which meant a mouthful, face full, and everything full of mud. Sandis grunted and twisted in his grip, trying to land a kick. Rone grabbed her ankle.
Her fist hit his face. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, had she not jabbed her knuckle right into his eyeball.
“Damn it!” Rone shouted, letting her go. She scurried to her feet, and he ran after her. They both made it a few paces before he seized her again.
“Let me go!” She twisted her arm out of his grasp. Wily thing.
“Give me back what you took, and maybe I will,” Rone spat. He reached for one of her pockets. She danced out of the way. He really, really didn’t want to hit a woman to get his amarinth back, but this had not been a good day.
“You!” shouted a bystander crouched under the eaves of a nearby flat. “If she says no, she means it! Let her go!”
Rone did not. “It’s not like that. She’s a thief.”
The man and his large friend took a step out from under the eaves.
Rone put his hands up in surrender. Sandis sprinted away.
Rone went the other way, around a flat, and ran across a narrow road to intercept her head-on. He grabbed her shoulders, fingertips digging into her coat.
She struggled. “Please, go away. You can’t be seen with me!”
“Give it back!” He checked another pocket. She tried to elbow him in the face, but he easily moved out of the way.
“I will! I will . . . later.” Her voice went hoarse with desperation. “Please, you have to leave.”
A horse and carriage came galloping down the road, forcing Rone to drag Sandis out of the way before they became trampled meat. Jerking out of his grip the moment he completed the move, she ran in the direction the carriage had come.
Rone dashed after her. Before he caught up, she spun around, dirty rain whipping from her hair. Her hood fell back.
“Please.” She was begging now. “I need it more than you. You don’t understand.” She backed up, searching the road again.
“I severely doubt that.” He seized her wrist. Enough of this.
“You can’t be seen with me!”
He spun her around, pinning her back to his chest. She tried to stomp on his foot. He shifted, and she missed. He checked another pocket, then stuck his hand inside her coat. Felt a familiar lump. Finally. He pulled the golden trinket free.
A gun hammer clicked alarmingly close to his head.
Rone and Sandis both froze. His grip on her loosened. She took a single step forward, then stopped as a second gunman emerged from behind a squat building, holding a fancy-looking pistol in his hands. Rone recognized him from the tavern.
The muzzle of the first gun pressed into the back of his head.
Yeah, he was pretty positive he needed the amarinth the most right now.
“They followed you,” Sandis whispered, sending chills up Rone’s arms. “Please tell me you have a gun.”
He didn’t; guns were too clunky and too loud for his line of work. He didn’t bother explaining.
“You again,” the second gunman said, appraising Rone before his gaze darted back to Sandis. Why were they after her? What was so special about her?
“What’s your name?” the first gunman asked.
“I’ll give you a hint,” he said, trying to measure where the man behind him stood. “It rhymes with Muck Kerself.”
They didn’t laugh. Sandis looked at him with eyes as wide as a hungry puppy’s. She visibly trembled. She was terrified.
The second gunman trained his pistol on her.
She whispered, “Kazen won’t let you put a hole in me.”
What in the Celestial’s name was going on?
Rone spun the amarinth—relief rushing through him when it responded—and chucked it toward the gutter.
He ducked and threw his elbow behind him, hitting the first gunman in the rib. The guy shot, and his bullet grazed Rone’s bad shoulder, barely missing the girl. The second gunman lifted his pistol from Sandis to Rone. Rone launched forward and grabbed the muzzle, shoving it against his neck just as the man fired.
The bullet didn’t hurt, only felt like pressure. Like his throat was going the wrong direction and he’d swallowed a huge chunk of meat.
It passed through his neck and went right into the face of the man standing behind him.
Sandis screamed.
Rone pushed the pistol away and slammed his fist into the second gunman.
Sandis spun in the pelting rain. “They’re coming,” she croaked.
Rone shoved a knee into his assailant’s groin and let him fall to the ground. “Who?”
She hesitated a moment. Perhaps she didn’t want to tell him. She met his gaze; rain dripped from her eyelashes. “The grafters.”
Rone’s skin became almost too heavy to hold up. “What?”
Grafters? These men were grafters?
He swore.
Sandis moved for the still-spinning amarinth and swiped it. Rone grabbed her wrist. Cursed again.
This was a very, very bad day.
He dragged her across the street, but Sandis took his wrist in her free hand and pulled him back the way they had come. “This way!”
He didn’t have time to question her. He ran, towing Sandis behind him, though she kept up moderately well. He should have ripped the amarinth from her fingers and ditched her, but the terror in her eyes— And bloody grafters. He wouldn’t leave anyone to those nightmare-worshipping scumsacks if he could help it, even a thief.
His eyes searched for a sewer lid. He didn’t see one, but the alleyways between the flats up ahead were narrow and winding. Changing direction as suddenly as Sandis had before, he wound through the maze. His own place wasn’t far from here.
He crossed a road, turned toward a factory— Sandis pulled back on his hand, forcing him to stop.
She bent over, wheezing. “They’re . . . gone.”
“How the hell do you know?”
She looked up at him, disheveled and gaunt. But the fear had receded from her eyes. Now she just looked angry.
She didn’t answer him.
God’s tower, she looked like a wet, beaten dog. He glanced at her other hand. No amarinth. Was it stowed in her coat, or had she chucked it somewhere?
He tensed.
“I . . . have . . . it,” she huffed.