Her hope sputtered to an ember. She sat down in the chair behind her. Stared at the floor. Rubbed her eyes.
She felt the impression of fire beneath her fingertips. You can do this. The words were hers, not Ireth’s, but it wasn’t difficult to imagine the numen encouraging her.
Rone walked toward the other room.
“Kazen is the leader of that group of grafters,” she said, her voice quieter. As far as she knew, his group was the largest in the city. “I left because he started these . . . experiments. He hurts people.” The name Kolosos echoed in her thoughts, and the warmth she’d felt from Ireth instantly chilled. Were the others still all right? Would Kazen unbind Dar and use him next? “I think he has bigger plans, ones that might be a danger to all of us, but I don’t know what they are. He killed one of my friends.”
Heath had been so scared . . .
“He’s gone,” Sandis continued, “but Talbur Gwenwig is out there somewhere, and he’s . . . permanent.”
Rone paused. “What?”
“Families are permanent.” She looked up. “Something my parents used to say.”
The hardest curse Sandis knew exited Rone’s mouth. He ran a hand down his face. “Fine. Fine.” His brow was wrinkled with annoyance, and his voice was heavy with it. “God’s tower, could you be any more pathetic?”
Sandis frowned.
Now he wiped both hands down his face. “Yes. I’ll help you find this guy. But only if you get the grafters off my case and only after I get my crap done first. Understand?”
She didn’t think she could do the first, but she nodded. Tears burned her eyes. “Thank you.”
Rone shook his head. “There’s a washbasin back there and a hose in the wall. Cold water, but it’s better than nothing. Go clean up.” He vanished for a moment, then returned with a gray button-up shirt, which he chucked at her. “Just . . . go.”
Sandis fingered the clean cotton and jumped to her feet, smiling despite herself. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Rone turned away and gestured toward the hall.
Sandis hurried to oblige, but paused halfway to her destination. “It doesn’t stop spinning once it starts, right?”
Rone glanced at the amarinth. “So you’ve noticed.”
“Why not pocket it when you fight, instead of leaving it under the table?”
Rone rolled his eyes. “Do you want to fight with a magical lump of gold shaking and floating in your pocket? It gets in the way and draws unwanted attention.” He mumbled something.
“What?”
“It gets linty,” he said, exasperated. He pointed again toward the privy. “Black ashes, woman, just go.”
She smiled and danced away.
Cold water had never felt so warm.
The light wasn’t bright, and yet it was blinding. Liquid flame. Reddish orange and swirling. Split by black cracks. It pressed all around her. Built up the pressure in her head.
She closed her eyes, but the light permeated her eyelids. It surrounded her. Fire, the sweltering air whispered. Need.
Ireth?
A bone-shaking groan sounded low in the earth—deep and rich. Sandis tried to turn to see it, but her world was full of fiery light and black cracks. She pressed the heels of her hands to her forehead. The pressure began to hurt.
Fear. Ireth was afraid.
The cracks shifted at once, pushed by an unfelt wind. They gathered together into a smoking wall, then split apart to form a pointed oval that shifted toward her.
No. That was an eye.
Sandis started awake, staring down at her knees. When had she sat up? Her hairline was cold with sweat. The room was dark, yet colored spots marred her vision, as if she’d just stared into the light of a lamp. She breathed hard, the impressions of fire and need slowly receding from her aching head. Her pulse fired in every direction.
Footsteps. The urge to run struck her, then faded when she elbowed the thin cushion on the couch. She stared at it, memory trickling back to her.
Couch. Rone’s flat. She was here. She was safe. For now.
She mouthed Ireth’s name.
The footsteps paused. “Sandis?”
She blinked away the spots, straining to remember images from the dream. What? What was that?
Perhaps it was Sandis’s own mind playing tricks on her, but she felt a single name form on her tongue, one she didn’t dare speak.
Kolosos.
Was Ireth trying to show her Kolosos?
Was that burning, watching thing what had ripped Heath apart?
She shivered.
“Sandis.”
Rone’s voice ripped her from her thoughts. He stood two paces from her, his hair mussed, his nightshirt untucked.
“S-Sorry,” she whispered. “Nightmare.”
Rone let out a long breath. “Isn’t it, though?”
He didn’t explain, merely turned back for the second room. Sandis heard his body plop onto the narrow bed within.
Rising, Sandis poked about the small kitchen area until she found a cup to fill with water. She drank slowly. The pressure had receded from her head, along with the pain, but the red, orange, and black images stayed fresh.
Kolosos.
No wonder Heath had been so afraid. Yet what frightened Sandis was not so much the glimpse of hell Ireth had shown her, but the knowledge that Kazen wanted such a monster under his control.
“You’re going to leave?”
There was a subtle note of fear in her question. Rone glanced over at Sandis, who had wedged herself into one corner of the sofa, as if trying to take up as little space as possible. She’d cleaned her pants and paired them with his shirt. He couldn’t blame her—hers was odd. Good material, but heavy and with a wide-open back. He’d never before seen that fashion in Dresberg, and most would consider it scandalous.
He wouldn’t complain if she donned it again.
“I told you, I have to find someone.”
She glanced toward the single window. “But it’s still dark.”
“I know my way around.”
“The grafters will still be looking.” Her voice was quieter.
Rone let a half smile pull at his lips. “Not where we’re going.”
“We?”
“I take it you don’t want to sit here twiddling your thumbs. Besides, I don’t trust you with my stuff.”
She studied him a moment, then stood without further comment. At least she wasn’t overly chatty. And she looked slightly less pathetic this morning.
He tried not to shudder at the thought of what he’d gotten himself into.
They slipped out the door, leaving the flat dark. Rone massaged his shoulder as he walked toward the back of the three-story building. He lived on the second floor. Dawn would be breaking soon—blue already edged some of the clouds. From his experience, most people were home at this hour.
Sandis followed, up the ladder and onto the roof, without complaint. Once Rone got his higher vantage point, he studied the city. There were always people out, but the streets were fairly empty. In another hour, the first-shift workers would pool onto the cobblestones. His gaze lingered on the shifting shadows. Had the grafters already found them? God’s tower, he’d rather deal with one of the mobs. At least they were honest, when threatened. Threats didn’t work on grafters. He knew—he’d forfeited half his pay for a delivery he’d made to them two years ago. The creepy grafter who’d swindled him had worn an eye patch and two gold teeth. Rone had threatened plenty to no avail, and he’d left as the scared one.
“You’re going to jump the roofs?”
Smart one. “Yeah. Hope you’re athletic.”
Sandis clasped her hands under her chin and crept to the edge of the building. Searched. Pointed west. “That one isn’t too far.”
Rone nodded. “Should keep us out of the grafters’ line of sight. I doubt they look up much.”
He’d meant it as a religious pun. Sandis simply nodded.
He jumped to the next roof, another building of flats, trying to be light on his feet so as not to disturb the tenants. While he didn’t particularly care if he roused them from sleep, he didn’t want anyone investigating. He turned right and rushed for the next edge, this one no more than a three-foot jump. Another residential building. Engineers knew how to wedge them in.