She smiled again. “They’re all right.”
If only she could stay atop the Lily Tower forever with the stars, and with Rone. Sandis knew such things were not meant to be, so she let herself absorb the moment until she brimmed with it. Carved the memory into her mind so she could lean on it if . . . when . . . things got bad again.
She had a feeling it wouldn’t be long before they did.
She dreamed of the astral sphere.
Kazen kept a model in his office. It was a globe about a foot and a half tall, made of ten rows of disks etched with rounded Noscon letters. Kazen used it to navigate the ethereal plane so he could summon new numina.
But in this dream—somehow, Sandis knew it was a dream—the globe looked different. It spun clockwise, faster and faster until the letters blurred together. It reminded her of the center of Rone’s amarinth. When Sandis reached for it, the globe slowed, and under her fingers she found one of the few Noscon words she could read.
Ireth.
When she woke, it was with the residual impression of fire. Not the hot, breath-stealing fire she’d experienced when she touched the Noscon writing in the citizen-records building, but a gentler, softer fire. A well-tended blaze that could easily be stoked to destruction.
What can I do for you? Her mind reached out even as it crawled toward consciousness. What do you need?
She shivered for the lack of a blanket. Rone had insisted she take the bed, though she would have gladly shared it. She’d given him all of the blankets for a pallet on the floor. Truth be told, she would have preferred the spot by the door. If she’d lain there all night, she wouldn’t have awoken to this awful, sinking sensation. She wouldn’t be wondering whether Rone had left in the night. Whether he’d changed his mind about helping her after his own father turned him away.
Holding her breath, Sandis quietly, carefully rolled away from the blue morning light streaming in through the window and studied the shadows on the floor. There was the mound of blankets, and— She sighed. Rone was still there, one arm behind his head, his face slightly tilted toward her. He hadn’t left. She had a lead on Talbur Gwenwig’s location, and Rone hadn’t left. He had a boyish way of sleeping, his lips slightly parted, his dark eyelashes splayed against his skin. The large curls of his hair were mussed on one side, giving Sandis the urge to smooth her fingers through them to correct their shape.
She smiled.
They didn’t have many things, but Sandis gathered them together anyway and used Rone’s unconscious state as an opportunity to change back into one of his shirts and her loose slacks. He still hadn’t stirred, so she decided to find her way to the kitchen to get them both breakfast. There was just enough space for her to open the door without disturbing him. When she reached the kitchen, two priestesses, dressed in white and silver, were handing out bowls of oatmeal with cinnamon. Sandis thanked them profusely and took two—one for her and one for Rone to eat when he woke.
Breathing in the spicy steam, Sandis searched for a quiet spot to sit and eat her breakfast. The room was large enough to accommodate daily visitors, and double doors opened on either end of it. She heard a male choir singing in the distance and strained to hear, wondering if she could recognize the song.
As she moved toward the music, however, she glimpsed a familiar face passing the far exit. The wide-set eyes, the shaved head. He wore a gray pilgrim’s sash on his arm.
Sandis immediately turned away, cold bumps rising up along her arms and down her neck. Her heart knocked against her ribs.
She headed straight for the entrance and back the way she’d come, spilling oatmeal on the stairs and elbowing a priestess as she went.
Ravis. That had been Ravis; she was sure of it. She’d had no more than a split second to look . . . but she was sure. But how could he have found her? How?
The boy. The one from the cathedral. He’d lurked a ways off and hadn’t approached her until Rone left. Though she’d thought it odd that he’d asked so many questions, she hadn’t lingered on it. It now occurred to her that he hadn’t come to the tower with the other pilgrims.
Had he been paid off to watch the cathedral? Had Kazen guessed she might try to find refuge there?
Sandis was running by the time she reached the room, and her hands burned from gripping the too-hot ceramic bowls of oatmeal. She couldn’t turn the doorknob with her hands full, so she kicked the door ruthlessly with her toe— It opened, and Rone, disheveled and holding up his unfastened trousers, said, “What—”
“They’re here.” Panic choked Sandis’s voice, and she shoved a bowl of oatmeal at Rone as she hurried inside and slammed the door shut. She checked for a lock, but there was none. “Ravis is here.”
“Ravis?”
She nodded, her short hair falling over her cheeks. “One of Kazen’s grafters.”
Rone stared at her for half a second before cursing. “Black ashes,” he spat. “Just him?”
“He’s all I saw.”
Rone set down the oatmeal and fastened his pants. “Did he see you?”
The spoon in Sandis’s bowl rattled against the ceramic.
Reaching forward, Rone put his hands over hers, steadying them. Looking into her eyes, he asked, “Did he see you?”
She looked back, at the ring of lighter brown that separated Rone’s irises from his pupils. “I don’t think so.”
He offered her a strange sort of smile, a half smile that managed to be sympathetic and incredulous at the same time. “All right. That’s good. We can work with that.”
She set the bowl down. “How?”
He grabbed the bag she’d packed earlier.
“Most of the pilgrims who stay the night at the tower have come from far away. Maybe some of them are heading west, circumventing the city. If we go with them, we could leave and then reenter the city through the west gate. Might be a good way to lose your friends.”
Sandis’s hope rekindled. “Let’s hurry.”
They rushed down the stairs, nabbed their shoes, and asked after the departing pilgrims. A priest pointed them out back and offered them a scripture, which neither of them lingered to hear.
Sandis stayed close to Rone as they exited the tower. A breeze swept by, carrying bits of dust. It felt warmer than Sandis had expected, but it gave her goose bumps anyway.
She recognized the men packing up a trio of wagons—their families had already been worshipping at the cathedral when Sandis and Rone arrived yesterday. Their clothes were looser, with broader sleeves, than what people wore inside the city. She wondered how far they had traveled. Were they farmers? Merchants? Could they see all the stars wherever they were going?
Maybe, after Sandis found Talbur, she could go someplace like that, too.
Rone approached the older of the two men and paid his respects with a brief bow. For some reason, seeing Rone bow was odd. He seemed the sort who could stand in the middle of a winter storm and refuse to move to the ice and wind.
Rone gestured back to Sandis, who approached trying to look as innocent as possible.
“If you could take us as far as Ieva, we would be incredibly grateful.”
The man glanced at Sandis, considered, then nodded. That gesture made Sandis’s body feel incredibly light. “It is not far, and not out of our way. You’ll have to sit in the back of the first cart. It won’t be comfortable.”
Rone nodded. “We’ll take it. Thank you.”