Rone sat on the edge of the wagon bed and shook out the front of his shirt. “Might as well take a nap.”
Sandis slid from the wagon and tested her new shoes against the road. She peered toward the rear wagon. Nearly all the adults in the group had huddled around its back wheel, arguing with each other and shooing away children. Their driver, the one who’d allowed them passage, stood by with the replacement wheel, drumming his fingers against it. The priest who’d accompanied them waited to one side. A soft breeze blew at the white flaps of his hat, giving Sandis a glimpse of his face. He was a stout man, perhaps a few years shy of forty. He leaned back, watching, and— Sandis gasped and ducked behind the second car, her heart tumbling in her chest, her stomach squeezing, threatening to lose its meager contents. Cool sweat dappled her skin.
A trap. It was a trap. It was— “Sandis?” Rone pushed himself off the wagon lip. “What’s wrong?”
She grabbed the front of his shirt and pushed him around to the opposite corner of the second wagon, the one farthest from the families. “The priest.” The word choked in her dry throat. “It’s Galt.”
“Who?”
“Galt,” she hissed. She hadn’t realized her fingernails were digging into Rone’s chest until he winced and wrestled out of her hold. Sandis hugged herself, shivering, trying to think. But Rone . . . Rone would know what to do. “Kazen’s right-hand man. He was there, with the steam . . .”
Understanding dawned on Rone’s face, and he spat out two curses, one harder than the other. He rubbed a hand down his face, turned around, then turned back and tried to peek around the wagon— Sandis grabbed his arm and yanked him back. “Don’t! He’ll see!”
“He obviously knows we’re here,” he snapped back. Curses danced around him like moths. “Just him?”
She nodded. “The wheel . . . He was on the rear wagon. He must have broken it—”
“—so the others would have time to catch up,” Rone finished for her. He paled. “Smart sons of whores.”
“Rone,” she pleaded.
He bit his lip. Grabbed his hair and looked around.
Sandis danced from foot to foot. “We could hide behind . . . No, they’ll search everything. And they’ll hurt these people. We have to run for the city.”
They were still close to the wall. It wouldn’t be too far to the tunnels. One didn’t need papers to get in, just to get out. The guards wouldn’t stop them.
Rone snapped his fingers. “There are horses on this wagon. We can take one and get a head start.”
Sandis’s heart lodged in her throat. “We can’t steal their horse!” The rushed whisper escaped her like pressurized steam.
Rone looked at her like she was insane. “Do you want to die instead?”
“We’ll strand them—”
“They can dump a few things and make it back fine. They’ll be in more danger if we stay. Let’s go, while they’re distracted! Before the grafters come!”
Sandis shushed him, though his voice was no louder than hers had been. She gritted her teeth. She felt sick. She was going to throw up . . .
“Fine. Are any saddled?”
Rone glanced back at the third wagon before heading around the opposite side of the first one. “No. We’ll manage.”
“Can you ride?”
Rone blinked. “No . . . and I’m guessing you can’t, either.”
Sandis’s heart inched toward her navel. Oh Celestial, we’re going to die. I’m so sorry for entering your tower. I won’t do it again. Please save us. Please, please— “Sandis!” Rone waved his hand in front of her face, demanding her attention.
She shook her head. “We have to run. Now.”
He retreated to the back of the wagon and peered toward the wall. “If they’ve been following us . . . if they have horses . . .”
Tears burned her eyes. “Now, Rone!”
His hands formed fists. He growled deep in his throat. Nodded. “Keep up.”
He offered his hand. Sandis took it.
The moment their fingers touched, Rone jerked her toward the wall.
Chapter 14
Dresberg had become a maze.
Panic distorted everything. Turned buildings into walls, shadows into monsters. Nothing was familiar. Sandis didn’t see people, only obstacles. Each hard footfall radiated up into her skull.
It was sheer luck they had gotten this far.
She didn’t look behind her—she never looked behind her—but Rone did, and his foul words told Sandis all she needed to know. Their mad sprint for the city hadn’t gone unnoticed. The grafters were too fast—though they would have needed to ditch their mounts outside the wall. The ways were too narrow and the crowds too thick for a man on horseback to keep up with someone on foot during the day.
A clock tower rang the hour, the echoing chimes pressing against Sandis’s skin like dull needles. Sweat threatened to break the grip she had on Rone’s hand.
A bullet whizzed by her forehead before it exploded against the brick corner of the bookstore behind her.
Rone jerked her down a skinny space between buildings. “Are you sure they don’t want to shoot you?”
Sandis’s breaths burned up and down her throat. She pushed herself faster through the maze. Had that bullet been meant for her? Did this mean Kazen had determined she was disposable, and only sought to take back Ireth?
Sandis hadn’t simply run away. She’d stolen from one of the most powerful men in Kolingrad.
Ireth was worth more than gold.
They reached a busier street. Rone jerked to a stop before barreling into a cart full of potatoes. Sandis turned around, but two people were running toward them, and there was nowhere else to go. She pushed Rone into the mass.
He didn’t complain. He simply tightened his grip on her fingers as they pushed through people, earning inquisitive looks and hard words as they went. “They’ll bring the police down on all of us at this rate.” Rone’s voice was hoarse and broken by heavy breaths. The race to the wall had not been a short one.
The police. They were just as dangerous to Sandis as the priests.
She’d take either of them over the grafters.
Shouts sounded behind them, angry and confused. The grafters pushed through the crowd. Marek using his bulk to knock down men and women alike. Staps toting a pistol in either hand. Another gunshot went off, and the crowd scattered. Rone jerked Sandis down a winding sideway crammed between a shuttle station and a metalworks. The heat from the working bellows steamed the tears from her eyes.
“Can you . . . fight them?” Sandis pushed the words out between labored breaths. “The . . . amarinth—”
“No.” They ducked under a clothesline and darted to the left. Sandis thought she heard a police whistle in the background, but she wasn’t sure. “You have to wait”—sharp turn to the right—“for the critical moment. Only one spin. I have”—he huffed—“a sense for this.”
He glanced up, perhaps trying to determine if they could get up onto the roofs before the grafters caught them. Shaking his head, he instead pulled them to a main street.
Sandis had been wrong. The grafters hadn’t entirely given up on horses.
A steed black as coal—an animal Sandis recognized immediately—pulled up in front of them, its nostrils wide and panting, its rider garbed darkly, albeit without his usual hat.
Sandis’s legs became dead weight as she and Rone skidded to a stop on slick cobblestones. Kazen. And behind him, Rist.
The sight of Rist slammed into her like winter wind. It felt as if years had passed since their last encounter instead of days. Her gut rolled with the knowledge of what he could be. A weapon. Kuracean.
Did Rist want to fight her? Did he hate her for leaving? She tried to read his wide eyes, but found no answers.