“Why would I—”
She shoved the heel of her hand into his neck and wrapped her other arm under his shoulder, pulling it in the opposite direction. A sharp pop sounded in Rone’s bones, and he barely had the forethought to stifle his scream. He ripped himself from Sandis’s grip.
“The hell, Sandis?” he asked, rubbing his shoulder . . .
It felt better.
Rone paused. Felt for the knot he’d been working. Couldn’t find it. “The hell, Sandis?” he asked again.
She sat on her heels. “Better?”
Rone rolled back his shoulders. “Yeah. What did you do?”
“We have to learn a lot of self-care, with the grafters,” she said as he settled back down. She looked away before adding, in a softer tone, “They fight back sometimes. The people Kazen sends us to punish. They can’t hurt the numina, but they can hurt us. We learn how to fix it when they do.” She hesitated. “I’ve only seen one other vessel die, right after I met Kazen. That was the angriest I’ve ever seen him.”
“Even in the streets? Chasing you? Us?”
She nodded.
Rone shook his head. “That guy is psychotic.”
They fell silent again. A police whistle sounded somewhere beyond the factory’s thick walls. Rone held his breath and listened. It didn’t sound again.
Maybe the scarlets had found the grafters and were going to do something about them. Now that deserved a chuckle.
Without the distraction of conversation, each passing minute put him more on edge. Where were the grafters? When would they strike? His eyelids felt thick, but he was too anxious to sleep. His nose itched, then his leg, then his hand. The more he thought about it, the more he itched.
He pulled out his amarinth again, fiddled with it. Rolled the loops around themselves.
Sandis gasped and clawed at her heart.
Rone straightened. “What?” He looked around, searching for a grafter.
“I . . .” She shook her head. Pulling his focus from the machinery, Rone noticed she was staring at his amarinth. “I . . . felt something. I was watching it, and . . .”
“And what?”
Her eyes met his, dark and endless and frightened. “It was like . . . burning copper. It hurt—”
Her words cut short as the door to the scaffolding—the same one they had come in through—shook. Something rammed into it, but the belt held.
Sandis grabbed her rifle. Her right ring finger trembled.
She didn’t want to kill anyone, either.
Reaching for the other rifle, Rone watched her crank the lever on her weapon, never taking her eyes off the door. She put the butt to her shoulder mechanically, like she was making a conscious effort not to tremble.
He put a hand on her shoulder. Her dark eyes met his, and for a split second, he forgot there were grafters at the door. Forgot she was a vessel. Forgot that this night might end with them both dying.
Maybe he should kiss her. A last hurrah before mortality failed him. But if they lived . . . how mad would she be that he’d taken such a liberty?
The door shook. Sandis stiffened, her gaze shooting back over his head.
A knife blade thrust between the doors and sawed at the leather belt holding them closed.
Chapter 16
Sandis struggled to clear the sensations the amarinth had left in her mind as she readied the Helderschmidt lever-action sixty. It hadn’t been a vision, exactly, but an impression of something like . . . metal. This heat had not felt like Ireth’s familiar heat—it had hurt, like nails digging around her heart. And the smell that had accompanied the impression . . .
It smelled like Heath.
Nausea assaulted her stomach. The grafters finished cutting through the belt and crept onto the scaffolding like spiders, searching. The lighting was poor, but Sandis had no trouble identifying them. Guards always carried lamps.
Maybe if she and Rone stayed quiet enough, the men would give up and leave. But she didn’t believe the thought even as it flitted through her head.
Rone was so still she couldn’t even hear him breathe. His face was turned away from her, watching the shadows on the scaffolding. Sandis held very still, palms sweating around the rifle. She tried to focus on the warmth funneling from Rone’s calloused hand into her shoulder. It was a safe sort of warm. It kept her calm, even when the hunters were so close.
Rone leaned in, his nose almost brushing her cheek. She shivered from the nearness and from his breath touching her ear. “Numina?”
She shook her head. None had been summoned, at least. She could only sense a numen that was summoned and near, not unoccupied vessels. But it made her hopeful nonetheless.
A grafter ventured down the stairs while another lit a lamp. The burst of light reflected off Ravis’s shaved head, and his narrow body created a shadow like a crooked tree across the far wall of the workroom. Staps was directly behind him, followed by several mobsmen with Straight Ace’s colors.
Rone shifted onto the balls of his feet, ready to fight, but he had no amarinth, and every one of these men was armed. A bead of sweat trickled down the back of Sandis’s neck. For a moment, she considered calling Ireth . . . but her energy was too low. Even if she succeeded, another half summoning might knock her out before she could tap into Ireth’s fire. She’d be unconscious for another six hours. She couldn’t leave herself so vulnerable. She couldn’t put the burden of their combined safety on Rone alone. Besides, this was a firearms factory. Dabbling with uncontrolled flame was too dangerous.
Though she couldn’t do so now, she had summoned him, partially. She had brought a level-seven numen into her body and held on. She was stronger than she thought.
She was strong enough for this.
The lamplight only reached so far, and the machine they’d chosen as their hideout shaded them from its glow. Ravis and Staps whispered to each other; Ravis turned around and went back the way he’d come. Six men had been left behind.
She wondered what they’d done to the security guards. Clenching her teeth, she readied her gun.
“You have to wait for the critical moment,” Rone’s voice whispered.
Swallowing, she glanced back at Rone, only to find empty shadows.
Her heart leapt into her throat. Where had he gone? She frantically searched the shadows for his form.
Something clamored near the back of the workroom.
“We know you’re in here, Sandis. Engel.” The gruff voice was Staps’s. Sandis’s fingers shook. She hunkered behind the table and set her barrel atop it. Flexed her fingers. The critical moment.
Please, Celestial, forgive me for hurting them.
And please, don’t let me shoot Rone by mistake.
The lamplight moved away from her and toward the sound, though one grafter still stood atop the scaffolding, surveying.
“You!” another man shouted, but it was followed by a choking sound and something metal striking something soft. Sandis winced. The surveying grafter fired his gun. The bullet ricocheted off a machine—she saw the spark.
“Two o’clock!” the surveyor shouted.
Warmth pressed against Sandis’s forehead. Ireth . . . but she couldn’t use him this time. She closed her eyes, sharpening her focus and intent, even as grafter footsteps thundered toward the surveyor’s destination. Toward Rone.
Opening her eyes, Sandis pointed her rifle’s front sight toward the surveyor and fired.
She cranked her lever. Heard someone shout her name, nine o’clock. Two more gunshots echoed through the space.
She fired again, the rifle’s kick burning her shoulder.
One of the lamps dropped and extinguished.
She cranked her lever.
A hand grabbed the back of her dress and yanked her down just as a return bullet whizzed past her hair.
“You’re amazing,” Rone whispered, grabbing the other rifle. “Ahead!”
Sandis popped back over the table. A shadow moved.