She grasped at it, though her fingers felt fat and numb. The hands of a corpse. The canal waters surged into a tunnel and dropped into the sewers, but rusted grating barred the way, keeping out trash and bodies.
Her grip slipped—she grappled with her other hand. Her feet. It was like holding on to the surface of a mirror. Her muscles had no strength. The water pressed her against the grate, and Sandis managed to shove a hand through the crossing bars high enough to keep her head above water. To breathe.
Blackness trickled across her sight. Dark spots when she blinked. Eyelids like anvils. No. Stay awake. How far had she gotten? This grate . . . They’d find her if she couldn’t get past this grate— Her hand slipped from the bars. Water sucked her dead weight toward the canal bottom.
Chapter 19
Sandis’s pale hand slipped under the water’s surface. Two seconds later and he wouldn’t have seen it. Wouldn’t have known.
He was losing her.
“Sandis!” Rone shouted. He dived into the cold water, shoes and all. The grate had stopped her. Thank the Celestial, the grate had stopped her.
The canal turned black as he reached the bottom, but Sandis’s pale foot beckoned to him. He grabbed her ankle and jerked her toward his chest. Got his arm under her shoulder. Kicked off the concrete and sailed for the surface.
He broke free and sucked hot air into his lungs.
He’d seen officers outside the inn. A prison wagon turn the corner. He’d nearly fallen to his death entering their room through the window instead of the door.
The room had been empty, trampled. One look and he knew.
He’d never run so fast in his life. But the cart was faster.
Right up until it burst into fire.
The flames shot three stories high, blinding and bright like a piece of sun had fallen from the heavens. They’d destroyed the carriage, its driver, and the attending scarlets, maybe the horses. Taken out part of the bridge.
Though Sandis had surely caused the fire, she hadn’t been there. Ashes, glowing iron, and smoldering wood, but no Sandis.
He’d followed the canal. Thank God he’d followed the canal.
He had to stretch and leap through the water to reach the edge of the canal. Almost couldn’t pull himself up with her weight added to his, but he wouldn’t let her go. His heart felt twice its normal size, and he heaved, got an elbow on the lip, a knee. Dragged her with him.
She wasn’t breathing. The color of her lips, the stillness of her body—it all warned of death.
“No. Sandis.” He shook her. How long had she been under? Since the bridge? Then she was dead, she was— A pulse. Her neck pulsed warm, weak.
He turned her over and beat his fist against her back. “Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.” He hit her harder, between bare shoulder blades. A little water spurted from her mouth, but she didn’t take in any air.
Cursing, Rone shifted her onto her back and, despite the possibility of passersby, jerked the amarinth out of his pocket and forced her cold fingers around its loops. Grabbed her limp hand and forced her to spin it.
For a second, he thought he was too late. Then water fountained out of her mouth as the magic squeezed her lungs.
The sound of her cough was wet, raw, and desperate. The sound of air entering her lungs was heavenly.
He pulled her upright, holding her against his chest, barely registering her nudity. She was dead weight. A doll. “Sandis?”
Her eyes fluttered open, dark and unfocused. “I knew . . . you’d come,” she whispered. Then her brown orbs rolled back, and she was gone.
Rone stubbed his finger grappling for the hidden latch under the brick wall of the alleyway. His undershirt clung to him, both from perspiration and canal water. Sandis wore his shirt and nothing else, though he was more concerned about concealing her script than her nudity.
The hidden door swung inward, and Rone pushed his way into the dark hallway, knocking something off a shelf as he did. He kicked the door shut behind him. He was certain no one had followed him, despite the bounteous stares he had collected on the way. His arms were numb clamps around Sandis’s shoulders and knees. His bad shoulder, which hadn’t ached the slightest since Helderschmidt’s, throbbed from carrying Sandis’s weight for so long.
It didn’t take long for Arnae Kurtz to come to the secret room in the back of his flat. Rone wasn’t exactly being quiet, and the man kept late hours.
The door to the rest of the flat opened on soundless hinges, and the light from Kurtz’s kerosene lamp spilled over them as Rone kicked a bedroll off a low shelf.
“Rone Comf.” His old master’s voice was stiff and low. “You cannot come back here.”
“I had no other choice. Help me.”
Kurtz frowned, but he set the lamp aside and knelt at the side of the bedroll, unfurling it. Rone carefully laid Sandis on the blankets. She was so still, her breaths small and deep like she lingered in the throes of a very long dream.
Kurtz looked her over, his brows tightening. “What happened?”
“She fell into the canal. The scarlets found her at the inn we were staying at and arrested her. She blew herself out.” The evidence said as much.
Kurtz looked at him with wide eyes. “The numen?”
Rone nodded without explaining.
Frowning, Kurtz pressed his fingers into Sandis’s neck, sides, legs. “Nothing broken. But if she’s been unconscious so long, there may be brain damage.”
Rone dropped to his knees by Sandis’s head. “No. This happens, when she summons. She’s always out for a while.”
“I see.”
The silence grew stiff between them.
Kurtz sat back on his heels. “You know I want to help you, Rone, but it’s too dangerous for you to stay here. Other people rely on me, on that door. If the grafters, or even the scarlets, find this place, I won’t be the only one in trouble.”
“I don’t think I was followed.” He knew better than to hope they weren’t being sought after by both grafters and the law, but there was a chance, however slim, the scarlets thought Sandis was dead.
“The fact still stands.”
Rone nodded. He was completely drained—he could barely hold up his head. “Just tonight. I didn’t know where else to take her.”
Kurtz let out a long breath through his nose. Nodded. “Tonight.”
“I have two places left to check for a job, then—”
“Be careful, Rone.” Kurtz’s dark eyes bored into his. For a moment Rone thought he would get a lecture, or a quoted verse from some book he’d never heard of, but Kurtz merely repeated, “Be careful.”
Rone nodded.
Kurtz pushed himself off the floor and stood, his knees popping when he did. He rolled his head before adding, “There’s wurst and potatoes on the stove.”
Kurtz left the kerosene lamp in the room and closed the door behind him. He always kept it closed. One never knew what visitors he might get at the front of the house. Rone could only hope none came on account of him and Sandis.
His body was too exhausted to eat. Even the thought of standing and walking into Kurtz’s kitchen filled him with dread. So he turned to the shelves and grabbed another bedroll. There were six altogether. He absently wondered who else had used these, and how recently.
A dull ache bent his elbows as he unfurled the bundle beside Sandis, then promptly collapsed atop it. They both smelled like canal water, undoubtedly. He should probably extinguish the lamp. Or he could let it burn out and refund the cost to Kurtz later. That sounded like the better option. He couldn’t keep an eye on Sandis in the dark.
Rone rolled over to face her. He watched the rise and fall of her chest, waiting for it to stop, to hitch, but it continued on in a steady rhythm. The relief he felt, watching it move so steadily, coiled in his belly, warm and with an unfamiliar weight. He listened to each intake of her breath and found himself matching it.
If he had come back right after Gerech, she wouldn’t have had to face this alone. He could have protected her.
God’s tower, she must have been terrified.
“I knew you’d come.”