Rone shrugged. “We’ve given them a run for their money, eh? Maybe they won’t bother us anymore.”
But Sandis shook her head. “I know Kazen too well. He hates losing, so he makes sure he never does. Whenever I thought I’d outsmarted him, he always . . . he always knew. He watched us all so closely. If you turned your head the wrong way or said something outside your vernacular, he noticed.”
But could he be getting tired of the chase? Kazen wasn’t a young man, and he’d already expended so many resources chasing her and Rone—resources taken away from his work, his other vessels, and . . . Kolosos. Maybe she simply thought he never gave up because no one else had pushed him far enough.
If we can hold out a little longer and find Talbur . . . it will work out.
It had to. Sandis poured all her faith into this. If the Celestial still cared about her, even a miniscule amount, surely she could appease it with her diligence. Surely she could grasp this one blessing.
Maybe Kazen knew her finding Talbur would ultimately thwart him, and that was why he tried so hard to stop her.
“This way,” Rone said quietly.
He gestured down another street, this one riddled with beggars. She followed him, searching the faces of Dresberg’s poorest. She wished she could help them. So many looked diseased, thin, dirty. She pulled her eyes from one lying too still, not wanting to know if the woman still breathed or not.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered as they walked past the helpless beggars. Without Rone, she would have been like these men and women, destitute and desperate, even if she’d managed to stay clear of Kazen.
“What?” Rone asked.
She shook her head. The lump forming in her throat made it hard to speak.
They walked for a long time, until Sandis took off her shoes to prevent further blisters. She was hungry and tired, but they were getting close. This part of town was full of tiny, dilapidated flats; the windows had bars instead of glass. Her gut tightened at the sight of some of them.
“We’re getting close,” she whispered.
“I know,” Rone said, even quieter. “But not too close. See? Just this way.”
He didn’t look at her as he said it. He hadn’t looked at her since they’d left the broker. She wanted to reach for him, but something about the way he moved made her hesitate.
The tall buildings grew closer together. Some looked abandoned, but then again, the families who lived here might be unable to afford lamps. Dusk approached too quickly, yet that might have been a trick of the shadows. It was too quiet, save for the distant wailing of a child and the barking of a dog— The hairs on Sandis’s arms stood on end.
A numen.
“Rone.” She reached out and grabbed his arm with both hands. Her pulse thundered in her ears. She dropped her shoes. Cold coils of fear laced their way up her legs and knotted in her belly. “Rone, we have to go. Now.”
Rone didn’t look at her. “What?”
“Numen. Kazen is nearby. Hurry.” She pulled him back. Maybe they could hide in one of these flats. Maybe they hadn’t been seen yet. The maybes flooded her mind in a twist of apprehension.
Rone resisted her.
She stared at him. Yanked. “Rone, they’re here!” She struggled to keep her voice down.
He looked at her in a way that made the coils loosen for a moment. Instead of older, he looked younger. A boy. Wide dark eyes full of sorrow. A long face. Why was he looking at her like that?
His gaze dropped to the road.
“What a good delivery boy we have. Isn’t he, Drang?”
Lightning zipped down Sandis’s spine, immobilizing her. She nearly tripped over herself turning around. The wolfish numen, Drang, blocked the road behind them, but her eyes went straight to Kazen. Kazen, dressed well in a long black coat and high boots. The silver buckle on his hat glimmered with a light of its own.
Sandis didn’t realize she’d been retreating until her shoulder hit Rone’s chest. The clicks of cocking guns brought her attention behind him. Ace’s mobsmen, a dozen of them, blocked the other way. All with firearms.
She frantically searched for windows, pipes, doors—there was nothing. She stood in a perfect cage.
The amarinth. Could it get them out of this?
“Rone,” she croaked.
Rone lifted his hands as if in surrender. “We had a deal.”
Sandis’s stomach plummeted.
Kazen petted Drang—a giant creature that looked like a mix of wolf and lion but stood upright like a human, its gnarled hands clawed like Isepia’s—and strode forward, radiating pure confidence. Sandis backed away, toward the mobsmen, sure she’d faint from her speeding heart and hypothermic limbs.
Rone, however, held his ground.
“I am a man of my word.” Kazen reached into his coat and pulled out a stack of papers and a bulging envelope. He handed them to Rone.
Sandis didn’t understand. Rone stood like a statue, watching Kazen’s shaded eyes. Then he lifted his hand and accepted the papers.
Her body split down the middle. “Rone?” she asked, his name chopped and hoarse on her lips. He didn’t fight. He didn’t pull out the amarinth. He didn’t run.
He hadn’t reacted at all to her warning about Drang.
Sandis’s knees trembled. She stumbled, barely catching herself.
This couldn’t be right. There was something she didn’t understand. Rone was her protector. Her friend. Her . . . everything.
She saw bills in the envelope he tucked into his pocket, and the truth struck her like the butt of a rifle.
She was his job.
Tears blurred her vision, then burned her skin as they trailed the sides of her nose. All the running, hiding, rescuing . . . and he was turning her in?
How much money was in that envelope?
“Rone?” She tried again, more pathetic than before. He didn’t look at her. Stepped around Kazen, toward Drang. Kazen held up a hand, stilling the numen.
He was leaving her.
He was leaving her.
He was leaving her with them.
The mobsmen moved forward.
“No!” Sandis screamed, turning and running back the way she had come. Drang roared at her. She fell to her knees and pushed her palm on her forehead.
“None of that,” Kazen snapped, and suddenly the mobsmen were on her, clawing her, holding down her limbs. She screamed and struggled, trying to get a hand free, but there were too many of them. They were too strong. A fist hit the side of her head. Her thigh threatened to break under the weight of a large man’s knees.
“No! No! Rone!” she screamed, then felt a familiar piercing on the inside of her elbow. Through her blurry vision, she saw Kazen with his needle and tube. Saw her blood spiraling through it and into a syringe.
Ireth! Ireth! Help me! Celestial! “Rone!”
Kazen reached for her forehead.
Sandis screamed.
Chapter 21
Every time she cried out his name, something broke inside him. Broke, snapped, crumbled. Ash filled a cavity deep within, a pit somewhere beyond blood and bone. He’d never felt this way before, hadn’t known he could, though it was similar to the ache he’d felt when he was thirteen, the day his father first refused him at the Lily Tower.
Her scream seared up his spine and popped like a firework inside his head.
He’d promised himself he’d run after the exchange. That he’d get out of there as fast as his legs could carry him and never look back. He’d gone over the plan again and again and again . . . but the pull was too strong. He’d never heard a human being make a sound like that.
He turned around.
At first he couldn’t see anything other than a swarm of darkly dressed men. But within seconds they all ran away like cockroaches under the light of a lamp, and it was no wonder why.
Fire blazed from the road, bright and hot and growing, growing, growing. Rone shielded the heat from his face with a forearm. Burning air rushed into his nostrils and down his throat. He grabbed his amarinth and ducked behind the nearest building to shield himself as a couple of men screamed in surprise.
Go. Go now.
But he had to see her. He had to know— Rone peeked around the side of the dilapidated building and nearly shat his pants.