“What? Of course they aren’t!”
“They are. Don’t worry. You’re mine. I won’t lettem have you.”
“That’s endearingly loyal,” Wyndle said. “And not a little insulting. But they are not after—”
The second of Darkness’s minions stepped out into the hallway ahead of her. He held Gawx.
He had a knife to the young man’s throat.
Lift stumbled to a halt. Gawx, in far over his head, whimpered in the man’s hands.
“Don’t move,” the minion said, “or I will kill him.”
“Starvin’ bastard,” Lift said. She spat to the side. “That’s dirty.”
Darkness thumped up behind her, the other minion joining him. They penned her in. The entrance to the Prime’s quarters was actually just ahead, and the viziers and scions had flooded out into the hallway, where they jabbered to one another in outraged tones.
Gawx was crying. Poor fool.
Well. This sorta thing never ended well. Lift went with her gut—which was basically what she always did—and called the minion’s bluff by dashing forward. He was a lawman type. Wouldn’t kill a captive in cold—
The minion slit Gawx’s throat.
Crimson blood poured out and stained Gawx’s clothing. The minion dropped him, then stumbled back, as if startled by what he’d done.
Lift froze. He couldn’t— He didn’t—
Darkness grabbed her from behind.
“That was poorly done,” Darkness said to the minion, tone emotionless. Lift barely heard him. So much blood. “You will be punished.”
“But . . .” the minion said. “I had to do as I threatened . . .”
“You have not done the proper paperwork in this kingdom to kill that child,” Darkness said.
“Aren’t we above their laws?”
Darkness actually let go of her, striding over to slap the minion across the face. “Without the law, there is nothing. You will subject yourself to their rules, and accept the dictates of justice. It is all we have, the only sure thing in this world.”
Lift stared at the dying boy, who held his hands to his neck, as if to stop the blood flow. Those tears . . .
The other minion came up behind her.
“Run!” Wyndle said.
She started.
“Run!”
Lift ran.
She passed Darkness and pushed through the viziers, who gasped and yelled at the death. She barreled into the Prime’s quarters, slid across the table, snatched another roll off the platter, and burst into the bedroom. She was out the window a second later.
“Up,” she said to Wyndle, then stuffed the roll in her mouth. He streaked up the side of the wall, and Lift climbed, sweating. A second later, one of the minions leaped out the window beneath her.
He didn’t look up. He charged out onto the grounds, twisting about, searching, his Shardblade flashing in the darkness as it reflected starlight.
Lift safely reached the upper reaches of the palace, hidden in the shadows there. She squatted down, hands around her knees, feeling cold.
“You barely knew him,” Wyndle said. “Yet you mourn.”
She nodded.
“You’ve seen much death,” Wyndle said. “I know it. Aren’t you accustomed to it?”
She shook her head.
Below, the minion moved off, hunting farther and farther for her. She was free. Climb across the roof, slip down on the other side, disappear.
Was that motion on the wall at the edge of the grounds? Yes, those moving shadows were men. The other thieves were climbing their wall and disappearing into the night. Huqin had left his nephew, as expected.
Who would cry for Gawx? Nobody. He’d be forgotten, abandoned.
Lift released her legs and crawled across the curved bulb of the roof toward the window she’d entered earlier. Her vines from the seeds, unlike the ones Wyndle grew, were still alive. They’d overgrown the window, leaves quivering in the wind.
Run, her instincts said. Go.
“You spoke of something earlier,” she whispered. “Re . . .”
“Regrowth,” he said. “Each bond grants power over two Surges. You can influence how things grow.”
“Can I use this to help Gawx?”
“If you were better trained? Yes. As it stands, I doubt it. You aren’t very strong, aren’t very practiced. And he might be dead already.”
She touched one of the vines.
“Why do you care?” Wyndle asked again. He sounded curious. Not a challenge. An attempt to understand.
“Because someone has to.”
For once, Lift ignored what her gut was telling her and, instead, climbed through the window. She crossed the room in a dash.
Out into the upstairs hallway. Onto the steps. She soared down them, leaping most of the distance. Through a doorway. Turn left. Down the hallway. Left again.
A crowd in the rich corridor. Lift reached them, then wiggled through. She didn’t need her awesomeness for that. She’d been slipping through cracks in crowds since she started walking.
Gawx lay in a pool of blood that had darkened the fine carpet. The viziers and guards surrounded him, speaking in hushed tones.
Lift crawled up to him. His body was still warm, but the blood seemed to have stopped flowing. His eyes were closed.
“Too late?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” Wyndle said, curling up beside her.
“What do I do?”
“I . . . I’m not sure. Mistress, the transition to your side was difficult and left holes in my memory, even with the precautions my people took. I . . .”
She set Gawx on his back, face toward the sky. He wasn’t really anything to her, that was true. They’d barely just met, and he’d been a fool. She’d told him to go back.
But this was who she was, who she had to be.
I will remember those who have been forgotten.
Lift leaned forward, touched her forehead to his, and breathed out. A shimmering something left her lips, a little cloud of glowing light. It hung in front of Gawx’s lips.
Come on . . .
It stirred, then drew in through his mouth.
A hand took Lift by the shoulder, pulling her away from Gawx. She sagged, suddenly exhausted. Real exhausted, so much so that even standing was difficult.
Darkness pulled her by the shoulder away from the crowd. “Come,” he said.
Gawx stirred. The viziers gasped, their attention turning toward the youth as he groaned, then sat up.
“It appears that you are an Edgedancer,” Darkness said, steering her down the corridor as the crowd moved in around Gawx, chattering. She stumbled, but he held her upright. “I had wondered which of the two you would be.”
“Miracle!” one vizier said.
“Yaezir has spoken!” said one of the scions.
“Edgedancer,” Lift said. “I don’t know what that is.”
“They were once a glorious order,” Darkness said, walking her down the hallway. Everyone ignored them, focused instead on Gawx. “Where you blunder, they were elegant things of beauty. They could ride the thinnest rope at speed, dance across rooftops, move through a battlefield like a ribbon on the wind.”
“That sounds . . . amazing.”
“Yes. It is unfortunate they were always so concerned with small-minded things, while ignoring those of greater import. It appears you share their temperament. You have become one of them.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Lift said.
“I realize this.”
“Why . . . why do you hunt me?”
“In the name of justice.”
“There are tons of people who do wrong things,” she said. She had to force out every word. Talking was hard. Thinking was hard. So tired. “You . . . you coulda hunted big crime bosses, murderers. You chose me instead. Why?”
“Others may be detestable, but they do not dabble in arts that could return Desolation to this world.” His words were so cold. “What you are must be stopped.”
Lift felt numb. She tried to summon her awesomeness, but she’d used it all up. And then some, probably.