“Me? Hurt?” She swallowed hard against the sick feeling tightening her throat. “Dearest Harkan.” She gestured grandly at the drawing of herself. “How could you think such a thing of the Dread of Orline?”
She sprinted away and jumped off the top level of the docks onto another level about one hundred feet below. The impact jolted her with only a slight pain. She was up and running again in an instant. Such a fall would break Harkan’s legs; he’d have to take the long way down.
If Remy were there, he would tell her not to be so obvious.
“People have started to notice,” he had told her just the other day. “I hear talk at the bakery.”
Eliana, stretching on the floor of her bedroom, had asked innocently, “What kind of talk?”
“When a girl falls three stories and then jumps right back to her feet in the middle of the Garden Square, people tend to notice. Especially when she’s wearing a cape.”
Eliana had smiled at the thought of their gaping, awestruck faces. “And what if I want them to notice?”
Remy had been quiet for a long moment. Then: “Do you want Invictus to come and take you away from me?”
That had silenced her. She’d looked up at her little brother’s pale, pinched face and felt her stomach turn over.
“I’m sorry,” she’d told him quietly. “I’m such an ass.”
“I don’t care if you’re an ass,” he’d replied. “Just don’t be a show-off.”
He was right, she knew. The problem was, she liked showing off. If she was going to be a freak with a miraculous body that no fall could kill, then she might as well have fun with it.
If she was busy having fun, then she didn’t have time to wonder why her body could do what it did.
And what that meant.
Running through the docks, she followed the trail of wrongness in the air like tracking the scent of prey. The docks’ lowest level was quiet, the summer air still and damp. She ran around one corner and then another—and stopped. The scent, the feeling, roiled at the edge of this rickety pier. She forced her way forward, even though her churning stomach and every roaring ounce of her blood screamed at her to stay away.
Two figures—masked and wearing dark traveling clothes—waited in a long, sleek boat at the pier’s edge. Their tall, blunt builds suggested they were men. A third figure carried a small girl with golden-brown skin like Harkan’s. The girl struggled, a gag stuffed in her mouth, her wrists and ankles bound.
Red Crown? Unlikely. What would the rebels want with stolen children? And if Red Crown were involved in the abductions, Eliana would have heard whispers from the underground by now.
They could be bounty hunters like herself, but why would the Undying Empire pay for what it could simply take? And working in a group? Very unlikely.
One of the figures in the boat held out its arms for the girl. Lumps crowded the boat’s floor—other women, other girls, bound and unconscious.
Eliana’s anger ignited.
She pulled long, thin Whistler from her left boot.
“Going somewhere, gentlemen?” she called and ran at them.
The figure on the dock turned just as Eliana reached him. She whirled, caught him with her boot under his chin. He fell, choking.
One of the figures from the boat jumped onto the dock. She swiped him across the throat with Arabeth, pushed him into the water after his comrade.
She spun around, triumphant, beckoned at the abductor still waiting in the boat.
“Come on, love,” she crooned. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
Once, she had flinched at killing. Her first had been six years ago, at the age of twelve. Rozen Ferracora, Eliana’s mother, had brought her along on a job—the last Rozen had taken before her injury—and someone had ratted them out. The rebels had known they were coming. It had been an ambush.
Rozen had felled two of them, and Eliana had hidden in the shadows. That had always been her mother’s instruction: I’ll keep you from killing as long as I can, sweet girl. For now, watch. Learn. Practice. What my father taught me, I will teach you.
Then one of the rebels had pinned Rozen to the ground, and Eliana had known nothing but rage.
She flew at the rebel woman, thrust her little blade deep into the woman’s back. Then she stood, staring, as the woman gasped away her life in a pool of blood.
Rozen had taken Eliana’s hand, hurried her away. Back home in their kitchen, her brother, Remy—then only five—had stared wide-eyed as Eliana’s shock gave way to panic. Hands red with blood, she had sobbed herself hoarse in her mother’s arms.
Luckily, the killing had grown much easier.
Two masked figures darted forward out of the shadows, small bundles in their arms. More girls? They tossed the bundles to their last remaining comrade in the boat, then spun to meet her. She ducked one blow, then another, then took a hard one to the stomach and a sharp hook to the jaw.
She stumbled, shook it off. The pain vanished as quickly as it had come. She whirled and stabbed another of the brutes. He toppled into the filthy water.
Then a wave of nausea slammed into her, mean as a boot to the gut. She dropped to her knees, gasping for air. A weight settled on her shoulders, fogged her vision, pressed her down hard against the river-slicked dock.
Five seconds. Ten. Then the pressure vanished. The air no longer felt misaligned around her body; her skin no longer crawled. She raised her head, forced open her eyes. The boat was gliding away.
Wild with anger, head still spinning, Eliana staggered to her feet. A strong arm came around her middle, pulling her backward just as she prepared to dive.
“Get off me,” she said tightly, “or I’ll get nasty.” She elbowed Harkan in his ribs.
He swore, but didn’t let go. “El, have you lost your mind? This isn’t the job.”
“They took her.” She stomped on his instep, twisted out of his grip, ran back to the dock’s edge.
He followed and caught her arm, spun her around to face him. “It doesn’t matter. This isn’t the job.”
Her grin emerged hard as glass. “When has restraining me ever worked out in your favor? Oh, wait.” She sidled closer, softened her smile. “I can think of a time or two—”
“Stop it, El. What have you always told me?” His dark eyes found hers, locked on. “If it isn’t the job, it isn’t our problem.”
Her smile faded. She yanked her arm away from him. “They keep taking us. Why? And who are they? Why only the girls? And what was that…that feeling? I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
He looked dubious. “Maybe you need to sleep.”
She hesitated, despair creeping slowly in. “You felt nothing at all?”
“Sorry, no.”
She glared at him, ignoring the unsettled feeling in her gut. “Well, even so, that girl was no rebel. She was a child. Why would they bother taking her?”
“Whatever the reason, it’s not our problem,” Harkan repeated. He took a long, slow breath, perhaps convincing himself. “Not tonight. We have work to do.”
Eliana stared out at the river for a long time. She imagined carving a face into a slab of flawless stone—no sweat, no scars. Only a hard smile that would come when called, and eyes like knives at night. By the time she had finished, her anger had faded and the unfeeling face was her own.
She turned to Harkan, brought out the cheeky little grin he despised. “Shall we, then? Those bastards worked up my appetite.”
? ? ?
The Red Crown rebel smuggler known as Quill snuck both people and information out of Orline. He was good at it too—one of the best.
It had taken weeks for Eliana and Harkan to track him down.
Now, they crouched on a roof overlooking a tiny courtyard in the Old Quarter, where Quill was supposed to meet a group of rebel sympathizers trying to flee the city. The courtyard reeked sweetly from the roses lining the walls.
Beside her, Harkan shifted, alert.
Eliana watched dark shapes enter the courtyard and crowd together in the corner below a climbing rosebush. Waiting.
Not long after, a hooded figure entered from the opposite corner and approached them. Eliana curled her fingers around her dagger, her blood racing.
The clouds shifted; moonlight washed the yard clean.