“Four fucking Daughters…,” came another voice.
Mia squinted through the haze, saw Lazlo, Dario and three other Toffs at the office door, staring in horror at the carnage beyond. Dario clapped eyes on the corpse of their leader. Lazlo, the figure swathed in gray.
“Kill ’er!” one of the thugs roared.
Without a word, Ashlinn was dashing toward the window, hurling a dagger and shattering the glass. The Toffs charged in a mob, and more out of instinct than forethought, Mia reached under her dress and threw one of her white wyrdglass globes at their feet. The arkemical sphere burst with a loud bang, a cloud of thick white Swoon engulfing the thugs.
Ashlinn climbed through the window, grabbed a silk line tied to a stone gargoyle above. Without a backward glance, she was up the wall and gone.
Mia staggered to her feet, head still ringing, swaying to the windowsill. She was in a tight corset and long gown; not the easiest gear to be scaling brothel walls in, even without a concussion. But, fearless as ever, she seized hold of the line and swung out over the five-story drop, scrambling onto the roof just in time to see Ashlinn leap across to the bordello next door.
“Eclipse, go get Jessamine!” she barked. “Mister Kindly, with me!”
The shadowwolf disappeared, Mister Kindly flitted across the roof after their quarry. Shaking her head to clear the ringing, Mia followed hard. Truth was, her boots weren’t made for a chase scene, and the rain had made the roof tiles as treacherous as the snake she was chasing. As Ashlinn dropped off the bordello roof, Mia skidded to a cursing halt, hacking at her skirts with her gravebone stiletto so she could run faster.
Mia’s mind was reeling. It’d been eight months since she’d laid eyes on Ashlinn J?rnheim, and she could scarce believe the girl was here now. She and her father had been in alliance with Justicus Remus to bring down the Red Church. Now she was in league with the grand cardinal?
Mia pushed the questions from her mind, tore away the rest of her sodden skirts and ran on. Peering over the bordello roof, she saw Ashlinn dropping to the cobbles below, too far away to reach her shadow. Fearless of the fall, she flipped over the edge, scaling from window to window, fingers white on the rain-slick stone. Reaching the cobbles, she dashed off through the Godsgrave streets, and over the Bridge of Tears.*
Ashlinn ran like the Mother herself was on her tail, weaving in and out of the crowd like smoke. Mia sprinted in pursuit, losing sight of her at least twice, turned aside in the maze of canals and dogleg alleys. But Mister Kindly flitted from rooftop to rooftop, leaping across awning and gable like the wind and calling above the summer storm.
“… left, left…”
“… alley beside the chandlers…”
“… no, your other left…”
Mia broke out onto a main drag, sliding beneath the axle of a galloping horse and cart and skirting the handfuls of limping jacks Ashlinn was throwing behind her.* Row after row of houses, temples with windows like empty eyes, thin bridges and winding canals. They were headed toward Godsgrave’s marrowborn district now, the Ribs rising into the storm-washed skies. Ashlinn dashed down a dead-end alley, kicked left then right up the stonework, scrabbling over the broken glass at the top.
Mia followed, cutting her palms bloody. Ash was running across the rooftops again now, the terra-cotta treacherous with the rain. Leaping over the gap between one roof and another, Mia almost slipped as a tile cracked beneath her sodden boots. If she fell, it’d be a broken leg at best, a shattered spine at worst.
Where the fuck are Eclipse and Jessamine?
Mia saw the Basilica Grande looming ahead—a gothic masterpiece of marble spires and stained glass. The trinity of three suns glittered in every window, gleamed atop every steeple. Mia couldn’t help but recall the truedark when she was fourteen—the dozens of men she’d murdered here in her failed attempt to kill Consul Scaeva. Ash knew Mia’s weakness for the Everseeing’s holy symbols—she was obviously hoping the basilica grounds were hallowed enough to repel the darkin on her heels.
Clever girl. But it doesn’t work that way …
Ash reached to her belt, gathered another thin line and grapple. Throwing it across to the basilica’s gutters, Ash swung across the gap and scrambled onto the roof. Mia ran harder, hoping to leap the distance, but even with Mister Kindly eating her fear, she knew the gap was too wide. Skidding to a halt at the edge, she watched Ashlinn clamber up the tiles. Gasping for breath. Heart hammering in her chest.
Mia drew a throwing knife from her boot, took aim. She’d poisoned her blades with Swoon, and even a scratch would be enough to drop the girl like a bag of bricks. But, much as she wanted to, Mia realized …
I need her alive.
She lowered the blade, looked to the cobblestones thirty feet below. A novice wandering the cathedral grounds looked up and saw her, jaw dropping in surprise.
“Shit…,” she breathed.
“… a distance like that should not trouble you…”
Mia looked to the shadowcat at her feet. Down to the gap again.
“I can’t jump that far, it’s impossible.”
“… not so long ago, you stepped from the top of the philosopher’s stone all the way to the isle of godsgrave to this very cathedral. skipping across the city like a child over puddles…”
“That was during truedark, Mister Kindly.”
“… you did so again in the quiet mountain…”
“Aye, and the suns have never seen inside that place.”
“… it is raining. aa’s eyes are hidden behind the clouds…”
“I’m not strong enough out here, don’t you see?”
The not-cat sighed, shaking his head.
Ashlinn had reached the apex of the cathedral’s roof, turning to look at Mia. Her blond hair had grown longer, damp with rain and plastered to her tanned skin. Her pretty eyes were the blue of sunsburned skies. Mia felt her fingers curl to fists, remembering what she’d done to Tric.
Ashlinn smiled. Holding two fingers to her eyes, pointing at Mia across the gap and speaking in the wordless sign language of Tongueless.
I see you.
And with a small smile, the Vaanian girl blew Mia a kiss.
Rage came then. Watching Ash scuttle away toward the basilica’s bell tower. Mister Kindly could still follow; Mia could scramble down to street level and give chase. But the lead Ash now had was a long one, and truth was, all the cigarillos she’d been smoking lately weren’t doing Mia’s constitution any favors.
She was sick of running.
All right, fuck it then …
Mia reached out across the gulf, beneath that muddy gray sky. The shadows were indistinct with the sunslight veiled, but she could still sense two of Aa’s eyes, burning in the heavens. A thin film of cloud and rain wasn’t enough to rein in the rage of a god, and Mia could feel it scorching the back of her neck. But still …