Devil sees my panic and checks her flip-book watch. “Gaiza!” She immediately goes to the opposite wall and presses on one of the bricks.
“Gear,” she says, and her nostrils flare.
She pushes on the brick wall, and it opens up into the millinery next door. That explains how the sawn-in-half couch got into the walled-off alley.
“What?” I shout, chasing after her.
She rushes through the store, knocking over a rack of hats.
“Gear! He was supposed to return five minutes ago,” she says. “And he’s never late!”
There’s panic more than fear in her voice, and I can do nothing but follow.
When we barrel out into the street, the three Legals have rounded the corner and are almost close enough to see us in the shadows. They drag beside them a young man. I don’t recognize his face, beaten as it is, but he’s one of Devil’s runners, who help her move goods around the cities. He’s young but not reckless. Kind but not soft.
“What in the vittin hell is this?” Devil says, starting toward the Legals.
I put a hand on her shoulder, and her eyes flash like lightning.
“Groups of Legals like that,” she says to me, pointing at them, “have been killing Nameless on every street from here to the western gates.”
Two of the three Legals have muskets on their shoulders, but I stay close to Devil. She pulls the rifle from her shoulder and heads toward them. By the time the Legals notice us, Devil has them in her sights.
“Drop him,” Devil commands, and her arms are steady with the rifle.
Devil’s shirt rises up above her hips as she faces down the Legals, and I see the silver handle of a single-shot pistol. I tap her arm so she won’t be startled as I take the weapon. Then I’m standing beside her, and now both of us hold guns on the three Legal men, with Gear still at their side.
The three Legals are my subjects, but I’m not about to issue a proper decree while holding a pistol. Yet if they are my subjects, maybe I can use my abilities against them. I should be able to make them see a hallucination—something that will stop them in their tracks.
I try to imagine a wall building up between the Legals and Gear, but I can’t focus on the idea without thinking, Are there bullets in this pistol? Am I really going to shoot someone? Are those footsteps behind us?
I’m not sure where they come from, the other Legals. Suddenly there’s a crowd upon us from the west. They’re marching in protest, and their auras are like a hundred oak trees folding into the wind, strong and united. A few of them hold large signs with who knows what written on them in bold strokes.
Things are horrid and tense for a half second. Then, amid the mob of Legals, I spot a Royal in bright colors. He’s pointing at me, mouth agape, and in that instant I know he recognizes me. I don’t recognize him. How could I, when I’ve met hundreds of people I’ll never remember over the past week?
He starts shouting, “The Nameless—”
And the Legals in the group pick up the charge before he can finish, all of them shouting for the Nameless. His cry for me is lost in the roar of the mob.
There’s shouting and rushing. Movement on all sides. Screams. Slapping shoes and slamming doors. The sound rises in my body like steam. The rage and fear of their auras—they infect me.
Devil still has her rifle leveled at the Legals, but there’s a crowd charging the space between us.
The sound of a gun cracks through the air, and somehow I wish it was louder. I wish it hurt. Then it would feel real. Instead I watch what happens next with a sense of detachment.
Gear falls over, as if his body fell asleep without permission. It’s so violent and sudden. I thought he’d be blown backward, but he simply tips and collapses to the ground, the life emptied from his body. I know Devil has seen it when her howl of rage fills the street. That is how the world shakes.
When a Legal man grabs onto Devil from behind, she pivots sharply as the charging crowd races around us, and she slams the butt of her rifle across his face. She doesn’t hesitate as she raises the weapon, pans across the far edge of the street, and pulls the trigger. The Legal man who shot Gear falls to the ground, dead.
The Legals are surging and screaming now. There’s a woman calling for her child.
Devil fires another shot at one of the Legals who were dragging Gear down the street, and he falls to the ground.
As Devil turns her smoldering gaze across the rest of the crowd, I reach her, grab her hand, and drag her away, certain that if I left her there, the whole street would fall.
We almost don’t make it out. Bodies crash into each other; feet stomp and kick; shouts buzz through my mind as if the voices are inside my head.
Devil eventually falls into step with me, and I’m not sure at first where I’m taking us. I’m just going away.
We head far enough north that we pass the network of alleys and reach the edge of the Royal Court. I lean heavily against the wall, and Devil paces. She picks up a loose brick and hurls it angrily at the wall.
“How did you know to come?” Devil demands. “Or was this a coincidence?”
“Marcher.”
“That bastard. If he sent you, then he knew this was going to happen.” She snarls, hatred coiling through her tense body.
“Those three Legals walked right past your alley with Gear,” I say. “How could that have been planned? And that mob?”
Devil props her knee up on a broken barrel, and she removes the bullet from the rifle’s chamber, tucking it in her pocket. “Chance is a cop-out for when you don’t understand something. There’s always a why.” The emptiness in Devil’s eyes fills with rage. From experience, I know it’s easier to fill the hollowness with anger than to let it slowly fill with something as painful as grief.
“What do you want to do?” I ask her plainly.
For a moment, I think she wants to return to the fight. If she does, I will follow her. Then, with a controlled motion that seems to focus her, she slings her rifle over her shoulder and begins free-climbing up the Royal wall. I follow, and soon we’re on top of the wall, feet dangling over twenty feet of open air. It takes a long time for Devil to break the silence, but I wait patiently for her to speak.
“I didn’t say thank you,” Devil says at last. “For sending food. I give you a hard time about changing, but the city needs change. Things like this need to stop happening.”
“You said people were getting sick from the food. Did—” My voice catches. I don’t know if I can take more death tonight.
She shakes her head. “Not yet. There’s two of them who are really sick, though. And since doctors only help the Nameless when they want to test new medicines and procedures, their chances aren’t good.”