“Saffa is,” Sammish said with a certainty Alys didn’t share. “She’ll come as soon as she knows we’re here.”
“And if she doesn’t reach us before the call goes up?”
Sammish, her arms still tied behind her back, shrugged. “Then we’ll go find her.”
Outside, in the clean, washed streets of Green Hill, a woman with a woven sack on her hip and a mole on her cheek walked with calm purpose. She certainly wasn’t Hansch, though she didn’t quite look Inlisc either, but she carried herself with purpose and grace. If anyone noticed her, it was as a mild curiosity. Not as a threat.
She turned down one of the less beautiful paths meant to let servants come and go without being seen. Her head shifted from side to side as if she were reciting something silently. She paused at the wall of the Daris Brotherhood. The wall there was pale stucco ten feet high, with a thick layer of ivy—green leaves covering old brown stems. The wide wooden carriage gate was farther ahead, and closed. The smell of manure and the sound of horses said that the brotherhood’s stables were on the wall’s far side. The woman stopped, stretched, and put her sack down gently on the paving stones. When she leaned over, rooting through it, she seemed very much at ease.
The lantern she took out was no bigger than two balled fists together. Its tin belly clinked and sloshed with oil, and the little glass flue that would protect the flame from draughts was greasy and cheap. Her head still shifting almost imperceptibly, she rolled out far too much wick. Used like that, it would smoke the glass, but she didn’t seem concerned. A little striker held a chip of flint almost too small to be useful. She flicked it with her thumb half a dozen times before the flame took. She put the glass flue back in place and stood, looking at it.
Her head went still.
Tossing the lantern over the wall was almost effortless, more like releasing a bird than throwing a missile. The lantern rose up in a slow arc and almost seemed to pause above the wall before deciding to plummet to the ground on the far side.
It landed awkwardly, the glass flue splitting into shards and the little tin belly popping its seams, rolling and leaking. The oil spread, darkening the paving stones. The little wick lay down, and the small flame became a wider one. A puff of smoke rose and was whipped into nothingness.
On the street side of the wall, the woman shrugged her bag back over her shoulder and walked on as calmly as if she had done nothing odd. No one took notice of her as she reached the corner and rested there in the shade of an old stone statue of a Hansch god standing at a gate. She peered back the way she came, scratching her cheek in what might have been anxiety, looking for some sign of reaction to her vandalism.
The stables of the Daris Brotherhood were busy. The wind lifted grit and bits of dry hay and dried manure into the air, and left the groomsmen and carriage driver squinting. Near the wall, the pool of oil flowed under the bright green of the ivy, and the fire followed with it. The leaves were thick and waxy. They defied the fire. The old leaves and stems beneath them, evidence of many years’ growth that no one had taken the trouble of clearing away, were drier, more brittle, and ready to burn. If anyone had been there to see it, it would have been beautiful, the warm orange light glimmering through the broad green, but it was an unpleasant day, and no one saw.
Hidden, the flames grew and spread until the heat was enough to shrivel the green, and a thread of dark smoke rose. The horses sensed the danger first, but the boy minding the stables didn’t know why they were agitated. The flames reached the wide wooden carriage house, but the sides were old, hard wood. They might char, but it would take more than the wet tinder of ivy to set them alight.
The smoke was thicker now, a shadow against the sky. The woman sitting by the god saw it, but only because she knew to look. She leaned forward, anxious and wondering whether to sound the alarm herself.
Beneath the ivy, the fire began to die, its easy fuel exhausted. The green leaves slumped a little, but the brightness behind them dimmed to a vague orange. The gate opened, and a carriage rolled in, a thick-bodied coachman handling the two-horse team. He paused at the gate, lifted his eyes to the sky, caught by a scent he couldn’t quite identify.
Please, the woman said. Please. Less than a prayer, but with the same intensity.
The wind, as fickle as wind, shifted to flow down across the city from the north like a bellows blowing in a forge. The green leaves shuddered and danced. The orange brightened to gold. Embers and smut blew out from the hidden fire like a swarm of glowing insects. The movement caught the carriage driver’s eye, but by then a new little flame had found its home in the hay. Another, in a pile of old rags the boy had meant to clear away but had forgotten. Another drifted through an unshuttered window in the brotherhood’s main house.
The coachman shouted. The horses screamed. The wind muttered, and then it howled.
The door opened, and a guard Alys didn’t recognize stepped in. He looked around the room like he was checking for something, but she couldn’t guess what. Then, apparently satisfied, he stood at the side of the door without acknowledging her, and Andomaka stepped in. Now that she knew to look for it, she could see changes in the pale woman. She held herself differently. Not straighter, exactly, but more stiffly. The Andomaka who had appeared in the smoke of Alys’s Oldgate cell in the fall had flowed through the world like smoke. This one was harder, harsher, and crueler somehow.
The pale eyes clicked between Alys and Sammish, then lingered on Sammish. A small, satisfied smile touched the corner of her mouth. Sammish, hands behind her back, stared at the ground by Andomaka’s feet like she was trying to disappear. Alys felt the knot of fear in her gut tighten.
“Is this the one, then?” Alys said, needing to break the silence.
“It might be,” Andomaka said. She reached out a hand to Sammish’s chin and lifted it until they were facing each other. “Well? What do you think, little one? Have we met before?”
Sammish swallowed and shook her head. No.
Andomaka’s smile was pure cruelty. “Are you sure about that?”
Sammish shook her head again, maybe meaning no, they hadn’t met, or no, she wasn’t sure.
Andomaka’s smile widened. “Is she still here? Is she still in the city?”
“Who?” Sammish asked, and Andomaka punched her hard on the bridge of her nose. Sammish yelped and fell back, blood pouring down her face. Andomaka turned and put her hand out. The guard at the door drew a short-bladed knife from his side and put its handle in her palm. Sammish mewled in pain and fear.
“Hey!” Alys said, putting herself between them. Her heart was bright and racing.
Andomaka scowled. “You should stand aside.”
“I haven’t been paid,” Alys said. “You want to put her in ribbons, that’s your choice. But where I’m from, you pay the butcher before you eat the sausage.”
“You’ll get your reward,” Andomaka said, and moved forward as if Alys would get out of her way. The impulse to step back was powerful, but she stood her ground.
“I’ll take it while there’s still some blood on her insides. No offense meant, but it’s how I work. Until I’m paid, this one’s still mine, and I’d appreciate you not bruising my goods.”
Andomaka’s laugh was as short and sharp as the blade in her hand. “Don’t think you have power here. This is my house. And my city.”