"—stolen," spluttered Teddy. "Perhaps I'll go get the next round."
"I could kill him," Saf said, watching Teddy go. "I think I will later."
"What did he mean, you only steal that which has already been stolen?"
"Let's talk about your thievery instead, Sparks," said Saf. "Do you steal from the queen, or only poor sods trying to have a drink?"
"What about you? Do you steal both on land and on sea?"
This made Saf laugh, quietly, which was a thing Bitterblue had never seen him do before. She was rather proud of herself. He nursed his drink, ran his eyes over the room, and took his time answering.
"I was raised on a Lienid ship by Lienid sailors," he admitted finally. "I'm about as likely to steal from a sailor as I am to put a nail in my head. My true family is Monsean, and a few months ago I came here to spend some time with my sister. I met Teddy, who offered me a job in his printing shop, which is good work, until I get the urge for leaving again. There. You've had my story."
"Great chunks of it are missing," said Bitterblue. "Why were you raised on a Lienid ship if you're Monsean?"
"All of yours is missing," said Saf, "and I don't trade my secrets for nothing. If you recognize me for a sailor, then you've spent some time working on a ship."
"Maybe," said Bitterblue testily.
"Maybe?" said Saf, amused. "What do you do in Bitterblue's castle?"
"I bake bread in the kitchens," she said, hoping he wouldn't ask any specifics about those kitchens, because she couldn't remember ever seeing them.
"And is it your mother who's Lienid, or your father?"
"My mother."
"And does she work with you?"
"She does fine needlework for the queen. Embroidery."
"Do you see much of her?"
"Not when we're working, but we live in the same rooms. We see each other every night and morning."
Bitterblue stopped, suddenly needing to catch her breath. It seemed to her a beautiful daydream, one that could easily be true. Perhaps there was a baker girl in the castle with a mother who was alive, touching her, every day, with thoughts, seeing her every night. "My father was a traveling Monsean fabler," she continued. "One summer he went to Lienid to tell stories and fell in love with my mother. He brought her here to live. He was killed in an accident with a dagger."
"I'm sorry to hear that," Saf said.
"It was years ago," Bitterblue said breathlessly.
"And why does a baker girl sneak out at night to steal drink money? A bit dangerous, isn't it?"
She suspected that the question contained a reference to her size. "Have you ever seen Lady Katsa of the Middluns?" she asked archly.
"No, but everyone knows her story, of course."
"She's dangerous without being big as a man."
"Fair enough, but she's a Graced fighter."
"She's taught many of the girls in this city to fight. She taught me."
"You've met her, then," Saf said, clapping his cup down onto the ledge and turning to her, all bright-eyed attention. "Have you met Prince Po too?"
"He's in the castle sometimes," Bitterblue said with a vague flap of her hand. "My point is, I'm able to defend myself."
"I'd pay to watch either of them fight," he said. "I'd give gold to watch them fight each other."
"Your own gold? Or someone else's? I think you're a Graced thief."
Saf seemed to enjoy this accusation immensely. "I'm not a Graced thief," he said, grinning. "Nor am I a Graced mind reader, but I know why you sneak out at nights. You can't get enough of the stories."
Yes. She couldn't get enough of the stories. Or of these exchanges with Teddy and Saf, for they were the same as the stories, the same as the midnight streets and alleys and graveyards, the smell of smoke and cider, the crumbling buildings. The monstrous bridges, reaching up into the sky, that Leck had built for no reason.
The more I see and hear, the more I realize how much I don't know.
I want to know everything.
5
THE ATTACK IN the story room two nights later took her completely by surprise.
Even in the moments afterwards Bitterblue was unaware of it having happened, and wondered why Saf had pushed in front of her protectively, clutching at the arm of a hooded man, and why Teddy was leaning on Saf looking vague and ill. The entire struggle was so silent and the movements so furiously controlled that when the hooded man finally broke away and Saf whispered to Bitterblue, "Give Teddy your shoulder. Act normal. He's only drunk," Bitterblue thought Teddy actually was drunk. She didn't understand until they'd passed out of the story room, Teddy's weight heavy between them, that his problem was not drink. His problem was the knife in his gut.
If Bitterblue had had any doubt that Saf was a sailor, his language now as he carried his gasping, glass-eyed friend up the steps laid those doubts to rest. Saf lowered Teddy to the ground, whipped his own shirt over his head and ripped it in half. In one motion that caused Teddy—and Bitterblue—to cry out, he yanked the blade from Teddy's abdomen. Then he pressed a wadded piece of shirt to the wound and snarled up at Bitterblue.
"Do you know the intersection of White Horse Alley and Bow Street?"
It was a location close to the castle, by the east wall. "Yes."
"A healer named Roke lives on the second story of the building on the southeast corner. Run and wake him and bring him to Teddy's shop."
"Where is Teddy's shop?"
"On Tinker Street near the fountain. Roke knows it."
"But that's very near here. Surely there's a healer closer—"
Teddy stirred and began to whimper. "Roke," he cried. "Tilda—tell Tilda and Bren—"
Saf barked at Bitterblue, "Roke is the only healer we can trust. Stop wasting time. Go!"
Bitterblue turned and tore through the streets, hoping that Saf's Grace, whatever it was, was a kind to help him keep Teddy alive for the next thirty minutes, because that was how long this relay was going to take her. Her mind spun. Why would a hooded man in a story room attack a writer and a thief of gargoyles and things already stolen? What had Teddy done for someone to want to hurt him this badly?
And then, after a few minutes of running, the question dropped away, her head cooled, and she began to realize the true desperation of the situation. Bitterblue knew about knife wounds. Katsa had taught her how to inflict them, and Katsa's cousin Prince Raffin, the heir to the Middluns throne and a medicine maker, had explained to her the limits of what healers could do. The knife in Teddy's gut had been low. Perhaps his lungs and his liver and maybe even his stomach were safe, but still, it had probably at least cut into his intestine. This could mean death even with a healer skilled enough to patch the holes, for the contents of Teddy's intestine even now could be spilling into his abdomen, and this would lead to an infection—fever, swelling, pain—that people rarely survived. If it came to that. He could also bleed to death.
Bitterblue had never heard of the healer Roke, and was in no position to judge his abilities. But she did know of one healer who had kept alive people with knives in their bellies: her own healer, Madlen, who was Graced, and who had a reputation for marvelous medicines and impossible surgical successes.
When Bitterblue reached the intersection of White Horse Alley and Bow Street, she kept running.
THE CASTLE INFIRMARY was on the ground floor, east of the great courtyard. Not knowing her way around, Bitterblue scurried like the shadow of a rat down a hallway and took a chance, thrusting Ashen's ring into the face of a member of the Monsean Guard who was drowsing under a wall lantern.