"You've given me everything I've ever needed," Icelin began.
"No!" He said it so viciously Icelin flinched. He held her tighter. "I lied, Icelin. I loved you, but now he's going to…" Brant started to sob. She had never seen him cry before, not even when he spoke of his dead wife, Gisetta.
"I won't let him," Icelin said. She put her forehead against his. His lips moved, but she could barely hear what he said next.
"Run. Leave the city. Make something… new… better. Don't blame yourself…"
"Shh, Great-Uncle, please." Icelin held his hands, but they'd gone boneless in her grip. He had no more strength.
"Rest now. I… I'll s-sing to you," she promised him. He could still hear her voice. Haltingly, the words came.
The lastfalling twilight shines gold on the mountain. Give me eyes for the darkness, take me home, take me home.
"Do you remember, Great-Uncle?" she asked. She cupped his wrinkled cheek in her hand. His eyes stared glassily up at her. He nodded once. She felt the moisture at the corner of his eye.
"You always remember," he said. "I'm sorry… for that too." He closed his eyes, and his head slid away from her. She lost him in that last little breath.
Icelin curled protectively around the still-warm body, cradling her great-uncle's head in her hands. She stayed there, hunched, until she couldn't feel anything except a burning ache in her legs. The pain was the only force that kept her sane. As long as it was there, she wouldn't have to feel anything else. She would never leave that floor. She. would stay there until the world withered away.
Moonlight still bathed them when Icelin heard the shop door close. She raised her head and saw the butcher's bulky shape crammed in the doorway. He seemed brought to her from another time, another century, one in which her great-uncle wasn't dead.
"Sull?" She didn't recognize her own voice.
"It's me, lass." The big man knelt beside her and lifted Brant's head from her lap. "Are you all right?"
"My throat hurts," she said.
"You were singin'."
"Was I?" She hadn't been aware, but now she thought of it, she could recall every song. Of course she could. She would remember them and the look on Brant's face when she sang. She would carry those memories with her until she died.
"You always remember…"
"Icelin, you need to come with me," Sull said. He took her hands. She was dead weight, limp as one of his carcasses, but he pulled her to her feet easily.
"He told me to leave the city," Icelin said. She might have laughed at the jest, but she didn't want to alarm Sull.
"I think he was right," the butcher said. He took her chin in his hand, forcing her to focus on him. "I've been to the Watch, but that elf bastard got away while I was gone. Guessin' he wasn't hurt as much as we thought. Ransacked every damn tool and stick of furniture in the place before he left, as if you were a mouse he was trying to scrounge up. Maybe to him that's what you are, but the Watch thinks differently."
"They've never liked me," Icelin said, and this time she did laugh. She could feel the hysteria bubbling up inside her. "Small wonder, I suppose. I'm the she-witch of Blacklock Alley, didn't you know?"
"Lass, that's not it," Sull said. "They've instructions to bring you in."
"For what?" she asked incredulously. "I didn't kill anyone!" Not this time…
"It's not like that," Sull said. "You're wanted on suspect of jewel thievery. The one who placed the request was named Kredaron, actin' on behalf of Cerest Elenithil."
"Kredaron?" Icelin closed her eyes. "Of course. That's how Cerest found out where I lived. So it's suspicion of thievery, unless they can prove I'm a murderess as well."
"I didn't tell 'em you were comin' back here. I told 'em I left you unconscious in my shop. But they'll check this place soon," Sull said. "I can get you out before that."
"Why should you care what happens to me?" Icelin said. Het voice held a bitter edge. "How can you be sure I'm innocent?"
Sull's brows knitted in a dark red line. "You and your mouth might be famous in this ward, but now's not the time to let loose on me," he said. "If he was alive, your great-uncle would give you a smart slap for takin' that tone with your elders. Brant Team was a fine man, he raised a good girl, and that's plenty of reasons for me to bother with you."
He left her at the counter and roved about the room, lighting a small lamp and placing it on the floor away from the windows. He selected a pair of swash-topped boots from the rack and tossed them to her.
"Put those on," he said. "You'll need new boots for the road, and a pack." He pulled one down off the wall. It was a nondescript brown mass of buckles and straps. "Blankets and ration bundles. Where did your great-uncle store em?" he asked.
"On the shelf behind you," Icelin said. She watched him collect some flint and steel, a compass, a weathercloak, and one of the belts. He put them all in a pile next to her.
"Don'r wait for me; start puttin' it on," he told her. "I have a friend at the gate. He doesn't respond well to moral causes, but he can be bribed, so it suits me well enough. Stop lookin' at him, lass. We have to move!"
"Where do you think I can go, Sull?" He paused long enough to look back at her. "I have never trod on soil that wasn't Waterdeep's. My only family lies on this floor. Where would someone like me find a kind place in the world?"
Sull opened his mouth to answer, but the silence stretched.
Icelin nodded. "Exactly. I can't leave. I have to hide, at least for now."
But where to disappear to? Cerest's men had tracked her easily, and the Watch now joined them.
"You'll have to leave Blacklock, that's a certainty," Sull said. "If I knew your face, others will too, and they'll be watchin' for you."
"So, I leave the Alley," Icelin said. She picked up the pack and the belt and put them on. The rations she took as well. No telling where her next meal would be coming from.
Reaching over the counter, she took out the knife Brant had kept for emergencies. He hadn't been able to get to it when they came for him. She used it to cut a slit up het skirt. She needed to be able to run full stride if it came to that.
"There is a man I know in the Watch," she said. "Kersh. Fortunately, he does respond to moral causes. I think he'll help me, or at least be able to give me some information about Cerest."
"Help us, lass," Sull said. "I'm goin' with you."
Icelin shook her head. "You've already gotten yourself in enough trouble on my behalf. What about your store?"
"Stone and timber," Sull said, shrugging. "It'll be there after I've seen to you. This man," he said, and he knelt to touch Brant's shoulder, "he was known in South Ward. Like I said, he's a good man, and so is his kin. I'll be goin' with you lass, so it'd be best if we don't waste time arguin'."
Icelin looked at the butcher in the flickering lamplight. He still wore his bloody apron. He'd tucked the mallet and several wicked-looking cleavers into a leather harness that he draped sash-style across his broad stomach. Even had she not known what he could do with those tools, he was a fearsome sight to behold. Yet he handled her great-uncle's body with infinite gentleness. He tucked Brant's arms against his body and laid a blanket over him. Icelin swallowed the emotion rising up within her.
"All right, then, we'll go together," she said. "But you'll leave me at the first safe place I find. I'll sort the rest out on my own." She paused with the pack in het hands. "Wait. I need one more thing." She remembered her great-uncle's cryptic words. "Something he wanted me to take. He said it was near the bookcase."
"Could have been gibberish he was talkin'. A dyin' man might say things that don't make much sense," Sull said.
"No, he was very specific. He said it was in a box."
"If you say so. But we don't have time to be solvin' riddles, lass. What do you need?"