“You can’t kill me,” he said.
“Really?” Sairché replied. “Where in our agreement does it say that?” She stepped down from her perch. “Did you really think you could twist an agreement better than a devil from the Hells?” Lords of the Nine, how satisfying would it be to give the signal, let Nisibis cut his throat, let Rhand clutch and the blood that fountained from the wound? She drew a breath-not now. Killing him now would mean she’d failed. She nodded to Nisibis instead, and the erinyes moved to stand beside her.
“You are still of a use to me, fortunately,” Sairché said, opening the portal to Malbolge again. She looked down at Rhand, crouched on the carpet, and smiled. “Don’t disappoint.”
But she had no more than turned her back on him before he spoke once more.
“If those are the terms,” he said, “then I select you as my proxy, Lady Sairché. If you’ll come with me?”
Havilar woke, hazy and aching. When Brin had tried to brew the tea for her the night before, she’d put him off and climbed into her bedroll where she willed herself to sleep before he could say another word to her. She did not need caring for.
Brin dozed against a tree, on the other side of the fire. When she stood, he stirred and turned toward her, hand on his sword, and altogether she was still angry at him, and still so glad to see him.
“Good morning,” she said.
He smiled crookedly and let go of the weapon. “Good morning. You sleep all right?”
Havilar shrugged. “I guess.” She still wasn’t happy about being told to sleep. “Did you stand watch all night?”
“Not exactly. I sleep lightly,” he said. “You never know when some noble’s going to get it into his or her head that offing me in the night is in their best interests.” He rubbed his eyes. “Usually, though, my room’s not full of owls and voles and things. I feel as if I woke a hundred times last night.”
Havilar wondered what his rooms were full of, what noises he was used to. How many of them were someone else. It wasn’t her business-not yet and maybe not ever. “You should have woken me.”
“I’m all right.” He stretched and tried to smother the yawn that escaped him. Havilar gave him a very pointed look. “All right,” he admitted. “I should probably have woken you. You seemed like you needed the rest.”
Havilar squatted down beside the fire. “You could sleep now. I’ll pack things up. Or just rest your eyes at least, if I’m too noisy.”
He gave her another crooked smile. “That would be perfect.” He eyed her a moment. “Are we going to talk today, do you think?”
Terror sank its teeth into Havilar. “We’re talking now,” she said lightly. “Havi,” Brin sighed.
Havilar stood and went over to her bedroll. “Can we just get on our way before we worry about this?” He sighed again, but said nothing else, and when she glanced back, he was settling down to sleep.
She ought to be brave enough to hear him say that there was nothing between them. She ought to be sure enough to know if that was what she wanted or not. She ought to be more concerned with finding Farideh who- yet again-deserved the worry more than she did. It made her feel unseated and upset, like a plant pulled up by its roots and tossed onto the stones. She finished packing everything up, and considered waking Brin.
Havilar picked up her glaive instead and turned her attention to the pull of her muscles, the solidness of her bones. The weight of the glaive steadied in her hands. She didn’t imagine opponents, this time, or make an enemy of a tree or a shrub. She moved the glaive through careful steps, patterns she knew by rote-a sweep, a slice, a carve, a chop. Step and slide and step and turn. Once upon a time, people had said her glaive was as good as her right hand. Once upon a time, Devilslayer had been the perfect anchor-as long as she had her glaive, Havilar knew who she was.
And now everything was different, but Havilar was the same. And she wasn’t sure she ought to be.
Slash, sweep, pull the blade up.
Brin was certainly different-he was so sure, and so bossy, and she hated thatpothac beard. Every time something dangerous came up, he tried to make her go home, back down, turn into someone else. Every time he sighed at her, she wanted to curl up and hide.
Chop, press forward, sweep low. Step forward. Turn.
And then he would laugh when she said something funny and everything was the same again. He would smile at her with that glint in his eye that made her think they were sharing a secret, and she was his again, and that was exactly right.
But then he’d sigh.
She lunged forward, barely holding on to the weapon’s haft, the weight nearly pulling it out of her hands. She took an extra step trying to keep it, and stopped, panting. Again, she told herself, and she started over. She hadn’t done these passes in years-more years she amended. She hadn’t done all manner of things in years. It made her feel a little melancholy and a little giddy at the same time-like she was a girl again, learning for the first time.
She’d run through the passes once again and started a third time, when she realized Brin wasn’t sleeping, but lay on his side watching her practice. She faltered, and pulled the glaive close. “Sorry. Was I loud?”
“No. I just wanted to watch. You’re getting better.”
She ran a hand over the end of her braid, and realized its shortened length wasn’t surprising her anymore. “Thank you.”
“It’ll come back,” he promised.
It had to, Havilar thought. Because otherwise she wasn’t sure about a single other thing. Especially not Brin.
“What would you be doing today if you were at home?” she asked. “If you hadn’t come with me? If I hadn’t come back?”
Brin screwed up his face as if he were trying to remember his calendar. “I had a meeting planned about now, with one of my contacts, to talk about the state of things in the Dales.”
“This early?”
“People assume if you’re noble, you sleep in,” Brin said. “Or, if you’re a young noble, that you are finishing up a night of drinking and carousing.” He shifted his position, as if trying to find a more comfortable bit of dirt. “They don’t tend to look for you in back rooms with tinkers.”
“Do you do a lot of that? Carousing?”
Brin laughed once. “No. People think there’s something off about me,” he admitted. “I don’t carouse or whore or drink. I’m a terrible young noble.”
Havilar looked away-she realized she was blushing. She wanted to know and she didn’t want to know what he did in his free time. Whoring and carousing wasn’t an answer she wanted, but then, did that mean he was off with sweethearts and brightbirds and romances? Did that mean he’d become someone who wanted none of those things? Or maybe-maybe-was he holding out for her to return?
You aren’t going to know unless you ask, she told herself. She dug a little hole into the dirt with the butt of her glaive.
Before she could ask more, though, a line of bright light split the air and tore wide to reveal Lorcan stepping into the plane.
“Ye gods!” Brin shouted, suddenly on his feet.
“Well met to you too,” Lorcan said.
“Where’s Farideh?” Havilar said. “You said you were going to rescue her.”
Lorcan looked at her with that irritatingly blank expression. “Safe,” he said. “Out of the tower. But she won’t leave the camp without first rescuing the people held prisoner there, so unfortunately your stubborn sister says this little adventure’s not through.”