Soldiers wearing the emperor’s black and gold were pouring inside. Her first reaction was to slump with relief, but then she went rigid. She and Sicarius had as much to worry about from soldiers as Larocka’s guards did. Maybe more.
She lunged to her feet and raced toward the blast furnace. She dodged track, pipes, and bins and darted into the open area she had seen from above. The first body almost tripped her. Downed men littered the floor amongst pools of blood. Where was…
The lone standing figure amongst the carnage, Sicarius grabbed an axe. Black shirt ravaged, blood spattering him from hair to boots, he looked like-he was -the harbinger of death. He stepped to Sespian’s side and lifted the dripping blade overhead to hack at the chains.
“Soldiers,” Amaranthe barked. “We have to get out of-”
The first of the men plunged into the opening. They almost tripped over the bodies, too, but that did not keep them from seeing Sespian.
“Sire!” one blurted.
“Stop!” another shouted to Sicarius. “Don’t hurt him!”
Arms raised, Sicarius hesitated. Less, Amaranthe guessed, because of the soldier’s command and more because he was wondering if Sespian was safe now.
“They’ll help him,” she said, wincing at Sicarius’s condemning pose. “We have to go.”
A musketeer shouldered his way forward, weapon rising to take aim.
Sicarius threw the axe at the approaching men, though awkwardly, not with the intent to kill. They ducked the flying blade, and the musketeer dropped his weapon.
Amaranthe waved for Sicarius to follow and led him to the back door.
“Get them!” someone yelled.
Sicarius passed Amaranthe and kicked open the locked door. With night’s darkness for cover, they raced through the scrapyard into the snow-draped city.
When Sicarius matched her pace instead of taking off on his own, she eyed him with hope. Was she forgiven? With the blood staining his blond hair and eyebrows, smearing his neck, and dripping from his chin, he appeared even grimmer than usual, but he met her questioning gaze. As the shouts faded behind them, he nodded and patted her on the back.
Epilogue
That afternoon, Amaranthe left the icehouse to find out what had happened to her men. On the way back, she picked up a few supplies and a newspaper. The front page story detailed the kidnapping, positing the “abhorrent and degenerate Sicarius” as the perpetrator of the “unconscionably heinous attack.” Amaranthe was mentioned at the end as an accomplice-no colorful adjectives for her.
She sighed. So much for getting her name cleared. At least the newspaper said Sespian had survived his injuries and was recovering.
When she returned to the icehouse, she found Sicarius still on the cot in the office. Not surprising after the previous night’s events. Her shoulder ached from the ore car crash, but, between the creature and the twenty guards, he had received a far worse battering than her. His eyes were open, though, and he had bathed and changed clothes. His gaze followed her into the room.
Not sure of his mood-they had not spoken more than two words since fleeing the smelter-she set the newspaper, a couple of straw hats, homespun shirts, and overalls on the desk. Remembering she still had Sicarius’s black dagger, she laid it on the pile of gear next to his cot. She imagined it happy to once again be nestled amongst the throwing knives, garrotes, poison vials, and other mortality-inducing appurtenances.
“You came back,” Sicarius said.
“Yes.” Amaranthe flipped over the empty chicken crate, sat before the stove, and regarded him. Had he thought she wouldn’t? Maybe he was looking forward to returning to a solitary life free of pestering womenfolk. “Guess I’m like a persistent toenail fungus, huh?”
“Hm.” Sicarius sat up on the cot and dropped his feet to the floor. His face betrayed no pain, but stiffness marked his movements. “A stray cat perhaps.”
“Adorable, loyal, and lovable?”
“Nosey, curious, and independent.” His eyes crinkled. “Not something you plan to bring home.”
Amaranthe found hope in his light tone. “But something you appreciate once it’s there?”
Sicarius stood, grabbed the desk chair, and dragged it over to the stove. He sat close, looked her in the eye, and said, “Yes.”
She held his gaze for a moment, then blushed and studied a whorl on a floorboard. It was silly she felt so pleased. It wasn’t as if he had admitted some undying love-ancestors’ eternal warts, he’d compared her to an alley cat. Still, she thought that yes might have also meant, “I’m sorry I lost my temper, and thanks for coming to help.”
Sicarius picked up the newspaper and read the front page. Though his expression never changed, Amaranthe grimaced in sympathy.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out with Sespian,” she said. “I’d hoped you would save him, and he would see you save him, and you two could…”
“We completed our mission. Hollowcrest, Larocka, and Arbitan are dead,” Sicarius said, “and, outside the smelter, I found the lieutenant who betrayed Sespian. He had this.” Sicarius showed her a glowing purple stone.
Amaranthe fished out its mate. “Larocka had the other in her office.”
Sicarius nodded. “He won’t be a problem again.”
“That’s good, but any chance you and Sespian had of forging a relationship was dashed. Those things you said to buy time… I don’t know if he heard it all, but the papers make you out to be the mastermind behind the kidnapping. He’ll only fear and hate you after this.”
“Then it is how it’s always been. He is safe for now. That’s the only thing that matters.”
Sicarius spoke as unemotionally and matter-of-factly as ever. And Amaranthe didn’t believe him for a heartbeat. She lifted a hand, intending to pat him on the arm, but, in a fit of courage, she leaned over and hugged him. He did not return the embrace, but he did not pull away either. Though she had only meant to comfort him, she found herself noticing hard muscle beneath her arms, soft hair against her cheek, and the clean, masculine scent of warm skin washed with lye soap.
Amaranthe blushed and withdrew. The blond eyebrow he twitched at her was a little too knowing.
She cleared her throat. “How did you know Sespian was at that smelter anyway?”
“I remembered it from the list of properties we researched. Where else would you take someone to burn him alive?”
“Ah, quite.” Amaranthe decided not to mention the intervening clue she had needed to make the deduction.
Sicarius lifted his chin toward the pile of farmer clothing on the desk. “What’s the next scheme?”
“I need to get the men out of jail,” she said. “They started a fight and stole an enforcer truck in order to provide a distraction for me. It seems they were incarcerated shortly after.” She was not sure how Books had ended up in jail as well, but she had heard him throwing vocabulary words at Maldynado when she was scouting around the back of the building.
“Are you planning to plow them out?” Sicarius picked up one of the straw hats and turned it over in his hands.
“You could come along and find out.”
With his goal accomplished, he had no reason to stay with them, but she hoped he would.
“To what ends?” he asked.
She opened her mouth to say getting the men out of jail was ends enough but smothered the words. Sicarius wouldn’t care.
“I need them for my next plan,” she said instead.
“What plan?”
What plan indeed. She thought of the last time she had hastily devised a scheme to pique his interest. This time, there was none of that blunt coldness in his inquiry. Maybe he didn’t really want to leave.
To give herself time to think, Amaranthe opened the door to the cast-iron stove and shoveled in a heap of coal. She had burned the counterfeit bills as soon as she woke, and only piles of ash remained. She would clean the stove out before they left, which would be soon. It was time to find a new hideout, a place from which they could launch…