“It’s not only a matter of keys, Hennan,” I began in a consoling tone. “There are other considerations. It’s not safe for a boy of your age. For a start the Dead King wants the key. We can’t hang around here, there are too many corpses, there’s too much for him to work with. . cities are built on layer upon layer of dead people. . it’s all that holds them up. And even if we made it to the right jail-”
“There are guards. A key won’t get you past the jailers.” The speaker unhooded her lantern close by, dazzling me. I scrambled back, blocked by the gate. My hands found Hennan and held him in front of me as some kind of small and ineffectual shield.
“Uh. . ah. . you have me at a disadvantage, madam.” I blinked and averted my gaze, trying to clear my eyes.
“You need to run, Jalan. Give me the key and the Dead King will follow it instead of you.” The voice seemed familiar.
“Kara?” I squinted through screwed up eyes. But the figure in front of me was small, a girl no older than Hennan, blond and pale, holding the lantern before her, her dress a simple thing of white linen, a servant’s garb.
“Give me the key and run. They’re out to get you, Jalan. You need to be safe in Vermillion.” The little girl held her hand out, palm up and open.
I blinked away tears, my eyes adjusting to the light. “What?” It didn’t make sense.
“Hennan can come with me.” She seemed frayed around the edges now, as if the shadows were nibbling at her. Frayed and. . taller.
“No.” I gripped his shoulders tighter and he gasped, trying to twist loose. Something kept me unwilling to relinquish the boy.
“Come on, Jalan, this isn’t your place. You need to get away. You need to run.” The words had a cadence to them, a rhythm that got under my skin. I did need to get away-I did need to run. No argument there.
The girl seemed more of a memory now-I could still imagine her there, see the blueness of her eyes, but if I blinked I saw Kara holding the lantern, ragged and dirt-smeared.
“It’s just a glamour, a spell to fool the eye, shake it off, and look clear,” she said, and there she was, Kara, as if she’d never been anything else. “A casting to keep me from the Frauds’ Tower. Quick. We won’t have long, the dead are moving.” And still she kept her hand out.
Hennan wrenched free of my grip. I thought he would run into her arms. Hell, I would if I knew I’d get a nice protective hug. But he ran off into the night instead-the ungrateful bastard.
Kara glanced after him and shook her head in annoyance. “He’ll have to catch us up. We need to go now! Give me the key.”
“Can’t you just hide it again?” I didn’t want to give it up-it was the only thing of value I had left. Just maybe it might earn me enough credit with Grandmother to forgive the loss of Garyus’s ships to my creditors. Besides, Kara wanted it too much. A poker player learns the signs-whatever else she said the only thing that mattered to her was that I hand her the key. “Turn it back into a rune again so the dead can’t sense it.”
Kara shook her head. “I’d been working on that enchantment for a long time and it doesn’t last long if you keep moving. It’s a static charm. Besides, the glamour that’s been hiding me has exhausted the best of my strength.”
I blinked at her. “How do I even know you are Kara? You looked like a child a moment ago. .” What might she look like in an hour? A sudden cold thought seized me. “You could be Skilfar! Maybe there never was a Kara.”
She laughed at that, not a particularly pleasant laugh it must be said. “Skilfar would have throttled you in your sleep a month back. The ability to suffer fools is a rare trait in our line.”
“Your line?”
“You’re not the only person to be a disappointment to their grandmother, Jalan.”
My eyes widened at that. The thought of that icy witch having spawned didn’t fit easily into my imagination. “I-”
“Enough. No more games.” She glanced over her shoulder as if worried about pursuit. “The key, Jalan, or I’ll take it.”
I hit her. I’m not one for hitting women. . or anyone else for that matter. In fact I’m not one for hitting anything liable to hit back, but given the choice between a hefty man and a slightly built woman I’ll punch out the woman every time. I’m not entirely clear why I hit her. Certainly I wanted to keep the key but I also didn’t want the Dead King dogging my trail all the way home along with half of Umbertide’s troops. So in many ways her offer was entirely reasonable. What was neither reasonable nor expected was the way she rolled with the blow and hit me back hard enough to break my nose and set me on my arse, my head clanging against the gate behind. She didn’t even drop her lantern.
“Last chance to do this nicely, Jalan.” She wiped blood from her split lip across the back of her hand. I wondered if prison time hadn’t addled her mind-there seemed little resemblance to the Kara I knew from the boat. . except the constant threat of violent retribution if her personal space was invaded of course. . In any event I couldn’t believe all those months of the old Jalan charm hadn’t lit a spark in her somewhere.
“Come now, Kara dear.” I said it nasally, wincing as I touched my nose.
Somehow that long thin knife of hers appeared in her hand. “It would have been better if you just-” And she slumped to the ground, folding up with a graceful economy and coming to rest in a swirl of skirts, somehow contriving to set the lantern gently beside her, the knife landing with a thump on the dusty road. Hennan stood revealed behind her, his expression hard to read, a sock that looked to be full of sand swinging from his fingers.
“Would you rescue Snorri for twenty double florins?” He glanced down at Kara but she showed no signs of rising.
“You don’t have twenty double florins.” I’d say I would do anything for twenty double florins right now.
“But would you?” he insisted.
“Hell yes.”
Hennan took a step back, knelt down, and turned the neck of the sock my way. A heavy gold coin slid out onto the dirt, another gleaming behind it. The sock looked to be full of them!
“How the hell?” I remembered the coins I’d dropped on the floor when the dead man grabbed my neck in the cell.
“Always take the money,” Hennan offered with a small grin.
THIRTY-ONE
Kara lay senseless in the dark alleyway. Senseless or dead. Snorri told me as often as not the head-struck die, or their wits are scrambled to the end of their days. Worse, like Alain DeVeer on the morning that started this long nightmare so many months ago, they might just turn around and try to kill you.
“She’s not dead,” Hennan said.
“How can you tell?” I stared hard, raising the lantern, looking for some small signs of breath being drawn.
“She hasn’t got up and tried to bite your face off.”
“Ah. True.” I looked left then right down the alley. “Let’s get out of here.”
I led off and Hennan followed. Any small pang of guilt I felt at leaving Kara unconscious in the gutter washed away with the thought that if there were dead things stalking us in the dark then we were leading them away from her. The blood, continuing to run from my nose, dripped from my chin and left a pattering trail behind us. I could taste it running into the back of my throat, hot and coppery. I swallowed without thinking. Blood triggers the spell-the only thought I had time for before I pitched forward into my own darkness.
• • •
The night swallows me and I rush through it, blind and reckless, the wind tugging at my clothes. For some endless time there’s nothing, no sound, no light, no ground beneath my feet though I’m running fast as I can, faster than is safe. A pin-prick of brightness pierces me, so thin and sharp I wonder that it doesn’t hurt. I race toward it-there’s no other direction here-and it grows, becoming larger and brighter and brighter and more large until it fills my vision and there’s no rush, no running, no motion, just me at the window, leaning across the sill, looking out, out onto a sunlit city far below.