The district of Kollws Vymynal covered the smallest of Blood of Arawn's seven hills. The East Gate was set into the wall at the foot of Kollws Vymynal, which put it closest to the fighting outside. Here Paet could just hear the clash of blades and the shrieks of horses and men mixed in with thundering hooves and reitic blasts.
How long had it been since he'd left the embassy? His internal time sense told him it was only about twenty minutes. That gave him just enough time to retrieve Jenien and make it to the Port-Herion Lock before the Masters shut the thing down, stranding them in Annwn. Not the end of the world, but close enough.
The streets of Kollws Vymynal twisted and doubled back upon themselves, and what signs existed were printed in tiny ancient script that beggared deciphering. The district's inhabitants had either bolted themselves inside their homes, drawing the curtains and shutters tight, or had joined the frantic knots of refugees. Most were headed toward the Southwest Gate, which meant that Paet was fighting against their current. From the city they would beg passage to a different world or strike out southward, hoping to disappear into the plains villages.
The clock in a nearby Chthonic temple struck three and Paet whispered a curse. This was taking too long.
Paet finally found the address he was looking for at the end of a small culde-sac, a four-story tenement that smelled heavily of burnt cooking oil and pepper and rot. This was the address Jenien had written down in her logbook when she'd left the embassy that morning, long before word of Mab's invasion had reached the city. Just the address and a name: Prae Benesile. All she'd told Pact was that she was going to visit a "person of interest," which could mean just about anything. By nightfall, while Blood of Arawn convulsed in preparation for its imminent surrender, she still hadn't returned. Paet had waited for her until he could wait no longer and had then gone after her.
"We won't hold the lock for you," Ambassador Tract had told him diffidently. Everything about Tract was hesitant and noncommittal; his appointment had been a sinecure, and laughably so. In happier times, Annwn had been a cozy assignment. Now Tract was in over his head, but at least had the sense to realize it. "If you're not back by sunrise," Tract had said, stuffing a valise haphazardly with documents, "you're on your own."
Pact breathed deeply ten times. He consciously slowed his heart and forced out the remainder of the prickly heat that filled his blood. The fear of the body could be controlled easily, but for the fear of the mind there was no cure. Only action, despite it.
At the end of the street someone smashed the window of a bakery and grabbed a basket of bread amid surprised shouts.
Pact let himself into the tenement building and hurried up the stairs, making no sound that any Fae or Annwni could hear; of course, the things he was most concerned about were neither, and had excellent hearing. Still. The stairway was filled with cooking smells and body odor. When he reached the third floor he stepped carefully out of the stairwell. The narrow hallway was empty; several doors along its length were open, their inhabitants apparently not seeing the point of locking up behind them. Many of the older, poorer residents of Annwn had fought against Mab's Army in the Sixweek War twenty years previously, and had apparently had enough of the Unseelie for a lifetime.
The apartment Pact was searching for was near the end of the hall. Its door was open as well, though light still burned within. Pact took a long, serrated knife from within his cloak, testing the blade with his thumb by force of habit. He pushed the door open gently and waited, listening. His hardlearned caution warred in his mind with his sense of urgency. If ever there was a time to take a risk, this was it. He swore under his breath and stepped into the apartment.
It was small, a single room lit by a lone witchlamp sconce set into the wall. The long-untuned bilious green light cast harsh shadows over the furniture, placing imagined adversaries in every corner. A tattered cot slumped beneath the waxed-paper window. A chipped chamber pot sat in the corner. Books and bits of paper and parchment were everywhere, piled on the floor, leaned in uneven stacks against the wall, scattered across the cot. There was no sign of Jenien.
Stop and think. Breathe. Relax and smooth the edges of consciousness. Paet picked up a book at random and opened it. It was written by Prae Benesile himself, a work of philosophy, something to do with the history of the Chthonic religion. He put it down and picked up another. This one was a collection of Thule religious poetry, prayers to the bound gods, hymns of supplication, prophecies of liberation and doom. A sampling of the rest of the books revealed most of them to be of a kind: works of philosophy, sacred texts-many regarding the Chthonics, but also some Arcadian scrolls, a few codices from the Annwni emperor cult. Some were written in languages that Paet didn't recognize. There was nothing here to indicate that Prae Benesile was anything other than a reclusive scholar.
Paet sniffed. Blood. Blood had been spilled in this room, and recently. He knelt down and examined the dusty floorboards. Too many shadows. Paet glanced toward the window, shrugged, and created a stronger, pure white witchlight that suffused the entire room. The blood on the floor was tacky and brown, smeared in a scuffle. Paet heard the choking cough from beneath the cot just as his eyes followed the trail of drying blood toward it. He tested his grip on the knife and then channeled Motion and drew the cot quickly backward with a twist of his mind.
Jenien lay curled in a fetal position, clutching her abdomen, breathing raggedly. She looked up at him, and her eyes went wide in her pale face.
"Watching," she whispered. "Bel Zheret are here."
Paet's heart leapt forcefully at the name. He stood and whirled, brandishing the knife. Nothing moved.
He turned back to Jenien and knelt before her. "If they were here I either slipped past them, or they're long gone.
"Said they'd be back for me," Jenien wheezed. She was having trouble breathing. Paet gently pulled her hands away from her belly, pulled aside her shredded blouse. Jenien was going to die; there was nothing he could do for her. These were wounds that not even a Shadow could recover from.
Paet found a pillow on the overturned cot and put it under Jenien's head. Her hair was wet with perspiration. She reached for his wrist and grabbed it with weak fingers.
"Mab's coming," Jenien observed. "Thought we'd have a few more days."
"Things at the embassy have become frantic to say the least."
Jenien chuckled softly. "Traet running around like a headless chicken?" "Yes."
"Is that knife sharp, Paet?" she said after a brief pause.
"I'm getting you out of here," he said. "Just rest a moment longer."
"Remember that night in Sylvan?" she asked. She was starting to slur her speech. Her body trembled. "The little theater with the terrible play?"
"I remember," Paet said, smiling.
"I bet if we were normal we could have fallen in love that night," she said, sighing.
Paet felt his emotions receding as she spoke. The world became flat. Jenien was an object; a bleeding thing with no impact. A problem to be solved. Was this lack of feeling something he'd always had, or something he'd developed? He couldn't remember. Had he become empty like this when he became a Shadow, or was it the emptiness that qualified him for the job? It didn't seem to matter.
"It was the mulled wine," he said, sitting her up. "It was strong. Hard to tell through the cinnamon and cloves."