A tense excitement pulsed through my body. I moved in behind one man, matching my steps to his. As he turned, I slipped up to the man just ahead of him. I was so close I could see the short hairs at the back of his neck. I could have slit his throat before he knew I was there. I held my breath. As the Inquisitor passed another of his own men, I switched off again. I moved with each of them, pairing and parting like a spreading disease.
At last I stopped. Slowly, I knelt down. The little Prodigal had been smart enough to know that the Inquisition men were expecting to find her up in the tree branches. Instead she crouched low, camouflaging her form in the lush shadows of irises and tulips.
She froze absolutely still as I knelt in front of her. She was small and filthy. Her short hair was caked with mud and her clothes smelled like rotting leaves. Tiny flickers of red fire moved through her dark eyes as she watched me. She looked like the kind of girl who bit men's fingers off. I held out my hand, letting her see my long black nails clearly. Then I raised a finger to my lips and stood back up. The rest I left to her. If she chose, she could remain hidden where she was. I was willing to offer her my help, but I wasn't going to force it on her.
As I began making my way back across the park, I glanced over my shoulder. She was following me. I didn't slow down for her or wait when she fell behind. I took care of myself. My attention circled between the movements of the men around me and the slashing searchlights overhead. I darted into shadows, then bolted from them moments before the sweeping lights burned them away.
All I offered the Prodigal girl was a chance to learn what I knew. I showed her the way out, but it was up to her to get through. She had to be quick and silent. One step in the wrong place and she would be trapped under dozens of hook nets. Then the Inquisition would have her. She had no second chances.
When I reached St. Christopher's Cathedral, I bounded up into an alcove of sacred statues. A cluster of sleeping pigeons broke apart and flew up into the eaves. I leaned back against one of the weathered stone angels and watched the Inquisition's search. The lights continued to probe through the lines of trees and flash up into the cloudless night sky.
I didn't really expect the girl to follow me. When she floated up into the cranny next to me, I said nothing. I kept looking out across the park. I wondered if Harper lived in one of those houses.
"Do I know you?" the girl asked.
"I doubt it," I replied.
She was small, but older than I had first thought. Her expressions were hard and suspicious. I noticed the hilt of a knife jutting up from her belt. Her fingertips remained close to the knife as she watched me.
I turned my attention up into the dark sky. Above us, the stars still shone like jewels. Their luminescent colors shimmered and twisted with the distortions of the winds. The night was still deep and beautiful, but I couldn't seem to lose myself in it.
I watched a bat swoop through the air and snap up a firefly.
"Why did you help me?" the girl asked.
I didn't answer.
It was none of her business. She wasn't really the one I had wanted to save from the nets. My kindness had nothing to do with this girl, here now. It had just been a drug-addled attempt to comfort my own past. No one had come to my rescue when I had been trapped by the Inquisition. No one had been there for Sariel. So, years too late, I had come, as if I could somehow redeem either of us by saving this girl. I felt disgusted by my own sentimentality.
I scratched one of my black nails hard against the tip of a stone angel's wing. It left a white scrape, but nothing more.
"Are you a member of Good Commons?" the girl asked. The fissures of red fire in her eyes pulsed wider.
At the mention of Good Commons, I knew my escape into the sweetness of ophorium and the depths of the night had been futile. I couldn't out-distance the world that surrounded me. At every turn it seemed to close in over me. Still, I refused to abandon my night of thoughtless beauty. I pointedly gazed up at the North Star. Its blue brilliance burned into my eyes.
"Look at it." I pointed into the sky. "All it has to do is shine. Simply hang there in the sky and shine."
"Is this some kind of game?" the girl demanded.
"No."
"Are you drunk?" she asked suddenly.
"I wish I were," I said.
"You aren't with Good Commons?" she asked again.
I gave up. This girl just wasn't going to go away. I had made the great error of being kind to her, and because of that, she doubtless felt that there had to be some connection between us.
"I helped you because I thought it might have been a good thing to do for another Prodigal. I had no other reason beyond that," I said.
I frowned at one of the cathedral angels. Its face and shoulders were thick and distorted from the months of accumulated pigeon shit.
The girl studied me intently for a moment, then let her fingers fall back from the hilt of her knife. She looked out over the park. Inquisitors still searched the trees and undergrowth. She smiled, watching them.
"Do you know why I came here?" the girl asked.
"You came to do harm," I replied.
The girl's eyes narrowed. "What makes you think that?"
"You're carrying one knife in your belt and another in your boot." I took a small sniff of the air between us. There was a strong scent like that of scorched limes: sweet, bitter, and burning. "You're sweating vengeance. But what gives you away the most are your eyes. They've split. Red fires are shining through the cracks."
She looked surprised. She instinctively lifted her hand to her dirty face, then stopped. There was nothing she could do about it now. Slowly, she turned back to watch the movements in the park.
I looked back up into the sky. The ophorium ran thin through my bloodstream now. Flight and concentration had burned it to little more than vapor. I felt strangely cold, and everything around me seemed slightly ugly.
The shifting breeze caught the reek of rotting fish and sewage from the edge of the river. The moon seemed to have yellowed and cracked like a rotten tooth. Even the North Star took on the tawdry shine of costume jewelry.
"They murdered my friends," the girl said quietly. "One after another. Lily, Rose, Peter—"
"Peter Roffcale?" I asked softly. I knew it had to be him.
"Yes. Did you know him?" she asked.
"Just in passing," I replied.
"They strung him up and gutted him." The red fissures in the girl's eyes spread, swallowing her dark irises. Blood-red tears welled in her eyes and slid down her cheeks. "They gutted him like a fish. Like an animal. They did the same thing to the others, to Lily, to Rose..." She wiped her tears, smearing bloody slashes across the back of her hand. "I tried to stop them tonight, but I got there too late. They murdered Tom. He was just a boy." More bloody tears dribbled down her cheeks, and she scrubbed at them angrily.
"I'm sorry," I said. The girl hardly heard me.
"They'll pay. I'm going to make them pay. I don't care if I have to go to hell to do it. I'm going to kill them all." She stood up and glared down at the Inquisition men in the park. Slowly, her gaze moved on to the houses on the south side of the park. I remembered that I had first seen her floating just outside the window of one of those houses.