"What was the truth?" Peer asked.
"Back then he could hardly live with himself. He helped me when things turned really bad after your capture, when the purge came. He was a real friend, and I sucked up all the help he gave, giving nothing back. He was grieving too. He spent a long time trying to convince himself that you were dead, yet all the time he held a spark of you inside."
"I'm not sure I believe that," Peer said, and Malia's strong fingers bit into her arm, surprising her.
"You asked me to tell you about him and Nadielle," she said. "That can only start by talking about him and you. So give me the courtesy of assuming I know what I'm saying."
Peer nodded but did not reply.
"Giving you up was the hardest thing he ever had to do. By then he was already working his way up what was left of the Watcher inner circles. He knew what your capture would do: protect the Baker, for a time. And he knew that her involvement with the Watchers was utterly imperative to provide us with what we've always sought."
"A way to escape Echo City when the city's end-time arrives."
"Yes."
"And she hasn't found it yet."
"The Baker's line is long," Malia said after a short pause. "You know that. Strange people. Their presence ebbs and flows through the city's history, from criminal to hero. This Nadielle and her mother before her-they were the first to offer such crucial help to the Watchers." She swished her hand through roadside grasses as they walked, releasing a cloud of feathered seeds to the air. "She's important."
"So betraying me helped Gorham save the Baker." Saying it so starkly made her feel sick inside. Had it been intentional? Had a history already existed between the two of them?
"Don't think about that too hard," Malia said. "He did what was best for all of us, but even that only delayed the inevitable."
"No," Peer said. "It saved the Baker. I suppose I'm a hero." The bitterness in her voice was so sudden and intense that Malia laughed out loud. Peer felt a flush of anger… and then she, too, laughed. It was the only way to hold back the rage.
I shouldn't continue down this path, she thought. It's not my place to pry. But now this was her place again. She'd come home, and however dangerous it was, and however temporary her homecoming might turn out to be, there was part of her history missing. Knowing what had happened after she was taken, tortured, and banished might go some way to filling in those blanks.
"And after I left?"
"The purge," Malia said, and in her voice Peer heard a sense of relief. Perhaps this was something she needed to talk about to keep her memories, and her fury, fresh. "The Scarlet Blades were sent out by the Marcellans-and their Hanharan-fucking priests-to stamp out the Watchers' organization once and for all. They'd already destroyed our political side, with you and the others being killed or…"
"Tortured," Peer said lightly.
"Yes, that. So they went after the rest of the organization. Announced it as a banned group, dangerous to the well-being of the city. Bad times. They swept through Course, killing and arresting as they went. Some of us escaped, some hid, a few fought. But fighting wasn't the thing back then, and it likely never will be. We're the sensible minority in a city of unreason."
"How did you escape?"
"Bren and I went down into the Echoes around the water refineries. We thought we'd be safe, because it's endless down there. And he hoped that after long enough we'd be forgotten and could return topside and live again. But there were Blades waiting down there. Maybe it was luck on their part, or more likely they'd already tortured favored hiding places out of Watchers they'd caught. They took Bren, but I slipped away-"
"From Scarlet Blades?" Peer winced instantly, ashamed at the doubt her voice betrayed. But Malia saw Peer's regret and looked down at her feet as they passed from unsurfaced paths onto a road of condensed gravel.
"Bren fought them," she said. "Gave me a moment to flee and hide. Just enough time, the edge I needed, and I ran and ran. I heard him shouting from behind me, a long time after I'd started. Heard them following, like rats scampering through the Echoes. And something…" She trailed off.
"Something?"
"Something saved me."
They stopped walking and Malia sat on a low wall beside the road. "There's a safe house not far from here," she said. "Devin and Bethy will hopefully be there. We need to start spreading the word about Rufus."
"Yes," Peer said, "but what saved you?"
"Phantoms."
Peer frowned. Shook her head. "They're echoes of Echoes."
"Some say they're unsettled wraiths of people killed by Blades in the distant past and that they hate them still." Malia shrugged. "But something covered me down there, smothered me from view, kept me still. I saw three Blades pass within stabbing distance of me, and if I'd been able to move I'd have gone for them. Might've taken two of the bastards with me, at least. But it kept me from moving."
Peer looked across a field of blooming fruit trees at the reservoir and let the brief silence grow.
"They sacrificed Bren on the wall," Malia said at last.
"I know. I'm sorry." Peer saw the glitter of tears in Malia's eyes. An uncharitable thought came-So she does feel-and Peer glanced away in shame.
"As far as I know, the thing with Gorham and Nadielle was all her," the Watcher woman said, wiping angrily at her eyes. "And I suppose he was feeling… vulnerable. Don't know what she sees in him, frankly."
Peer glanced at her, frowning, but then she saw Malia's expression soften somewhat, the creases around her eyes and mouth defined in the morning sun as she almost smiled.
"Yeah," Peer said. "Lousy in bed too."
Malia chuckled. Peer laughed. And then Malia stood quickly as something flitted overhead, flying low and fast toward a spread of buildings to the south.
"What is it?" Peer asked.
"Messenger bat. We use them, but only in emergencies. Too easy to trace. Come on."
Malia led them toward the safe house, and Peer hoped it would remain safe for a little while longer.
It took a while to reach the house, buried as it was far up one of the sloping streets leading toward the walls of Marcellan Canton. Malia jogged steadily, but soon Peer found herself out of breath and sweating, her old hip wound aching. All those long days harvesting stoneshrooms must have detracted from the fitness she'd once enjoyed.
The streets were busy already with people on their way to and from their places of work, and Peer and Malia attracted more than a few curious glances. We should slow down, Peer wanted to say, but something had Malia unsettled. So Peer stayed quiet, concentrating on the pounding heels of the woman ahead of her, and hoped that chance favored her this morning. Hers was not an especially recognizable face, but since breaking out of Skulk she was more than aware that a death sentence hung over her.
"Not far," Malia said over her shoulder, and Peer knew that the Watcher must have heard her panting.
They reached a small, sloping square where a group of musicians had set up their instruments on a leveled timber area. The musicians stood and sat with their backs to the Marcellan wall, their gentle strains serenading people rushing here, there, or somewhere else. Few stopped to watch, but the musicians seemed unconcerned. Peer had seen their like many times before, and from her time with the Watchers she knew more about them than did most Echo City inhabitants. Their music was designed to lull, written by songsmiths embedded deep within Order of Hanharan circles. Listen to enough of that crap, she remembered Malia's husband, Bren, saying across a table of empty wine bottles and spilled ale, and you'll be paying homage to Hanharan's asshole by morning. They'd laughed at the blasphemy and glared at any tavern patrons daring to throw a disapproving glance their way.