Peer leaned back against the wall and stared across at Malia. The Watcher woman was sitting with her eyes closed, though Peer knew she was not asleep. She was meditating, perhaps, or simply thinking about what had happened and what was to come. The woman was Gorham's friend, and if put in this situation a few days before, Peer would have been quizzing her nonstop about her old lover. But that seemed so inconsequential now, compared to what was happening. Gorham had given Peer to the Marcellans for the good of the Watchers, and she had to accept what had failed between them for the good of the whole city.
Far too long, she thought.
"We should go," Peer said. "Make our own way in, look elsewhere. We can cover more ground than-"
"Than invisible people?" Malia asked without opening her eyes.
A distant wailing sound began-but this was different. The one they'd heard before had sounded like the cries of a wounded animal, but this was more regular. A continuous rise and fall.
Malia opened her eyes. "That's an alarm."
"They've been caught."
"Or they have him." Malia stood and approached the window beside Peer, sword in her hand. She was edgy, more animated than Peer had seen her in a while. Maybe she'd simply been preparing for this.
"We need to be ready to move as soon as they're here," Malia said. "We'll go on ahead, make sure the route out's clear."
"What about Rufus?"
"They'll be protecting him." She nodded at Peer, then clasped her arm. "He's more important to the city than to you, Peer."
"I know that," she said, but the truth hurt.
They watched the landscape outside, unable to see far because of the honeycomb structures filling the dome. And when the Unseen returned, it was not from the direction they expected.
"We need to move quickly," a voice said. Peer spun around and raised her short sword, and Alexia stood behind them.
"You have him?" Malia asked.
Alexia leaned against the wall and took several deep breaths, fighting off a faint. "Yes. I came on ahead."
"Is he…?" Peer began.
"He's fine. Unconscious. I had to knock him out. I'm not sure he really wants to come."
"What?"
"Doesn't matter now," Malia said. "So, you're the soldier. What's the best way to go from here?"
Alexia grinned. "Well, when I was a Blade, in situations such as this we'd usually resort to running like fuck." The others entered behind her through a gap left by a fallen walclass="underline" Nophel, the two other Unseen… and, slung between them, Rufus.
"Back the way we came," Alexia said. "But, to stay together, we all need to remain seen, unless you two-"
"You'll have more of a chance on your own," Peer said. "Fade out again, and go as fast as you can. Malia and I will remember the way on our own. And if we trail behind you…"
"Yes," Malia said. "It'll be us they catch first, and that will slow them down."
"A drop of blood is all it takes," Nophel said.
"No," Peer said, and Malia also shook her head. It was no longer simply fear of the condition that made them refuse. It was the realization that they could provide a distraction.
"Fine," Alexia said without argument, and the Unseen began to fade. She placed her hands on either side of the unconscious Rufus's face and concentrated, and he, too, began to fade.
"What?" Malia gasped, surprised, and before Nophel flittered from visibility, he pointed at his bleeding arm.
They slipped from the building. Peer had never felt so naked and exposed. The dome sloped away above them, and without staring up it could have been just another expanse of gray sky. A thousand windows stared down at them, dark openings in the faces of incredible structures, and behind any one there could have been a Dragarian waiting for this moment. Perhaps they've been playing us all along, Peer thought, and it was an unsettling idea because…
Because she'd been thinking the same about Rufus. He'd killed the Border Spite and the Watcher easily enough, and he'd fled the Baker's laboratory as soon as he heard the truth-almost as if he'd known the truth all along, and this was all just a ploy to get here.
But perhaps her imagination was running away with her. If there was any truth in that, he'd have forced them to let him stay. He might talk like a child, but she had a feeling he had a much wider understanding of things than any of them gave him credit for.
They approached the dome's edge, dropped into the dried canal, and headed back down into the tunnels from which they'd emerged an unknown time ago. Sunlight still streamed through the hidden windows in the dome's roof, but it had taken on a darker, deeper hue, and she suspected that dusk was approaching outside. She wondered how much things would have changed when dawn next touched the city.
It was as they struck alight their oil torches that Peer first heard the sounds of pursuit.
She and Malia froze and stared at each other, heads tilted. The sound came again-a low, secretive grinding, like something dragging itself over the ground.
"You go on," Malia said, and before Peer could protest, the Watcher woman was climbing back toward daylight.
Peer moved deeper into the tunnels, alone and terrified, and looked for a place to wait. She could not simply leave Malia behind and flee, much as every part of her wanted to. And neither could she move on; even now she was unsure of whether she was going in the right direction. So she hunkered down behind the remains of a tumbled wall, wondered what the building had been, and soon heard footsteps pounding toward her from the direction of the dome. She thought of extinguishing the torch but decided to keep it alight. If the person running at her was not Malia, she'd need to see what she was fighting.
"We can't stay here," Malia said, rushing past. "Come on."
Peer ran after her, handing Malia the torch and trusting the Watcher's instinct. Malia moved this way and that without any apparent hesitation, and Peer only hoped she remembered the way correctly.
"Lots of them," Malia said. "We could wait and fight, but we wouldn't hold them up for long. Useless."
"So what?" Peer panted.
"We find somewhere narrow and try to hold them back."
"Just you and me?"
"Yeah. Narrow enough for one or two, and we'll do what we can."
We'll do what we can. That meant die. Peer felt curiously detached from the possibility, as if she'd already died once before and knew it was not so bad. Yet her will to live was strong-to see Rufus and help him as much as she could. To see Gorham again. He'd been afraid when she left him with the Baker, and the manner of their parting…
I could have said goodbye, she thought. I could have given him some inkling of forgiveness, at least. But that would have been a betrayal of herself. She had not forgiven him, could not. But that didn't mean they could not still be friends, of a sort.
And Penler. She'd made herself a promise to see him one more time. Failing in that would feel like letting him, not herself, down.
Behind them in the tunnels, echoes drifted in: growls and scrapes, the flapping of wings, the slithering of things across the ground. They merged with the sounds of their own footfalls. The sounds were growing louder, even though Peer and Malia were running as fast as they could. Whether they reached a suitable place of ambush or not, the choice to run or fight would soon be made for them.
Peer drew her sword, and it felt pathetic in her hand. Not long now. Not long until she discovered the truth about death and what lay beyond. Would she be taken down to Hanharan, in whom she did not believe, and welcomed into his shadowed embrace? Or would her senses blink out one by one until there was nothing to comprehend and no comprehension at all?
A Watcher all her life, right then Peer was no longer sure what she believed.