Dranik hunched behind her, alongside his sister, his hair stiff with sweat and his forehead gleaming. Even in the near-dark of the candlelight the angry bruise marring his cheek and jaw stood out.
“You have to hide me,” he whispered, voice strained with urgency.
“I’d like to drop you down a well,” Latia snapped, earning a sharp hush from the table next to them. Dranik’s gaze flitted around, uneasy. Ripka knew that pattern of looking – he was checking to see if he’d been followed.
“Let’s talk outside,” Ripka whispered. If Dranik was going to interrupt the performance for her, she’d be damned if she was going to be left out of any juicy information.
Dranik paled a little. “Not out front.”
Ripka bit back sarcasm and nodded. Luckily for them all she’d made a habit of checking every room she entered for entrances and exits while in the watch. “There’s a door on the back end of the bar, a service entrance that dumps to the side of the building. We can loop around to the back from there.”
Nods all around. These two clearly weren’t used to handling themselves in any flavor of real crises, they’d handed the tiller of the situation over to her without a second thought. Ripka stood, careful not to scrape her chair, and soft-footed her way toward the door, drawing a few murmurs of annoyance from the other patrons. She’d expected Honey to stay behind, but the woman followed them, head tipped toward the stage no matter which direction they turned.
The bartender threw her a sour look as she grabbed a nearly spent candle from the edge of the bar, but said nothing. The door was unlocked and didn’t so much as creak as she swung it open into the night. Though the place was half-burnt, someone had obviously put some thought into oiling the hinges.
She shivered in the night air, missing her watcher coat, and checked down both ends of the alley before ushering their little group out. The moment the door shut, Latia jabbed her brother in the chest with one finger.
“Just what in the pits are you doing?”
He shifted his weight side to side, glancing down the lane toward the front of the building. Ripka decided to save him.
“Let’s talk around back.”
Latia rolled her eyes and flounced her skirts, but followed Ripka all the same. A packed-dirt patio reached from the back of the performance hall to a haphazard stone fence stacked high as Ripka’s shoulders. The sight of it made her uneasy – such structures were known to collapse in Aransa – so she sidled a little closer to the building. A door stood in the middle of the back wall, a few chords of music seeping out, and piles of cloth and broken or half-finished stage props dotted the area. Dranik made a complete survey of their environs before he dared to speak.
“We have to get away from here, Latia. They’ll find me any moment – you must hide me!”
“Hush.” Latia crossed her arms and stared down her long nose at him. “It’s bad enough you disturbed the performance, don’t yell so that the whole theater can hear you from out here, too.”
“Latia,” Ripka said, watching yellow bile tinge Dranik’s cheeks. “He’s serious, I think. What happened, Dranik?”
“Later,” he hissed, though this time he kept his voice down. “They don’t know my name. If we go to your studio–”
“I am in the middle of a piece!”
“Shhh,” Honey murmured.
They all stopped cold, every last gaze swiveling to the golden-haired woman. Her head was no longer tilted toward the building. She’d turned slightly, angling her body the way they’d come, head cocked as if listening. Ripka heard thudding, thought it was the sound of her heart, but it was too disjointed. And growing louder.
“Company,” Ripka whispered, and slid into a ready crouch.
Dranik moaned and slunk back, grabbing his sister’s sleeve to yank her towards a deadfall in the fence. She swore and stumbled, painted sandals twisting in the dust.
Precision echoed in those footsteps, a practiced pattern that thundered through Ripka’s memory. Long shadows appeared at the end of the alley, the hint of firm-lined coats evident about the pursuers’ collars. She did not need to see them to know those coats were blue.
Shit. The shadows stretched, drawing closer, and her breath came harsh between her lips. Honey’s fingers grazed her arm, and the simple touch returned her to herself. She wouldn’t have to fight them. She just needed to get Dranik and Latia out of here. Preferably without being recognized.
“Go,” she ordered, jerking her chin toward the break in the wall. Latia was first through, shoved by her brother, Honey tight on their heels. Ripka hesitated only a breath. She threw the candle.
Her aim was true. The sputtering stub of wax crashed into a pile of stage debris. She pivoted and sprinted toward the gap in the wall. Honey gripped her wrists, helping her over a low mound of rubble, as the first shouts filled the patio area.
Shouts, followed by a gut-churning whoosh. Ripka winced at the sound of the flames, the shouts of pursuit shifting to shouts of alarm. Watcher coats were made to smother fire, she told herself. They’d be all right. The patrons in the theater wouldn’t even notice.
Latia and Dranik were halfway down the road, Latia limping but pumping her arms as if her life depended on it. They cut a straight path down the center of the road. Ripka bit her lips and shared a look with Honey, who shrugged. Some people were just shit at situational awareness.
Honey at her side, Ripka jogged up to the siblings. “We need to get off the main road.”
Dranik’s eyes bulged. “Right. I, uh–”
“This way,” Latia said. She tore off toward a thin side street, the windows facing the road shuttered. Honey scampered forward and slipped her arm around Latia’s shoulders, supporting her to ease her limping, and Dranik trotted after.
A sharp whistle pierced the night. Ripka winced. She knew that sound. Though most of the watchers must have stayed behind to deal with the fire, they’d been tagged by a scout. No scout worth their salt would let a group of fugitives out of their sight before backup arrived to help.
“Go on,” Ripka ordered. “I’ll lose the scout.”
Honey threw a concerned glance over her shoulder, brows pinched together, and Ripka gave her a little nod. It was all right. She’d meet them at the studio, later. A brilliant smile flashed across Honey’s face and then she was gone, ushering the siblings down the road.
Ripka slowed her jog, taking in her surroundings. The streets were dark. Those who ran the theater must have chosen this district for its lack of population. Hond Steading’s roads sprawled in all directions, the twisting maze of a neighborhood had sprung into life spontaneously, without any pre-planning. She could use that.
She toed the ground, feeling the packed earth, the slick smoothness of the fine layer of dust that covered everything in the Scorched. She’d missed that dust while she’d been on the Remnant. It had always served to remind her how tenuous her footing truly was at any given time.
The whistle sounded again. She ducked down an alley, pressed her back against the still-warm mudbrick, evened out her breathing, and waited.
Chapter Eighteen
Pelkaia entered the house of her enemy.
By some trick of fate and misfortune of trust she was welcome here, welcome in the austere halls of the Honding family palace. Tibal had vouched for her, or perhaps Ripka, speaking of her exploits of the past and her goals for the deviants of the future. Or – and this gave her a little frisson of amusement to consider – Detan himself had, perhaps, written to his aunt and given Pelkaia praise.