The man stopped footlengths away. The light of the nearest lamp caught his face. Though light red in skin, he had the distinct pinched nose bridge and rounded lips of an Alinean, and when he opened his mouth, Amara recognized him straightaway. “I was sure you would’ve left by now,” he said.
The bartender.
Cilla knew him, too. “You helped us!” She seemed not to know what to do with herself. A flicker of a smile crossed her lips before she stood firm again. “Will you do so another time?”
“Without question.”
Amara stayed quiet. If not for Cilla, the bartender would have let her die. He didn’t even acknowledge her now.
Cilla had the same thought. “If you’re loyal to my family, why didn’t you help in the first place? Wouldn’t you want to aid anyone escaping a minister, servant or not?”
The man swallowed. The knob in his throat rose sharply. “If I’d known—”
“That’s not what I asked,” Cilla said. A fisher approached, holding a small, furred Elig horse by its reins. It dragged along an empty cart smelling of day-old fish. The bartender waited anxiously to speak until the fisher passed.
“I respect servants for their duty and escaped ones for their common sense, but publicly helping one would be dangerous. If the ministers found out, they’d ruin my business.”
“Helping the princess seems even more dangerous.”
“The alternative was disobeying my princess’s orders.”
Cilla nodded. Being demanding came so easily to her. When she spoke, people listened. When she asked, people answered.
“If you’ll permit me to help you a second time,” the bartender said, “I’m here to see off a friend of mine. She captains a ship that’s sailing for the mainland in an hour. She won’t betray you, though I can’t vouch for passengers and crew.”
“We’ll have to risk it,” Cilla said.
“Are you coming back?” the bartender asked. His eyes gleamed in the gaslight. “Not to the island. To the throne.”
Cilla smiled uneasily. “Eventually. The question remains how.”
“You have a lot of people behind you.”
Cilla straightened her back and raised her chin. Amara had seen Cilla look genuinely regal; this was not it. She faked it well, though. “Show us your friend’s ship.”
They’d go separately. If the marshals knew about Cilla, they’d also know about the Elig girl with her. If Cilla and Amara traveled side by side, they’d be checked for certain. But under the guise of being crew—there wasn’t time to find other clothes, but Cilla had rubbed sand into her scarf to stand out less—they might have a shot at sneaking aboard unnoticed.
The bartender and Amara would board first, with the captain and Cilla following later. She’d have to rely on their loyalty to keep Cilla safe.
Amara didn’t like relying on anyone for something this big. She reminded herself not to check on Cilla as she walked alongside the bartender, lugging a sack of supplies. She eyed the marshals instead. Two walked toward the harbor house, which an Alinean girl was just leaving, smoothing her shirt and looking displeased. She was Cilla’s age, maybe older. The marshals must’ve checked her for tattoos.
The harbor air was filled with the scents of fish and salt and wet wood, and no trace of the sun, though the sky was slowly lightening. Their ship was a small fluit moored near the harbor house. The crew loaded crates via pulleys and thick ropes. They’d stop at an island or two, load passengers and cargo, then head for Bedam.
Nearby, a fisher snarled at her crew. Amara jerked at the sound. It wasn’t directed at her, but still, she stood out too much. Elig were a rare sight around harbors. She stepped to the right to put the fishing crew between her and the harbor house.
She meant to step right. But something glued her feet to the ground.
“Keep moving.” The bartender passed her, looking straight ahead.
Amara pulled at her foot again, then another time. She was stuck. Just as she was about to try to call the bartender back, the cobblestones let her go. She tumbled forward. Her kneecaps almost cracked. Her hands broke her fall, and as she hit the ground, something rippled through her—more than just the impact of bony hands on hard stone.
Her hands pulsed. They lit up like the tattoo on Cilla’s chest. She tried to climb to her feet before anyone noticed, but it was too late for that—the glow wasn’t just in her hands. It shone through the threads of her winterwear and the folds of her scarf, and she had to squint to keep out the light that flared from the rest of her face.
The ground glowed, too, pooling around her feet and running from there in a thin, smooth line to both sides, from the harbor house to the market, forcing anyone who wanted to board the ships to cross it.
The marshals had gotten a mage to circle the area. Her crossing the line had activated a spell.
Mixed magic.
Panic rose in her throat. The line of light flared, turning the solid white of sunlit metal. The light fanned out, and cobblestones cracked all around it, their polished surfaces breaking open. She heard the pop-pop-pop of pebbles launching up and bouncing footlengths away.
Just as quickly, it all died.
Was that it? Was it over? The memory of the lightning at the market bright in her mind, Amara scrambled upright, as if she could escape further effects if she just ran quickly enough—though she couldn’t run at all. Her knees throbbed. She cried out the moment she placed her weight on them. They weren’t healing. Nolan had left. Right when she needed him. Or—no. The spell she’d crossed must’ve interacted with his presence. If he didn’t count as magic, nothing would. The combination had kicked him out and blown up whatever ward the marshals’ mage had put up.
All these years, she’d been scared of crossing wards—and now, all she was left with were screwed-up knees. She might’ve escaped Jorn years ago and gotten off just as easily. Incongruous laughter bubbled in the back of her throat. If she’d known, maybe—no.
She reeled herself in, locking down her laughter. Running from Jorn didn’t mean she could toss out her every last survival instinct. Marshals were headed her way. She gauged the distance between them. Even if her knees healed right this second, she wouldn’t be able to escape on time.
“What the—” one marshal shouted as he stumbled over a cracked rock. “I thought the spell was just supposed to bind ’em!”
“You’re enchanted?” The bartender kept his voice low.
Amara nodded. The marshals were seconds away. What about Cilla? No sign of her.
“Act sick,” he said from the corner of his mouth. He took a firm step toward the approaching marshals. “What’s going on? Don’t tell me you cast a public spell!”
“Sir, we want to speak to the girl.” One marshal, the shortest of the crew, pointed his baton at Amara. She wrapped her hands over her stomach and squirmed as if in pain.
“That girl is my employee,” the bartender said, “and what she wants is to go back to the carecenter. Your spell screwed up her healing. She could’ve died! All of us could’ve!”
“Sir, we need to—”
“You need to not cast spells willy-nilly where enchanted people risk crossing them! That’s such a minister thing to do! Don’t you have any consideration for the spirits? For basic safety?” the bartender fumed. “I’ve seen spells mix before. Do you know what happened? It picked up a house. A house! It rose right up off the foundation. Turned on its side, then crashed to the street. There was a family inside.
“That could’ve happened here. Or worse! Is this a detection spell? It didn’t occur to you that a detection spell needs to check whoever crosses it? That its magic would interact with theirs? I’m not even a mage, and I know that! And the backlash—no, forget it. Let’s go, Immer. If we get you to the carecenter now, we might be back before the ship departs.”