The Dustman nodded, glittering eyes eclipsed for a moment by his hat brim. Oliver let out a tiny breath of relief to be spared his attention even for that moment.
“Tell me your tale,” he said in that gravel voice. “Whispers have reached me about the Hunters, but I would know more.”
So Kitsune and Oliver began, taking the story in turns. They told the Dustman of the conspiracy to murder the Borderkind, of Oliver’s first meeting with Frost and their flight from the Myth Hunters, of the losses and betrayals they had suffered on the road to Perinthia and later to Canna Island, of the death of Professor Koenig and the massacre there. Oliver touched the hilt of the Sword of Hunyadi to illustrate the tale, but he made no attempt to draw the blade for fear the Dustman would misinterpret the gesture.
They spoke of Twillig’s Gorge and the allies and enemies found there.
Most important, they spoke of the Sandman, the gruesome killing spree the creature had embarked upon, the murder of Oliver’s father, and the abduction of Collette. When the Dustman inquired as to why Oliver and his sister had been targeted, silence reigned. They had no answers, only overheard conversations and suspicions.
“The king of Euphrasia has given me a year to prove my worth,” Oliver whispered, glancing from time to time at the door, at the sleeping girl, at Kitsune, anything to avoid the narrow eyes of the Dustman. “I hope to convince the king of Yucatazca to do the same. But I can’t worry about saving my own life when I don’t know what’s become of my sister.”
Oliver paused. The Dustman stared at him with those eyes, that gray, shifting skin. Perhaps it was the bowler and the coat, or perhaps the mustache gave the disguise its success, but he realized now he had been speaking to the creature as though it were a man, a human being.
The embassy creaked. Radiator pipes ticked. Outside the windows, the Austrian night remained lit with the diffuse color of Christmas lights, but the darkness seemed to gather closer. In the small hours of the night, nothing moved.
He glanced at Kitsune, thinking she would continue, but the fox-woman only watched the Dustman, pulling her fur cloak more tightly around her as though she might at any moment disappear into the copper-red fur and run for the door.
The Dustman shifted again, took two steps toward them. He moved his shoulders and the high collar of his greatcoat seemed to hide much of his face.
“And somehow you believe I will help you?” he rasped, dust swirling around him, scratching the floor. “A human and a trickster, and you would ask me to ally myself with you against the Sandman, a facet of my own legend? My brother? You wish me to destroy my own brother?”
Kitsune sneered, lips curling back to reveal those small, sharp teeth. “He murders children, tears out their eyes. Were he a facet of my legend, it would shame me.”
The Dustman shuddered, the grains of sand and grit that made up his form shifting, and he slid his hands from his pockets, pointing at her.
“You dare much, fox.”
Oliver’s heart thundered in his chest, but on the outside he felt a strange calm settle over him. He stepped between Kitsune and the Dustman.
“The Hunters will come for you soon enough,” Oliver said, even as the dust eddied around his shoes, cold and rough as sandpaper. This creature could scour the flesh from his bones, but there was no turning back now. “You’re Borderkind. Do you really think they won’t come for you? They’ll kill you. And your brother is working with them. He’s already chosen, and he’s sided against you.”
The embassy continued to creak, but this time it seemed like more than the ordinary settling of time and weight and temperature and wind. Oliver glanced at Kitsune and saw that she had begun to sniff the air. After a moment, she turned to him, alarm lighting her eyes.
“We should go.”
Oliver silently refused. He stared at the Dustman, waiting. The figure regarded him in return, pinpoint-star eyes glittering. Then, with a sound like the hiss of sand through an hourglass, the Dustman smiled and reached up to touch the brim of his bowler, a gesture of courtesy and acceptance.
He strode to the little girl’s bed and ducked beneath the floral awning. Dust sifting around his feet, he slid long fingers inside the girl’s pillowcase and his hand moved around, searching for something there. In a moment he withdrew a single small white feather, goose down from the pillow.
The Dustman handed the pillow feather to Oliver.
“Hold this and call for me, and I shall come.”
Oliver took the feather, staring up at the imposing figure, entranced by the grain of his face, at the apparent reality of the fabric of his hat and coat. He wanted to ask for clarification, to be certain that the creature had truly agreed to help him.
But a strong breeze eddied across the floor again and the Dustman disintegrated before his eyes, slipping away, blowing beneath the bed and through the crack under the door. In seconds, he was gone.
For a moment, Oliver stared at the feather, then he put it into the right-hand pocket of his jeans with the single large seed he still had from his encounter with the gods of the Harvest.
“Oliver,” Kitsune whispered.
On the bed, the girl began to stir again.
“We must go.”
Gently, Kitsune opened the door and peered out into the hall. She glanced back at him and nodded, then the two of them moved quietly out of the girl’s bedroom, leaving the door open.
They had reached the top of the stairs when the girl called out in a sleepy voice for her mother. Oliver froze and looked at Kit, who nodded curtly, urging him to hurry. He started down the stairs, wishing his own tread was as silent as the fox-woman’s.
“Martina?” came a voice from the hall above. The ambassador’s wife, come to check on their little girl.
Oliver cursed to himself and slid his hand along the banister, stealth now far more important than speed. Kitsune reached the bottom of the stairs ahead of him and vanished.
At the bottom step, Oliver paused. The hair on the back of his neck prickled and he turned to look back up the way they’d come.
A woman in a long cotton nightdress stood at the top of the stairs, staring down at him with her mouth open in shock and fear. She said something in German, a question, then repeated it.
Then she began to shout.
Oliver bolted, no longer taking care to tread lightly. He barreled through the embassy, glancing ahead and over his shoulder with every step, waiting for a guard to appear and put a bullet in his head. The sword banged against his hip as he ran.
In the small office where they had entered the building, Kitsune waited. Voices shouted after him now-male voices-and as he swung himself into the office, holding on to the door frame, a gunshot punctured the air, echoing through the whole building. The sound alone made Oliver feel as though he were a target and he tried to shrink in on himself. Another shot came, and a bullet struck the open door behind him as he ran into the room.
Kitsune dove through the window, heedless of any injury that might await outside. Oliver had only a moment to debate attempting the same, and he knew that the fall was far less likely to kill him than a bullet.
He ran to the window, bent low, and slid his torso over the frame. At the last moment, even as his body careened out the window, he gripped the window frame and flipped forward, so that he did not fall into the alley headfirst. Oliver had gone over chain-link fences the same way as a boy, but boyhood was far behind him now, and the move was far from smooth. He sprawled onto the pavement, skinning his palms and scraping his right knee, the denim tearing. The metal scabbard clattered when it struck the ground, but the sword remained in place.