The Shadow Throne

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

MARCUS

The house burned from the outside in, flame leaping across from the old, dry wood of the stable and around the front door, crawling along the walls and up onto the roof. Inside, the soft carpet in the front hall ignited with a whoomph, and the layers of gauzy window hangings Marcus’ mother had loved floated up as they burned, like spiderwebs.

He knew it was a dream, but it didn’t help. Marcus walked through the gap where the front door had been and down the hall. Fire raced along the old wallpaper, so he was moving down a corridor of flames.

People were running, shouting. Servants in livery or bedclothes rushed back and forth, trying to push through to the exit and falling back, defeated by the flames. Something near the back of the house collapsed with a rumble, and he heard screams.

All the faces were in shadow. Marcus hardly remembered them. He passed through the crowd like a ghost.

Another scream, from upstairs. This one was high-pitched and shrill, a little girl’s wail of fear.

Ellie. Marcus started to run, in the strange, floating way of dreams, legs working but only making slow progress. He made it to the main staircase in time to see his little sister, dressed in a white nightshift, standing on the landing and staring wide-eyed at the spreading fire. The air was getting thick with smoke.

“Ellie!” The roar of the fire drowned Marcus’ voice in his own ears. If Ellie heard, she gave no sign. She turned away from him and ran, back up the stairs.

He went after her, feet skidding on the landing, one hand grabbing the ball-shaped finial for balance as he had done a thousand times. When he reached the upstairs hall, he could just see her darting into her bedroom, white-blond hair flying out from under her cap. He went after her, passing his own room, the door still scarred around the baseboard where he always kicked it closed with his boots.

Ellie’s room was a firetrap, thick with bed hangings, carpet, and velvet toys. Smoke already formed a thick blanket against the ceiling, tendrils creeping down the walls. Ellie, coughing, ran straight to the corner, where an enormous wardrobe painted in jolly greens and blues was standing.

“No!” Marcus said. “Ellie, don’t-”

But she wasn’t listening, or couldn’t hear him-he hadn’t been there, after all. She opened the wardrobe, climbed in, and pulled the door closed behind her, hiding from the flames and the choking, deadly smoke. Marcus crossed the room-it seemed to take an age, carpet pulling at his feet like taffy-and fumbled with the doorknob. When he pulled, something pulled back, so he had to lean away and use his full weight to prize the wardrobe open.

When it gave way, all at once, he fell backward. There were flames all around him now, the stuffed bears and rabbits burning like tiny torches, runners of fire streaking across the carpet. Marcus scrambled forward on hands and knees, pulling the wardrobe doors open wide-

There was nothing inside but ash. Fine, dark ash, slipping through his fingers like smoke and smudging gray against his skin.

For a long moment, Marcus stared at it, listening to the savage roar of the flames and the creaks and crunches of collapsing timbers. Finally, he got to his feet, and walked back to the stairs. The run that had taken an age passed in an instant, and a few steps had him back in the hall, wrapped in fire, looking out the front door into a square of darkness beyond.

There was a man standing there. Like the others, his face was a blank, anonymous shadow, but he wore a long, heavy coat, black leather flapping around him like dark wings.

Concordat.

Marcus opened his eyes. He sat in total darkness, wedged into a corner, stone flagstones beneath him and stone walls behind. All he could see was the faint vertical line of a gun slit, shining with faint, occluded starlight.

He felt as though someone had punched him in the gut, driving all the breath from his body. It was how he remembered feeling on that day, eighteen years ago, when they’d handed him the news. No survivors.

He hadn’t been there, of course. A dream was just a dream. But that figure in the long black coat-

Orlanko. Something seemed to have come free in his mind during the night. It had to be Orlanko. He had no evidence, nothing he could take to a magistrate, but the pattern he’d seen in the old Armsmen files didn’t make sense any other way. A powerful count could have leaned on the vice captain of Armsmen, or a criminal connection, or even a foreign spy, but Marcus hadn’t found any evidence that Giforte’s mysterious friend had ever wanted him to do anything. Just, every so often, to lose something in the shuffle, to stonewall an investigation until everyone forgot about it. Whenever the Concordat wanted something to disappear.

As far as he knew, his family had never meddled in politics, never done anything that might incur the Last Duke’s wrath. But the rumors that swirled in Orlanko’s wake said that it might not matter. Men had disappeared, it was said, for being opposed in business ventures to the duke’s Borelgai backers, for owning too much of the king’s debt, or simply for being witness to something better left unseen.

Something like that. . Marcus felt a dull rage burning at the pit of his stomach. Stupid, really. Would it be better if there was a good reason? But the image of the Last Duke casually snuffing out lives on the shallowest pretext made him want to clench his hands into fists and batter a way through the wall.

The cold, impervious wall. Rage vanished, replaced by a sudden rush of despair.

His shoulders ached where they were jammed against the stone, and his neck had developed a crick. It was easiest not to move at all, but there was a pressure in his bladder that would not be put off, and eventually he was forced to lever himself to his feet. Ross hadn’t dared take him down to the dungeons-that would involve going past too many Armsmen-so he’d improvised a cell from an empty room in the tower. It was an empty wedge-shaped stone space with a single door and a gun slit looking out over the river, lacking even the most basic prison amenities, like a hole to piss in.

He sighed. Is it me, I wonder? Am I so incompetent a commander that my men have to keep locking me up? He remembered sitting in a darkened tent, watched by Adrecht’s cronies. At least I’m not tied up this time.

Marcus selected the corner farthest from where he’d been sitting and relieved himself, then made his way back and tried to ignore the smell. His eyes were adapting, and he could see faint lights through the gun slit. Putting his eye against it, he found that he had a narrow view of a slice of the river and, in the distance, the North Bank. Elaborate spires rose against the starlit sky: the strip of noble estates known as the Fairy Castles, each building more fanciful and less practical than the last. There were only a few lights showing at the windows tonight, and Marcus wondered how many nobles had already shown the better part of valor and retired to the country.

He was just contemplating whether he could piss out the gun slit when something blocked his view. He had a brief glimpse of a long, flowing black cloth, and then a sliver of face was looking in at him, heavily shadowed. Marcus took an involuntary step back, then stopped, feeling foolish.

“Captain d’Ivoire? Is that you?” It was a woman’s voice.

Marcus didn’t see any point in denying it. “It is. Are you. .” He trailed off, shaking his head. Whoever it was was somehow suspended at least fifty feet over the jagged rocks at the base of the fortress wall, clinging to a sheer stone surface. He couldn’t think of anything to say to someone in that situation.

“I wanted a word with you, Captain, but Captain Ross seems determined to prevent it.”

“Well.” Marcus gestured around the empty room. “I have a busy schedule, but I’ll try to fit you in. Who are you?”

“You can call me Rose, if you like.”

“Rose, then. And what did you want with me?”

“I heard,” Rose said, “that Captain Ross has locked you up because you planned to surrender the fortress. Is that true?”

Marcus shrugged. “I wanted to come to terms.”

“Why?”

“I swore an oath to protect the king and people of Vordan,” Marcus said. “I didn’t like the idea of firing grapeshot into a crowd of those people on behalf of the Last Duke.”

“It would be fair to say, then, that you’re not an ally of Orlanko’s?”

Marcus spread his hands. “I’m locked in here, aren’t I?”

Rose seemed to consider this. Marcus blinked, and surreptitiously pinched his arm to make certain he wasn’t still dreaming.

“Ross hasn’t told your men that he’s had you arrested,” she said. “Do you think they’d break you out, if they knew?”

“I doubt it,” Marcus said. “Ross has more men, and better weapons.”

“Would they surrender, if you gave the order?”

“Probably. It would be better if it came from Vice Captain Giforte.” Marcus hesitated. “Do you know-”

“Ross shot someone out in the courtyard. I don’t know who, but they’re awfully angry about it. They’re bringing up the ram now.”

Marcus closed his eyes. “If they break down the door, it’ll be a massacre.”

“I know.” Rose paused. “If there was a way to stop it, and it meant surrendering the fortress to the mob, would you be willing to help?”

“Yes,” Marcus said, without hesitation. “But I’m not sure what I can do from in here.”

“We’ll break you out, and you’ll order your men to lay down their arms.”

“Gladly,” Marcus said. “If you can assure me that my men won’t be harmed.”

“I think I can manage that.” Rose paused a moment longer, thinking. “All right. Sit tight, Captain. I’ll be back.”

Her face vanished. Marcus tried to get a look at how she was climbing the wall, but the narrow gun slit blocked any view but straight ahead. He gave up and shook his head.

“All right,” he said, to the darkened room. “It’s not as though I have any choice.”

RAESINIA

“Raes?” It was Faro. “Are you awake?”

“Yeah.”

This was one of those times that Raesinia wished she could sleep. The binding drained the weariness from her body, like any other injury, but she missed the refreshing feeling of waking up from a real sleep.

Or she thought she did, anyway. It had been so long since she’d died that she wasn’t sure she really remembered. She wondered what it would be like fifty years from now, or a hundred, trying to recall that increasingly tiny slice of her existence when she’d been a human being like all the rest.

I’ll find out. As far as she could tell, she didn’t have any alternative.

Her makeshift shelter was just a triangular lean-to of carpet tied to a protruding window frame and weighed down with stray bricks. It provided her with a place to get away from the crowd, which had gotten increasingly violent since the shooting in the courtyard. The carnival atmosphere of the evening had evaporated, and the mob had separated into armed camps, clustered around their bonfires. Jane’s Leatherbacks, the closest thing the Dockside contingent had to leaders, had already had to break up several fights between their people and the council followers.

The carpet twitched open, and Faro slipped in on his hands and knees. There was enough spare fabric to cushion the cobbled street, and Raesinia had found a torn feather pillow and a lantern somewhere. He looked around approvingly.

“Very cozy.”

“Thanks.” Raesinia sat up and yawned, for effect. “Did you talk to Abby?”

“It took a while to pry her away from Jane and Winter, but yes.”

“And?”

“She hasn’t seen Cora.” Raes’ disappointment must have shown on her face, because he added, “She said the women and children were kept in a bunch of separate cells, though. And she said that the Concordat troops were pretty rough on them, initially, but that Captain d’Ivoire stepped in and put Armsmen guards in place before anyone got seriously hurt.”

“Captain d’Ivoire.” The bluff, bearded officer she’d met with Vhalnich. Raesinia pursed her lips thoughtfully. “All right. That’s something. What do you make of Mad Jane?”

“She doesn’t seem all that mad to me. Her people have really taken charge. I think most of the crowd came here looking for Danton, but with him locked up Jane has been organizing everything. She’s got a bunch of young women and dockmen working for her directly, and the rest seem to have a lot of respect for her.”

“Any idea what her goals are?”

“No more than she told us: to get the prisoners out. Maurisk and Dumorre have been trying to explain to the Dockside people how it’s their manifest destiny to throw off the ancient chains of servitude and assume their proper role in the running of the state, but it’s an uphill battle. It sounds good when Danton’s saying it, but coming out of those two. .”

“Danton.” Raesinia shook her head. That was another problem. “God only knows what they’ve made of him in there.”

“They can’t have really figured him out,” Faro said. “Otherwise they’d have bribed him with a beer and sent him out to tell everyone to go home.”

“We have to get him back.” Raesinia ran a hand through her hair distractedly and winced as her fingers caught in the knots. Pure reflex, of course-she didn’t feel the pain anymore. “We’re running out of time. We got away because Orlanko has more important things to deal with, but Ohnlei can’t let this go on forever. Sooner or later they’ll send in the real troops.”

She could only imagine the panic at the palace and the ministries. She wondered if her father was still alive, if Indergast’s operation had saved him, or if he was dead and Orlanko was simply keeping the fact from the outside world. She wondered if she’d been missed yet-how long could one continue to be in hysterics? That may be the least of our worries. If Orlanko has decided to bring the knives out for good and all. .

She needed to be in five places at once, and none of them was here, waiting outside this fortress. But Cora was in there, and Danton, and probably Sarton as well. I can’t leave them.

“We won’t have long to wait,” Faro said. “Peddoc was arguing strategy with Jane, but they’re bringing up the ram. Once they have the gate down they’ll storm the place.”

“Saints and martyrs. If the guards open fire-” Everyone had been so sure they’d surrender, but that had been before the rifleman had tried to kill Jane in the courtyard.

“It’s a death trap,” Faro said. “But they haven’t got enough men to keep us out.”

“And then it’ll be a massacre on both sides.”

Faro nodded. “They’re already shouting, ‘No quarter’ in the courtyard.”

“This isn’t going to work. What if the guards start killing the prisoners? Hell, what if they decide to blow the magazine?” There was a gloomy thought. Raesinia imagined sitting up, alone, her skin a blistered ruin, amid the wreckage of half the Island and thousands of corpses.

“I know. But what else can we do? As you said, we’re running out of time. If we wait around until they send in the army, things will be even worse.”

“I need to talk to Jane. Can you set that up?”

“I can try,” Faro said.

“Tell her. . tell her I have a plan.”

Faro blinked. “You have a plan?”

“No.” Raesinia sighed. “But I might think of something by then. We have to do something. This is our fault, Faro, even if we didn’t want it to end up like this. We wrote every word Danton said. I’m not going to let this turn into a bloodbath.”

“All right,” Faro said. “I’ll do what I can.”

He turned around and crawled out of the little shelter. Raesinia held the carpet up for a moment after he went, looking out at the fire-studded darkness.

She’d always known that her path would provoke some kind of confrontation. Once they’d started using Danton, that had become a near certainty. But she’d always imagined it as being. . more civilized, somehow. A gathering of statesmen. Eloquent arguments in marble halls. Perhaps a few mass demonstrations to peacefully show the will of the people. Orlanko and his cronies would be forced out, but. .

Not like this. Not mobs with battering rams, shouting, “No quarter!”

Either she’d overestimated her ability to control the situation or underestimated the viciousness of Orlanko and those underneath him. Or, most likely, both. Damn, damn, damn. She could feel Ben hovering nearby in the darkness, smiling gently.

What did you expect, Raes? A peaceful revolution?

“Raesinia.”

The voice came out of nowhere. Occupied as she was communing with ghosts, Raesinia started, getting tangled in the hanging carpet and nearly bringing the whole makeshift thing down on top of her.

“Who-” she got out, before realization dawned. “Sothe!”

Her maidservant appeared from the shadows, like a patch of mobile darkness. Raesinia extricated herself from her shelter and scrambled to her feet.

“Are you all right?” Raesinia said. “I shouldn’t have sent you on by yourself. I didn’t know things had gotten this bad.”

“I’m fine.” Sothe’s voice was grim. “And if I had known how matters were going, I never would have left.”

“I’m sorry.” Raesinia looked down and shook her head. “Ben’s dead.”

“I know. The story is all over the city.”

“Where have you been?”

Sothe nodded over her shoulder at the dark bulk of the fortress, looming near invisibly against the skyline. “In there.”

“You’ve been inside? Did you see Cora?”

“Not personally, but the prisoners seem to be well treated so far,” Sothe said. “That may not last, though. Do you know Captain d’Ivoire?”

“The Armsman? I’ve met him.”

“Pulling back from the wall was his idea, and he’s put Armsmen on guard duty instead of Orlanko’s thugs.”

“He seemed like a reasonable man. Do you think he’d be willing to surrender?”

“Willing, yes. Able, no. The Concordat captain has him locked in the tower. He’s getting ready to blast whoever goes through that gate into bloody ruin. They dug up a cannon from somewhere, and they’re setting up barricades for a room-to-room fight all the way to the dungeons.”

“Saints and martyrs,” Raesinia swore. “That’ll be bloody murder.”

“If we go in through the gate, it will.”

Raesinia had known Sothe a long time. “You’ve got another way in. Please say you’ve got another way in.”

Sothe nodded. “There’s a dock below the tower. D’Ivoire had men on it, but this new captain has pulled them off to man the barricades. I think we could get a small boat in without the sentries on the parapets noticing.”

“How small?”

“Four or five.”

Raesinia frowned. “How much could they accomplish?”

“I have an idea how to go about it.” Sothe hesitated. “It’s. . risky. You would have to come with us.”

“Me?” Raesinia blinked. Sothe was usually insistent that Raesinia keep herself away from possible dangers, in spite of her supernatural invulnerability, for fear that her secret would be exposed. “I mean-I’m willing, of course. But why?”

“We need someone Danton will trust. That means one of the cabal. And the only one of them I trust is you.”

“The others are trustworthy,” Raesinia protested.

“Princess,” Sothe said softly. “Please.”

“All right.” Raesinia sighed. “I started this whole thing, didn’t I? It’s only fair.”

Sothe looked unhappy but said nothing. Raesinia took a deep breath and blew it out.

“All right,” she repeated. “What’s the plan?”

“That’s it,” Raesinia said. “It’s risky, but it sounds a hell of a lot better than storming a barricade in the face of muskets and canister.”

The leaders of the riot had prudently moved to the far side of the outer wall, in case any Concordat marksmen decided to try their luck with another shot. On top of the wall, a squad of amateur musketeers kept watch on the parapet, occasionally loosing a volley when one of them spotted a creeping shadow or errant cloud.

The ram itself, an ugly thing with a cold-hammered iron head that resembled a lumpy knuckle, was being borne through the gate and into the yard on a tide of shouting, angry men. Behind it, the mob was filling up the courtyard, heedless of the threat of sharpshooters on the towers. Men with makeshift weapons pressed to the front, eager to be the first through the doorway when the breach was made.

Jane, Abby, and Winter sat on boxes in front of a small fire built of bits of scrap from demolished houses, surrounded by a group of young women in the leather aprons that seemed to be some sort of uniform or mark of distinction among the Docksiders. From the council only Cyte was in attendance, sitting cross-legged beside the fire. Maurisk, Dumorre, and the others were presumably off haranguing the crowds, and she’d seen Peddoc and his followers positioning themselves in the vanguard, eager for glory.

Jane looked at her two lieutenants. Winter, chewing her lip, nodded slowly.

“I don’t know anything about the layout of the fortress,” she said. “But even without artillery on the inside, getting through that door is going to be a bloody business, and they can make us repeat it at every barricade. If they have found a gun somewhere, it could be a disaster.”

“We don’t know they’ve found one,” Abby said. She glanced at Sothe, who stood at Raesinia’s shoulder. “All we have to go on is the word of this. .”

“Rose,” Sothe said. “Call me Rose.”

“Rose,” Abby said. “For all we know she could be Concordat.”

“I’ll vouch for Rose,” Raesinia said.

“And who vouches for you?” Abby countered.

Jane shrugged. “She has a point. You and your people turned up late to the ball. That leaves plenty of time for Orlanko to get his agents in place.”

“What do we have to lose, though?” Winter said. “Raes and. . Rose have said they’ll be going themselves. If it’s a trap and Concordat soldiers are waiting on the dock, how does it hurt us?”

“You wanted three volunteers,” Abby said. “It would hurt them.”

“If we storm the doors, a hell of a lot more than that are going to die,” Winter said. “Even if we win. I think it’s worth the risk.” She paused, then added, “I should go.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Jane said. “If any of us is going in there, it’s me.” But both Abby and Winter were shaking their heads.

“We need you out here,” Abby said. “If this is going to work at all, they can’t start the attack on the doors yet. You’re the only one who can hold everyone back, if anyone can.”

“But-” Jane began.

Winter cut her off. “That leaves two.”

Raesinia nodded. “If he’s willing,” she said, “one of them should be Vice Captain Giforte. Rose talked to Captain d’Ivoire and he thought that most of the Armsmen would surrender if the vice captain were giving the orders.”

Abby’s face hardened at the suggestion, but she said nothing.

“I don’t suppose you want to explain how you ‘talked’ to Captain d’Ivoire in the middle of a fortress full of Orlanko’s men?” Jane said to Sothe. Sothe only shrugged, and Jane gave an irritated sigh. “Okay. I don’t like it, but if Winter wants to go. .”

“I’ll be the last one,” Abby said. “If. . if the vice captain is going, I ought to-”

“No.” Jane grabbed her arm, as if to hold her in place. “I need one of you here to keep things in line. Besides, you just got out of there.”

“And left the others inside!”

Abby turned to Jane, and the two locked gazes for a long moment. Abby subsided, looking weary.

“I’ll go.”

Everyone turned to look at Cyte, who thus far had said nothing. She flinched at the sudden attention, then straightened up. Her black makeup had smeared and run until there was nothing left but dark streaks from her eyes across her cheeks, like savage war paint.

“Are you certain?” Jane said.

“Someone from the council ought to,” Cyte said. “Would you rather I went to fetch Peddoc?”

Raes winced and nodded. Jane looked from her to Winter, who frowned at Cyte, but said nothing.

“Well. We should get started.” Jane put her hands on her knees and got to her feet. She glanced at Winter. “And if you’re not back by daylight I’m going to break down that door and come in after you.”

“I’ll find us a boat,” Winter said. “Raes, you see if Giforte is on board.”

“He will be,” Abby said gloomily. “He’s got a stubborn streak a mile wide, but when it comes to his men. .” She sighed. “Take care of him, would you?”

Raes nodded. “I’ll do my best.” She held out her hand for Winter to shake. “Meet you at the waterfront?”

Winter nodded, and shook it. Or nearly shook it. As their fingers came together, something leapt between them, like a spark of static electricity. Raesinia felt the binding come to sudden, thrashing life within her, emerging from its torpor and winding itself tight around the core of her soul. Her whole body hummed with the energy of it, ready to fight, run, or do anything in between. She’d never felt anything like it, not even remotely, and from Winter’s widening eyes she’d gotten some echo of the same sensation.

The binding couldn’t control Raesinia’s actions, but in a dim and distant way it could make its wishes known. It wanted her to back off, to run, to take a swing at Winter with the nearest available weapon, and most of all on no account did it want to touch her. If Raesinia hadn’t known better, she would have sworn the damned thing was terrified.

WINTER

“You’re sure you’re all right?” Cyte said.

“Fine,” Winter muttered. “I just. . thought of something.”

In truth she wasn’t sure what that had been. Sometimes it was easy to forget the spell she’d carried since that night in the temple; that she would carry, if Janus was to be believed, until her death. Obv-scar-iot, the Infernivore, the demon that feeds on its own kind. For the most part it was not a demanding passenger, and Winter felt only its occasional twitch and rumble deep in her being, like a trickle of smoke from a cave that betrayed the presence of a fire-breathing dragon.

As she’d reached to shake Raesinia’s hand, the Infernivore had awoken. She’d felt it reaching out, straining at the leash, pulling taut whatever arcane lashings bound it to Winter. Winter felt the sudden conviction that if she’d touched the girl and exerted her will, obv-scar-iot would have surged across the gap between their souls and devoured whatever magic hid inside Raesinia, leaving her comatose like Jen Alhundt, or worse.

But that means she has some spell to devour. Where had a teenage revolutionary gotten her hands on such a thing? According to Janus, the only remaining sorcerers in the civilized world were those in the service of the Priests of the Black, who had set themselves the task of exterminating all others. He’d mentioned that there was such a thing as a rogue talent, someone who enchanted himself without outside intervention, but the colonel had not been forthcoming with the details. So Raesinia is either one of those or an enemy agent.

Either way, Janus would have to be told. That was for later, though. Assuming we survive. A proper agent might have dropped everything to report this surprising intelligence to her master, but Winter was not about to abandon Jane and the others. If I die, Janus will just have to take his chances.

“I’m fine,” Winter repeated, aware that she’d spent too long staring into space. “Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” Cyte met her eyes only briefly, then returned her gaze to the cobbles when she saw Winter looking back.

“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” Winter said. “You’re Cyte, I think? I’m Winter.”

“It’s Cytomandiclea, really,” Cyte said. “But Cyte is fine.”

“After the ancient queen?”

Cyte looked up, blinking. “You’ve heard of her?”

“I used to read a lot of history.” History, particularly ancient history, was one of the few subjects on which Mrs. Wilmore’s expurgated library had had plenty of materials. Winter and Jane had spent a lot of time there, hiding from the proctors, and she’d acquired quite a broad, if patchy and uneven, education. “Jane always loved her. She has a thing for noble last stands.”

“Really?” Cyte shook her head. “I thought I was the only one in the world who bothered with that stuff. At the University, only third-raters go into pre-Karis history.”

“You’re a third-rater, then?” Winter smiled, to show it was a joke, but Cyte’s face went dark.

“I’m a girl,” she said. “Girls are automatically third-rate, at best.”

There was a pause, and then Cyte relaxed a fraction, running a hand through her dark hair.

“Sorry,” she said. “Old wounds, you know?”

Winter nodded and pointed the way down to the riverbank. “We’d better see if we can find those boats.”

The crowd thinned out as they got farther away from the gate, but here and there small groups congregated around a fire or sent dancing shadows out from a swinging lantern. As the Vendre passed out of view behind a line of town houses, the deadly serious air of the riot dissipated somewhat, and some of the previous sense of revelry returned. Here, the doors had been smashed open and the houses ransacked, sometimes for valuables but mostly for liquor, and groups of younger dockmen were passing these finds around. Some of them were even singing, though rarely in the same key. None of the student-revolutionaries from Cyte’s group seemed to have made their way this far south.

“How old are you?” Winter asked, abruptly.

“Twenty.” Cyte looked at her curiously. “Why?”

Twenty. Winter felt as though her time in Khandar had aged her by a decade. She was only two calendar years older than Cyte, but for all that the University student felt like a girl to her, which made Winter the adult. It was an echo of what she’d felt for the men of her company, back when Captain d’Ivoire had first put her in command. Though most of them were younger than Cyte.

“I just. .” Winter shook her head. “You don’t have to do this. I know how you feel, but-”

“I doubt it,” Cyte said darkly. “And I know I don’t have to. I volunteered, same as you.”

“I’m not sure you know what you’re getting into, is all,” Winter said. “Have you ever been in a fight?”

“Once or twice.”

“A real fight, with someone trying to kill you? And you trying to kill them?”

Cyte pursed her lips, silently.

“Do you know how to use a weapon?”

“I’ve studied with the rapier,” Cyte said stiffly. “Four years now.”

“With padded tips and paper targets,” Winter said.

“I see,” Cyte grated. “And I suppose you’ve killed a dozen men?”

“Not a dozen,” Winter said, “but one or two.” Or three, or four. She tried to count but couldn’t keep track. Do green-eyed corpses count? “I’m not saying you’re-”

“I don’t care what you’re saying,” Cyte said. “I volunteered. I’m going. I can take care of myself.”

“I didn’t say you-”

“Here’s a dock,” Cyte said. She vaulted a rope and walked carefully out onto the stone quay. “Do you think these boats will do? Or do we need something bigger?”

Winter put her hands in her pockets, gave a little inward sigh, and went after her.