"What the high skies are you doing?" Bitterblue hissed, trying to wriggle out of his grip.
"If they find us," he said, "they're going to kill us, so shut your mouth."
Bitterblue was shaking, not just from her own shock and confusion, but from fear of what she could have done to him in those first moments, had he provided her with room to drive a knife. Then footsteps slapped in the alley outside and she forgot all that.
The footsteps pattered past the broken doorway, continued on, slowed. Stopped. When they reversed direction, creeping back toward the building where they hid, Saf swore in her ear. "I know a place," he said, hauling her across the dark room. When a low, deep, living exhalation of breath nearby caused her to jump nearly out of her wits, he whispered, "Climb." Bewildered, she groped forward and discovered a ladder. The smell of the place made sense to her suddenly. This was a barn of some sort, the thing that had breathed was a cow, and Saf wanted her to climb.
"Climb," he repeated when she hesitated, pushing her forward. "Go!"
Bitterblue reached up, took an iron grip, and climbed. Don't think, she said to herself. Don't feel. Just climb. She couldn't see where she was headed or how many rungs were left to climb. Nor could she see how high she'd gone so far, and she imagined only empty space below her.
Saf, at her heels, finally scuttled up around her and spoke low in her ear. "You don't like ladders."
"In the dark," she said, humiliated. "In the—"
"All right," he said. "Quick," and then he hoisted her up, turning her so that he was carrying her like a child, front to front. She wrapped her arms and legs around him as if he were the earth's pillar, because there did not seem to be any other alternative. He sped up the ladder. It was only when he lowered her onto some sort of solid ground that she was able to contemplate her outrage. And then there was no more time for that, because he was pulling her across what she suddenly recognized as a roof. He was pushing her up onto the higher roof of a higher building, and tugging her, running, they were swarming up a tinny, slippery slant, over an apex, down its opposite side, then down onto another roof, then up onto another and another.
He dragged her up the slant of the sixth or seventh roof to an adjoining wall and crouched against the siding. She dropped beside him, pressing up against the beautiful, solid wall, shaking.
"I hate you," she said. "I hate you."
"I know," he said. "I'm sorry."
"I'm going to kill you," she said. "I'm going—"
She was going to vomit. She turned her back to him, lopsided on her knees across the roof, hands clinging to slippery tin, trying to push the sourness down. A minute passed in which she successfully managed not to throw up. Miserably, she said, "How do we get down from here?"
"This is the shop," he said. "We step right through that window there into Bren and Tilda's bedroom. No more ladders, I promise. All right?"
The shop. Taking a gulp of air, she found that the tin of the roof seemed less like it was trying to buck her off. Shifting carefully, so that her back was to the wall, she sat, adjusting the Kissing Traditions manuscript, which was hanging in a bag across her front. Then she glanced over at Sapphire. He lay on his back, dark in profile, knees bent, considering the sky. She caught the faintest gleam in one of his ears.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "I'm not rational about heights."
He tilted his head to her. "No worries, Sparks. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Mathematics?" he suggested brightly, perking up, then reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a gold disc she recognized. "Here," he said, tossing the heavy watch into her lap. "Tell me what time it is."
"I thought you were supposed to return this to the family of the watchmaker," said Bitterblue.
"Ah," he said, looking sheepish. "I was, and no doubt I will. It's just, I'm rather fond of that one."
"Fond of it," said Bitterblue, snorting. She opened the watch, read a time of half past fourteen, sat in an empty room with the numbers for a moment, then announced to Saf that it would be midnight in twenty-four minutes.