Covenant's End - Ari Marmell Page 0,43

listen to me, I'm wanted for killing…actually, I have no idea who the figs I'm supposed to have killed!”

“I'd heard that you were wanted,” he told her thoughtfully. “But I'd not been able to learn why. Only that the word comes down from on high.”

“Lovely. And today was going so well. Point is, it has to be you. It needs to happen this way. I need for it to. Please.”

“Oh, just go,” Igraine ordered. “We both know you're going to give in eventually, so why waste the time?”

“You'll take care of her?” the former Shrouded Lord almost begged.

“No, I'm going to knock her over the head, steal her purse, dump her in a kennel somewhere, and run off to Rannanti with the proceeds.” Then, when the two thieves stared at her, “Get out of here, Renard.”

After one last moment of reluctant fidgeting, he got. For a minute or so after that, the women just sort of studied each other.

“It took both of you to get me this far,” Shins said finally. “Can you get me out of here on your own?”

“You'll have to take more of your own weight. But I'm stronger than I look.”

Shins forced herself to her feet, almost gasping in relief as a tiny current of Olgun's power ran through her. With his help, she could take more of her own weight.

Barely.

She chuckled, even as she caught herself with one hand against a support beam before she could stumble. “I think it's more important right now,” she commented through a tight grin, “that you be stronger than I look.”

Igraine clucked her tongue once, adjusted Renard's cloak around Widdershins to hide the horrid bloodstains and the immodest rips in her tunic, and then wrapped her own arm about the younger woman's shoulders.

“I've seen half-drowned kittens,” she said as they began a slow, unsteady walk toward the passageway's end, “that looked stronger than you do.”

Widdershins managed another polite chuckle. “So where are you taking me? The Basilica?”

“No. Suvagne knows that many of the Shrouded God's priests are among Renard's allies. She'll have people watching. Besides, there's as much unrest in Sicard's ranks right now as there is everywhere else in this godsforsaken city. Actually,” she admitted, “I'm not entirely decided on where to hide you. I'm not sure any of our Ragway safe houses is secure, and the others—”

“That's okay,” Shins interrupted, almost brightly. “I know where we should go!”

“Of course you do. Why do I just know I'm not going to like this?” the priestess complained.

“Because you don't like anything.”

Silence, for a time, save for the shuffling steps.

Not, obviously, a situation Widdershins would let stand indefinitely. “Igraine?”

“Hmm?”

“Only half-drowned? Really? I'm improving faster than I thought.”

“Shut up and walk.”

“Of all the plans you've ever hatched,” Igraine growled, peering around the shadowy street corner at their startlingly well-lit destination, “this one is inarguably one of the most Widdershins.”

“Oh. Well, thank you!”

“That wasn't a compliment!”

“You think not?” Shins sniffed “Shows what you know. Nobody plans the way I do!”

“Now that, I agree with.”

Widdershins scowled, shooing a few early-season flies away from the drying bloodstains peeking around the edges of Renard's cape. “Look,” she explained, and not for the first time, “it's perfect. He's probably not even in Davillon! His family's got no properties or interests here, so when things started getting bad…. But I'm sure he's kept the rent on the place. He'd want to make sure he didn't have to live in the ‘squalor’ of a regular house if and when he returns, yes? So it should be empty, and there's no chance anyone'd think to look for us here!”

“That's because we're not going to get in the door without being stopped and reported! I'm covered in dust and cobweb from the tunnel, and you look like a raw fillet trying to rise above its station!”

The younger woman drew herself up, proud and straight, and then slumped again with a wince at the tug on her slowly scabbing wounds. “I've gotten in there before!” she protested.

“Uh-huh. Through the front entrance?”

“Well, no…”

“And how many walls are you going to be climbing in your current condition?”

“Oh, come on!” Shins protested. “We just need a diversion of some sort.”

“Hmm. All right. You pass me the cloak, so your wounds are obvious, and then go collapse in the street. Then, when everyone's gathered around you…”

“Yes?”

Igraine offered an almost helpless shrug. “I'll leave.”

Widdershins's first comment was directed at Olgun, not the priestess. “How do you snort like that without a nose?” Then, more loudly, “Cute