could taste his tears on her lips. Black tears and the goldwine and their girl and their past and the bitter ashes between them.
“I…”
Bitter ashes.
On her tongue.
She winced. “I…”
“… ASHLINN?”
She coughed. One hand to her mouth. A dry itch in her throat. The taste of smoke in her mouth. She frowned, pawing at her neck. Felt a pain in her belly. And then she coughed again. Feeling a sticky wetness on her hand. Looking down to her palm and seeing it, red and glistening on her skin.
“O, Goddess…”
And Ashlinn couldn’t taste Mia on her lips anymore.
All she could taste was the blood.
* * *
“ASHLINN?”
Tric caught the girl in his arms as she wilted, coughing up another mouthful of red. His eyes were wide, one black hand to her face, shaking her.
“ASHLINN!”
He looked to the broken bottle. The goldwine spattered across the floor. Leaning close and inhaling, dread certainty taking root in his gut. Fool that he was, he’d missed it. Too intent on his hurt and his rage to take a moment to breathe it in. Because he could smell it now, sure as he could smell her blood on his hands, on her lips, the death that she’d swallowed, mouthful by mouthful.
Evershade.
Tasteless. Colorless. Almost odorless. And one of the deadliest toxins in an assassin’s arsenal. Tric knew even now the poison would be worming its way toward Ashlinn’s heart and lungs. He had only moments. If he didn’t stop it …
Goddess …
He gathered the girl up in his arms. Running from the Sky Altar, cradling her head as he ran, swift as starlight, strong as the night, boots pounding on the twisting stairs. He knew where he had to go. Sprinting through the stained-glass dark, he could only grit his teeth and pray he wouldn’t be too late.
Ashlinn coughed another mouthful of blood, her face twisted in pain.
“T-Tric…”
He hit the landing, dashing down the hallway toward the Hall of Truths. He saw Old Mercurio sitting on a rocking chair, guarding the captured Hands and acolytes in their bedchambers, a smoke drooping lazily from the corner of his mouth. The bishop caught sight of Tric charging toward him with the bloody girl in his arms, cigarillo tumbling from his lips.
“’Byss and blood,” he breathed.
“GET MIA!” Tric shouted.
“What th—”
“GET MIA!”
Snatching up his walking stick, Mercurio broke into a run, grimacing in pain. Ashlinn groaned, lips and chin smeared with crimson, coughing again and holding her stomach. Tric dashed along another corridor, down another spiraling stair, holding Ashlinn tight to his chest, light as feathers. Finally arriving at a tall set of double doors, he kicked them savagely, bursting into the Hall of Truths.
Spiderkiller’s lair.
Stained windows filtered a dim emerald light into the room, the glassware tinged with every kind of green—lime to dark jade. A great ironwood bench dominated the space, lined with pipes and pipettes, funnels and tubes. Shelves on the walls were filled with thousands of different jars, thousands of ingredients within.
Tric remembered his lessons here. The venomlore taught under the Shahiid’s watchful eye. He wasn’t the master at it that Mia was—that girl was born to poison like a fish was to water. But Tric knew the basics. Evershade was cruel, but ultimately a simple toxin. Its properties could be neutralized by any one of a dozen reagents—milk thistle, alkalese, whiteweed, rosecream, stayleaf, crushed fawn poppy seeds, brightstone mixed with ammonia or a solution of charcoal and powdered blackthorn.
Any of them would do.
Ash coughed up more blood, moaning in agony.
“HOLD ON, ASHLINN, YOU HEAR ME?”
He smashed the glassware implements aside with a sweep of his hand, laid her out gently on the great ironwood bench. Ash grasped his black hand with her red one, squeezing tight, groaning through bloody lips.
“Tr … Tric…”
“I’M GETTING THE ANTIDOTE, HOLD ON.”
“M-Milk th-thistl—”
“I KNOW, I KNOW!”
He turned to the vast shelves, the rows upon rows of ingredients—phials and jars and glasses stoppered with green wax. They were sorted alphabetically, kept in perfect order by the dour Shahiid of Truths. He ran to the M section, reached for the milk thistle with black hands. But the jar was empty.
“SHIT…”
“Tric-c…”
“HOLD ON, ASH!”
Fear was tumbling inside him like a great black waterfall, his pulse thundering in his veins. He ran to the A section, looking for the alkalese. He found three glass vials, all neatly labeled, all of them empty. Cursing, Tric turned next to the tubes full of ammonia. But those …