Sidonius stood at the sound of the voice, adrenaline surging in his belly. The figure on the threshold was shrouded in a long cloak, a scarf wrapped about her face. But were he blind and deaf, Sid still would have known her anywhere. His face split into an idiot grin as Wavewaker bellowed from the stage.
“CRO!”
And then Sid was running, catching the girl up in his embrace, lifting her off the ground as she squealed. Bladesinger collided with the pair of them, wrapping them up in her arms, Butcher staggered over, Wavewaker arrived like an earthquake, grabbing all four of them and roaring as he lifted them off the ground and jumped in circles.
“You magnificent little bitch!” Sid cried.
“Let me go, you great fucking lumps!” Mia grinned.
But there was none of that. Not until they’d savored it a little more—until Bryn arrived from the gallery and joined in on the embrace, until Wavewaker dragged his nose across his sleeve and Bladesinger blinked the tears from her eyes and all of them had a chance to just stand and breathe and remember what she’d given to them.
Not just their lives.
Their freedom.
“’Byss and blood, how did you find us?”’Singer asked.
“Poked my nose into the first whorehouse I saw,” Mia shrugged. “After that, I just followed the trail of vomit.”
Wavewaker chuckled. “What the ’byss are you doing here, little Crow?”
Her smile fell away then. She looked at the theater around them, the holes in the walls and the moth-eaten upholstery and spiderwebs, thick as blankets in the rafters. And she shook her head, smile returning as if it had never left.
“I just wanted to see if you landed on your feet.”
Sidonius glanced at Bladesinger. The woman met his stare, eyes twinkling.
“So,” Crow said. “Whose throat do I need to cut to get a drink around here?”
* * *
Ashlinn saw Tric on the bow, wind in his saltlocks like a lover’s hands.
The Maid’s crew gave him a wide berth, the few who had to go near him making the sign of Aa before and after, and working as swift as any captain could ask. Ash knew Cloud Corleone had told his salts that Mia and her band were to be treated as honored guests aboard the Bloody Maid. But sailors were a superstitious bunch at the best of times, and the idea of a Hearthless walking among them with earthly feet was sitting about as well with the crew as it was with Ashlinn.
She could still feel it.
The slight resistance as her blade sank into his chest. The warm blood spilling over her knuckles. The tiny splash of red that spattered her cheeks as the blade slipped into his lungs, making it impossible for him to do anything but look at her in confusion
“—hrrk.”
“Sorry, Tricky.”
as she killed him.
“How do, Tricky?”
He glanced at her sidelong, then turned his eyes back to the vista of Whitekeep harbor. Ashlinn had returned from the market with her arms loaded, fully half their remaining coin spent on “essentials.” The jetties and seawall were strung with sailors and sellswords, fishfolk and farmers, plying trade across the boardwalk. The vast archways of the aqueduct stretched over the bay, back toward the City of Bridges and Bones, and up on the hillside, Ash could see vast and winding garden mazes.* Gulls serenaded each other in the truelight sky overhead, but Ashlinn noted the glare seemed a touch less bright than yesterturn.
The larger suns, Saan and Shiih, were in descent now, the Seer’s furious red and the Watcher’s sullen yellow both drifting toward the horizon. Saai would remain for a time after the other two eyes of the Everseeing had completed their descent, the Knower casting its pale blue light over the Republic. But then, sure as death and taxes, truedark would begin.
As she leaned on the railing beside Tric, Ashlinn fancied the chill off the boy’s skin seemed to be dimming along with the sunslight. Perhaps it was her imagination. Perhaps some facet of the dark magik that had returned him to this life. But if she squinted hard, she could see just the faintest hint of color in his skin now. His movements had just a touch more grace. And he spoke less and less like some deathless tool of the Goddess incarnate and more like the boy she’d known.
But Ash’s skin still prickled standing next to him. Her hackles still rippling.
“Wonder how our girl’s faring, recruiting her little army.”