off the barge and into Third Market, Fie’s wet sandals crunching against uneven brick. Alarm horns wailed through the tents. Shoppers halted in place, peering about for the cause. One man found it when Tavin shoved him out of their way and into a plantain stand. Curses and shouts trailed in their wake.
Then sun caught steel again, flitting through bodies at the end of the market ahead. Screams burst in the air like fireworks. Fie looked behind and found more Hawks closing in, barreling through a panicking crowd.
Tavin grabbed her shoulder. “You have to hide us.”
“No,” Jasimir cut in. “If we get separated, we’ll lose one another.”
Fie couldn’t think. Help Pa. She had to help Pa.
Tavin muttered a curse, looking wildy about the market. His gaze lit upon a tent. “Watch Jas,” he barked, and lunged.
A moment later a chorus of shattering ceramic scraped, dissonant, against the alarm horns. Fie caught the acid tang of flashburn and lantern oil.
So did everyone nearby.
The crowd’s brewing panic boiled over into a full-blown stampede, sending a tidal wave of human flesh into the oncoming Hawks. One table tipped, then another. The deadly avalanche smashed and splattered across the street as people fled, as Fie’s eyes ran, as her lungs burned, as she stumbled back.
Then—then, the sparks.
A blue phantom hissed across the oil and flashburn faster than a heartbeat. Forks of blazing white fire exploded from the streets, waves of heat stripping the river from Fie’s face in puffs of steam.
Tavin burst from the flames. “The alley—go, go—”
The three of them bolted into the cramped back street. A moment later Fie heard a sound like breath being sucked through a flute.
The bricks beneath her feet leapt and shuddered as white light and thunder rocked the alleyway.
The tent. The whole tent of flashburn and lamp oil had gone off.
Dead gods be kind.
Tavin towed them farther down the alley, sheltering behind a cold communal oven. His hands were shaking. Adrenaline? Fear? Both, like her? Her blood still streaked his palms. “This is our chance. We can throw them off the trail.”
I have to look after my own.
All of Fie’s own were still in the Floating Fortress.
All of Fie’s own might have died on that bridge—
“Fie.” Jasimir’s voice brought her back. “Could you create a diversion with a Peacock tooth?”
“Blowing a smoking crater in half of Third Market isn’t enough of a diversion?” Tavin asked.
The prince shook his head. “Not like that. An illusion they’ll chase instead. Can you do it?”
Could she? Fie pressed into the cold plaster wall. Peacock witches were a naka a dozen; she had enough of their teeth in her string.
She had more than that.
You’re going to be a chief.
She saw Pa, holding out the sword to cut her first throat. She still wasn’t ready. Pa, holding out the bag of teeth.
Look after your own.
“Fie?”
Tavin’s voice dragged her back again. He looked at her like he had a thousand things to say, things like I’m sorry and I know and Please and, above all, I need you.
But only the strongest survived: “Can you do it?”
In answer, she pushed a Sparrow tooth free from her string with aching fingers. “Stay here.”
Fie ducked into what remained of the street, shrouded in smoke and soot and a Sparrow Birthright for good measure. Mercifully, she saw no bodies, only flames dancing fitful across the broken bricks like Lovely Rhensa and his fallen foes. Had Tavin timed it so? Or had the lack of casualties been a solitary scrap of good fortune?
Hawks had started braving the dying fire, pushing at the edges of the flashburn. Fie swerved away from one particular bold guard, prying a Peacock witch-tooth from her string, then slipped behind a charred tent and let the Sparrow tooth go.
The Peacock witch-tooth kindled as it rolled betwixt her palms, a vivid song of whim and majesty. A grandfather, a storyteller, weaving legends of the ancient heroes to chubby, wide-eyed children by the hearth. The tooth’s echo of him laughed with glee at the tale Fie passed on.
With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the tooth into the canal.
And with a twist of her will, three figures flickered into sight: a prince, a Hawk, and a Crow girl, clambering atop the barrels of a cargo barge. Shouts rose up from the guards. The three ghosts started like frightened deer, leaping from one barge to the next.
Boots and steel rumbled past. The Hawk guards were on the hunt. And thanks to the Peacock tooth leading the illusion