his eyes almost popped. His head cleared, a bit, and he found he was sitting on some grass that felt cool under his hands, though the world looked like it was sliding sideways. Probably his head needed to clear a bit more.
Whispers behind him seemed insubstantial at first, before they turned solid in his head. Kacha and Petri. Arguing at first, but then… but then a long silence that seemed to echo inside him. Petri Egimont helping to save him. He’d never live it down. He turned his head, ready to give the man a piece of his mind about that and every other sodding thing that had happened over the last couple of weeks, and longer, but his mouth clicked shut on his words.
They were somewhere outside, in some sort of garden. Cospel was there, sooty faced, looking nervous, helping him up. His eyebrows were talking again, but gods knew what about. Away to the left, though not far enough away for Vocho’s liking, a building was having a merry time as it burned down. None of that had shut him up.
There are some things a brother should never have to see his sister do, or even think about her doing. The way Kacha was looking at Petri bloody Egimont was one such thing. He was saying something, too low for Vocho to hear, and she was wavering, he could see it.
“It’s too late now. It’s been too late for me for a while,” Petri said loud enough for Vocho to hear now and put something in her hand. “But I meant this.”
She opened her hand, but try as he might Vocho couldn’t see what was in it.
Then it really was too late, which was a relief – for a minute he thought she was going to give in and he’d have to deal with Petri in his life again. A shout came from the smoke behind them, and there was the clicking crank of a gun being wound – two guns, three. Vocho staggered to his feet, almost fell over again and held on to a handy tree.
“Kass! If you’re quite finished talking to that walking arsehole?”
Egimont held up his hands in surrender. “You’d best go.”
“Who goes there?” came from the darkness.
“Now.” Egimont said. “Quickly! If they find you, I can’t stop them.”
Kacha looked up at Petri, and Vocho really didn’t need to see that, or worse the fleeting kiss that left Egimont looking as startled as a shying horse.
A last look, and then Egimont stepped smartly past Vocho and disappeared into the smoke. “Petri Egimont,” he said to the unseen guards. “I have the king here – he’s unconscious but I think he’ll be fine. I need some help getting him to the surgeons. This way.”
Kacha propped Vocho up, Cospel on his other side as they headed as quickly as they could in the opposite direction. Not easy when everything was still tilted and Vocho’s legs weren’t working properly yet, but everyone else seemed to be concentrating on what had happened to the clockwork so didn’t pay them much mind.
He had no idea how much later it was that he was sitting on a jetty down by the docks, lungs heaving, eyes clearing. He still had the sword in one sweat-slicked hand and on his back the faintest memory of pain, fading now like the night as dawn grew.
Kacha flopped down next to him, soot-streaked and sweaty, and dangled her legs over the edge of the jetty for all the world like they were children again and deciding what game they might play. She sneaked him a sidelong look, and the doubt in it panicked him a little. “Are you you again?” she asked.
“Have I ever been anyone else?”
Her sudden grin comforted him – familiar and reassuring, though it also meant tread carefully. “You did try to kill me. Again. I suppose that’s not really an answer, but you sound like you.”
He looked down at the sword in his hand, then back at her, all his old pride coming back in a rush. “Pfft. If I’d really been trying, I would have done it. You were lucky; I was having an off day.”
Her laugh echoed among the ships berthed in front of them, and the echo spread, made gulls take to the air and sleepy sailors on watch look over at them. It was an odd laugh – relief but with a note of something else.