negotiate with the Rangers,” I say, my voice shaking. “You give them a bag of coin and they wave you on your way.”
“I’m afraid Leff wanted more than that this time.”
“If the load is important enough to risk losing it to the Flux, surely you’ll pay whatever Jymy’s asking.”
Mars tucks the cloth away and chuckles, a low, quiet sound. “I’m done here. We can go.”
He leaves me there staring at the Ranger’s body, whose blood is spreading like oil, melting the snow. Rig drivers watch from their open windows, their mouths gaping, their eyes popping.
Kyn tugs the sleeve of my coat. “Let’s go, snowflake. Please.”
“All he had to do was give Jymy some coin,” I say. “All he had to do . . .”
It’s not that I liked Jymy. It’s just, I knew him. He was a greedy, self-serving lawman who cared little about the law. But he was a survivor. Like the rest of us. There was no reason to take that from him.
“I would have paid. For Lenore, I would have paid anything. We didn’t—He didn’t have to kill—”
And then Mars is there again, in front of me. Black eyes and blistered lips, and something like pity on his pale face.
I spit at him, watch it freeze on his cheek. “I would have paid.”
“He didn’t want coin.”
“That’s all Jymy’s ever wanted.”
Mars pulls the cloth from his pocket again, wipes the spit from his face.
“His brother is indentured,” I say. “Working in the Stack. The money Jymy stole went to pay off his debt.”
“Feel sorry for the brother if you must. But do not spare a tear for Jymy Leff.”
“Who are you to decide—” The air freezes in my lungs. I can’t breathe. I can’t talk. And for the briefest moment I can’t decide if Winter’s turned on me or if it’s the shock of what’s happened. And then I realize, it’s neither.
It’s Mars.
I’M SORRY, Winter tells me. SO SORRY. She’s obeying the smuggler. I taste his breath mingled with the magic sitting on my tongue, keeping me silent.
“That’s enough, Mars,” Kyn says.
“Hear me, Miss Quine. If our passage across the Shiv Road could have been secured with any number of coins, I would have paid.”
Air leaks into my lungs and I find strength enough to swing my fist at his face. Mars catches my wrist easily.
“Choose your foes with care,” he says, his voice dangerous. “Jymy Leff wanted you.”
His hold on my lungs is gone now, but he’s left some of his magic behind. It rattles in my chest and I have to hack and spit to rid myself of it.
“Imagine my surprise when he told me all he required as payment was that I turn you over to him.” He leans close, flecks of kol shimmering between his teeth. “He told me what happened at High Pass. I don’t know him all that well, so you’ll have to tell me—was he prone to exaggeration or did you stop a rig from plowing over a girl?”
He’s talking about Jymy in the past tense. Because Jymy Leff is dead. Because just moments ago he killed a lawman who wanted to trade safe passage for me.
“Why?” I ask. “Why would Jymy Leff want me?”
“You said it yourself. Coin is all he’s ever wanted.”
“Spit it out, Mars,” Kyn says. “What do the Rangers want with Sylvi?”
Mars slides his hands into the pockets of his black jacket, rolls back on his heels. “It seems word of your encounter at High Pass made it all the way to the Port of Glas. Jymy made a full report himself and now the Majority would like a word. They have great use for a rig driver who can bend Winter to her will.”
“I can’t—”
“The kol in your eyes says you can. I think it’s time you told us what happened at High Pass, Miss Quine.”
CHAPTER 3
Mars Dresden, Kerce smuggler and murderer of lawmen, wants to know what happened at High Pass. He wants to know what happened with the girl.
Winter showed up. That’s what happened. And the girl’s lucky she did. The kid shouldn’t have been out in that weather. She shouldn’t have been anywhere near the road.
But I shouldn’t have been out there either. It was a reckless decision, taking the route through High Pass on my way home from Kasebyrg. The highway through Hex Landing was safer, but I’d spent the first five years of my life in that rattrap and that was more than enough to scar me. It was careless, but