COMMAND THE TIDES - Wren Handman Page 0,31

caught out. But was there any way for her to use that to her advantage?

By the time the carriage was pulling to a stop she still had no plan better than to wait it out and hope some advantage came to her. The man with the knife leaned in close and whispered, “No now fuss. You come out the carriage nice and gentle, or I stab you in the stomachs.”

“You’ve taken me as a hostage—you’re not going to ‘stab me in the stomachs,’ so you might as well put the knife away,” she retorted.

“You quiet, or you stab!” he insisted.

The darker man opened the carriage door and the Sephrian helped her down, keeping the knife hidden by the stretch of his arm as he followed her out. As they climbed into fitful dawn light, she saw that he was one of the men who had grabbed her the night before. She should have recognized his voice, but gave herself a pass. With the way she was feeling, she was surprised she recognized him even now.

She prayed to Ashua she was right, and her value as a captive outweighed his desire to cut her, because once they got her into a building, there was no way she was getting out. And they were moving toward one, a two-story residence with a gold crest by the door.

So she bit him and tried to make a break.

Lying on the ground a few seconds later, trying to figure out exactly how that had happened, she decided her escape hadn’t gone quite as well as hoped. She vaguely remembered something hitting her in the back—the other man, she supposed. And she wasn’t sure the bite had been strong enough to entirely break his hold, or else he had gotten it back very quickly, because even now he was hauling on her arm, swearing in Sephrian.

It was at least an hour after dawn, and they were hardly alone on the streets, but they were by no means in a crowd. The altercation hadn’t even caught anyone’s eye. She opened her mouth to scream but earned a knee in the stomach, which knocked the wind out of her and turned the shriek into more of a squeak. Between the two men they easily hauled her to her feet, even struggling, and before she could catch a breath they were through the doors and into a building’s cool interior.

She hadn’t gotten much of a look at the outside, but from here it was clearly an expensive private residence. The carriage had traveled at least half an hour, so from her house to here…maybe the Vale, the noble district by the pleasure park. Or perhaps the Diplomatic District…Oh, Ashua. Something twigged, and she remembered the gold crest to the right of the door. If she was in the ambassador’s house, no help would be on the way. The Gray Men had no jurisdiction in the home of an ambassador.

The men hauled her up a flight of stairs to the second floor, down a hallway, and tossed her unceremoniously on the floor. She heard the sound of a bar being dropped down over the door. She screamed and battered on it for good measure, but with no assumptions that it would do any good. It just made her feel better.

She took a deep breath, pushing her heavy black hair out of her face, and did a survey of the room. It was a small office, with a large bay window and huge bookcases lining the walls. There was a desk with papers strewn across it, but she ignored that for a moment in favor of the view. She opened the shutters and pushed them wide, sticking her head out for a better look. It was a straight drop to the ground outside—no escape there—but a calmer look told her she was definitely in the Diplomatic District. Not every home in the district belonged to an ambassador. Rather, this was where foreigners tended to live, close to the homes of their ambassadors and traveling merchants. In front of her she saw two buildings in the distinct style of Marabour—sloping roofs designed to survive heavy dumps of snow, unnecessary in Novosk—and to the left was an old Sanitos-style building, with curving white columns.

She went to the desk and tried to read through the papers, but it was all in Sephrian and her written Sephrian was nowhere near as good as her spoken. She had learned it all from Darren, and didn’t have