Night Spinner (Night Spinner #1) - Addie Thorley Page 0,47
the other identical establishments around it, were it not for the sign creaking on brass rings above the door:
THE RAM’S HEAD.
I suck in a breath and Inkar gives me a little wink.
“Your hideout is in a tavern?” I whisper, trying not to sound disappointed. Technically, there’s nothing wrong with this. Taverns are chaotic and crowded; with so much coming and going, it’s easy for faces to pass unnoticed. And there are so many alehouses in Sagaan, it’s hard to distinguish one from the next. But I had expected something grander from a group that has outsmarted Ghoa and the Kalima for so long.
I glance up at the sign again, swinging gently in the breeze. How did I miss this? How has Ghoa missed this?
“Sometimes we’re so focused on a greater goal, we miss the truth hidden in plain sight,” Inkar says, guessing my thoughts.
By the time we shove into the packed common room, the children are seated at a maze of long tables, gulping down bowls of soup. It looks thin and watery, but it smells of grilled onions and my stomach gurgles. Compared to barley cakes and stolen military rations, it looks like a feast.
I reach for a chair, but Inkar grabs my arm and leads me through a pair of double doors, down a long hallway, to an aged door with a cloudy glass knob. “We have a different sort of offering for you, Enebish.”
The way she says offering makes the hairs on my arms prickle. My toes itch to leap across the threshold as the door whines open.
The room is dark, without a single window. If I could access my Kalima power, I’d be able to grip the threads of blackness and see everything perfectly, but I edge forward, squinting into the oppressive shadows like a magic-barren warrior.
My uncertainty rises by the second. “What’s going on?” I ask.
In the center of the room there’s a small rope bed, a dressing table topped with a washbasin and an unlit oil lamp, and a simple chest of drawers. My boots scrape through a thick layer of dust and mouse droppings, and my nose crinkles at the stench of stale air.
This feels like a trick.
Or a trap.
“This couldn’t possibly be your headquarters—” I turn to say to Inkar.
But it isn’t Inkar who stands behind me in the doorway.
It is Temujin.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HE SLAMS THE DOOR, ENTOMBING US IN DARKNESS.
“Thought this would be more comfortable for you,” he says in a playful tone. As if this is some sort of twisted game.
Sweat stipples my face and pools beneath my arms, yet somehow I’m freezing cold. I stagger back as far as the tiny room allows. “What’s going on? Y-you told me to find you….”
When Temujin doesn’t answer, I flatten my body against the wall and clutch at the moonstone, as if it will protect me.
He must know what I’m really up to. That I’m working for Ghoa.
There’s a quick scratch, and a second later a flame bursts to life. Temujin’s face is a hand’s breadth from mine. His hot breath spills over my cheeks, and his smile is feral and twisted in the flickering glow of the match. His hand moves closer and I flinch, but he reaches past me and lights the lamp on the dressing table.
“Relax,” he says with a chuckle. He snuffs the match with his fingers and flicks it to the dusty floor. Then he leans back against the bedpost, surveying me as a weak yellow glow fills the room. “Are you always so jumpy?”
“Are you always so cryptic and unnerving?” I bite back.
That makes him laugh. “I like to make an entrance—if you couldn’t tell from Qusbegi.”
I shake my head and draw my first full breath since he trapped me in this room. “Well, you certainly did that.” I busy my hands brushing off my cloak and peer at him out of the corner of my eye. He’s wearing a gray tunic, like he did at Qusbegi, and the five golden earrings climbing his left ear gleam in the lamplight.
“You’re from Verdenet,” I blurt before I can help it.
“So are you.” Temujin nods at my leggings, which are bunched up from my scramble across the room, revealing curls of my family’s tattoos. He lifts his breeches to expose the blue ink encircling his own calves. His design has slashes and points, like a barbed-wire fence, while mine alternates between spirals and diamonds.
“Not that it matters,” I say, tugging the leggings down with a jerk.