Scar Night Page 0,45

past, but the priests would have known. They always knew whenever he did something wrong. “My eyes…,” he began.

“Are pink,” she said.

“Green when I feel guilty or ashamed.”

“Like mine.”

Despite himself, he smiled at that. “Do you always feel guilty about something?” His smile dissolved when he saw the expression on her face.

I don’t want to know.

“I’m sorry,” she sighed. “People say the Spine have no sense of humour, and they’re right. I should try to act more human.” She crouched down beside him, seemingly unsure of what to say next.

Dill didn’t know what to say either.

Deepgate murmured beyond the surrounding spires, its chains and houses disappearing under the shadows lengthening from the western rim. Distant shouts and faint scents came to them on the evening breeze: whiffs of coal fires and green gardens, the dry spice of the Deadsands beyond. A pall of smoke hung over the shipyards and the Scythe, where the warship Dill had seen earlier was edging closer to a docking spine, glittering gold. From this height, the airship seemed no bigger than Dill’s thumb.

“She’s come in for refuelling,” Rachel explained. “Mark’s leaving for Sandport with a trunk of orders for the outpost garrisons.” She grunted. “He’ll be long gone before the darkmoon rises.” Her gaze lifted to a thunderstorm building in the west. Suddenly she looked away, breathed a curse. “Do me a favour,” she said.

“What?”

“Fly.”

“I can’t.”

“You can.” She grabbed his jacket collar and yanked him to his feet. Suddenly she was pulling him to the edge of the tower, towards the drop.

Dill tried to resist, but she was surprisingly strong. “No, I…” Open sky loomed closer. “Wait.” He dug his heels in. “Please, don’t.” Desperately, he tried to pull away from her.

Rachel released him, eyeing him strangely. “Did you think I was going to throw you over?”

“Weren’t you?” Dill’s face was flushed, his eyes now white.

She seemed genuinely shocked. “My job is to oversee you, not kill you. I was going to get you to fly from this side of the circle to the other.” She peered over the parapet, then back at him. “That’s an idea, though. If I pitched you over…they couldn’t punish you for trying to save your own life.”

Dill recoiled.

She grabbed his hand, stopped him from backing away. “Spine humour,” she said.

He stared at her.

“Forget it.” She hesitated, then pointed to a gargoyle opposite. “Just fly from here to there.”

“Why?” he said.

She thought for a moment. “Because they won’t let you.”

“So you can report me?”

Her expression darkened. “You think I’d do that? That I’m trying to trap you? It’s only a short flight, for god’s sake. I’m not asking you to build a shrine to Iril.”

“I’ll be punished.”

“Only if you get caught. You can survive a whipping, can’t you? You’ve had enough of those before, don’t get all sanctimonious on me now. The Spine aren’t going to be coming for your bones.”

Dill started. “What?”

She sighed. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair. This latest husk…everyone’s talking about the Soft Men again.”

“The Soft Men?”

A puzzled frown. “You don’t know about the Soft Men?”

He stared at his feet.

“Does nothing reach that tower of yours?”

When he didn’t answer, she continued, “According to the story, the Soft Men were three scientists who once made angelwine in secret. They preyed on drunks and beggars, bled them for their souls. But when they eventually took the elixir, it drove them insane. The Church found out and sent Spine out to kill them. But the assassins couldn’t kill the three scientists. The angelwine had changed them. In the end the Spine cut out their bones and buried the men in the Deadsands. People say they’re still there, still alive after hundreds of years, but unable to dig themselves free. Camel merchants still talk about hearing moans and cries from beneath the sands.” She paused. “It’s a myth, of course. Like the Chain Creeper, the Hag, or the Roped Widow. It’s not meant to be taken seriously. At least—”

“The Roped Widow?”

“A woman from Chapelfunnel who…” She broke off. “Forget it. I’m not telling you that one. It’s too gruesome.”

Dill didn’t think it important to mention that he’d never heard of the Chain Creeper or the Hag either. But he was now in even less of a mood to be bullied into an illicit flight. He avoided her eyes, glanced at the trapdoor leading back into the temple.

“The priests never come up here,” she said.

But they always know. Didn’t she understand that?

Rachel said, “They told me there’s an elevator in the Hall