she stopped a metre away from the trapped prathmun. He stared at her, sweat crawling down his face.
“You orphaned a little girl twice,” she said quietly, as cold as if she were trapped inside a glacier. “You took two of her mothers. A little girl who never did you harm.” Lightning dropped in fat sparks from her hair to her feet. It lazily climbed back up her plump body in fiery waves.
“You left her among strangers who might have thrown her into the street. Never once did you think of her.”
“Never once did anyone think of me!” he snapped back, his eyes black and empty. “Fit to haul dung but not fit to be seen — this place is rotten. If she don’t like the smell of rot, she shouldn’t live here, and neither should you.”
Her lightning blazed as it flowed down her arms, gloving her from fingertip to elbow. “No,” Tris said quiedy. “You shouldn’t live.” She put her hands together, then pulled them apart, creating a heavy white-hot thunderbolt.
“No, Dema, let her do it!” The familiar voice was Kethlun’s. “Don’t stop her!”
“For her own sake, she must be stopped,” Niko replied. Tris should have known that Niko would see this piece of the future. There were times when having a seer as a teacher was a pain.
“Tris, give him up,” Dema pleaded. “If you kill him, I’ll have to arrest you and have you executed.”
“No!” argued Keth. “She’s doing Tharios a service. He killed Ira. He killed Yali. Let him cook!”
“Is this what it comes to, Trisana?” Niko called, his normally crisp voice gentle. “When you sank the ships at Winding Circle, you defended your home. If you do this, it’s murder. You will be a murderer by choice.”
“He deserves to die,” she shouted.
“But do you deserve to kill him?” Dema asked quietly. He was much closer to her. “Leave him to the State, Tris. That’s what it’s for. His first debt is to Tharios. Let him pay it.”
She should have just killed the Ghost the moment they arrived, she thought ruefully. Now she was afraid they made sense. She let the lightning trickle into the earth, following the route of her tremors. The molten lava far below the surface wouldn’t mind the extra power.
When the last bit faded, a long, wet nose thrust itself under her palm. Little Bear whined and wagged his tail, nudging her for a scratch behind the ears. “Traitor,” Tris murmured. She knew very well that the dog had helped to track her.
Chime landed gently across her shoulders. There she voiced the ringing chime that was her purr. Tris rubbed the dragon’s head with her fingertips, looking down at the Ghost. “Take him then, Dema,” she said clearly, “but I won’t dig him out for you.”
“Send for the arurim prathmuni,” Dema ordered one of his people. “I won’t befoul myself by handling the likes of him.”
And that’s where your world goes wrong, thought Tris as she walked by him.
As she passed Niko he took her arm. Gently she pulled free. “There’s something I have to do right now,” she told him. “It’s really important, Niko. Life and death, literally.”
He released her. “Go,” he said, his voice soft. “But we need to talk later, you and I.” He frowned at Keth. “And I’ll need a word with you, Kethlun Warder. You too had better learn that mages don’t kill unless it’s unavoidable.”
Tris hurried on. She sent her breezes out, searching for someone in particular. Soon enough a current of air returned, carrying an unmistakable smell. She followed it back to its source, the prathmuni woman and boy she had met several days ago.
They backed away from their cart as she approached at a trot. Then the woman stopped, and squinted through the back alley gloom. Tris drew a handful of sparks from a braid to illuminate her face.
“You,” said the boy. “What do you want with us now?”
Tris waited until she was very close to speak. “They’ve caught that killer, the one they call ‘The Ghost’,” she informed them. “He’s one of you.”
They both drew the sign of the All-Seeing on their foreheads, though the woman snapped, “Impossible.”
Tris nodded to her partner. “He knows the truth of it.”
When the woman scowled at him, the boy said, “Not even Eseben would be that foolish.” He didn’t sound as if he believed himself.
“How do you know?” the woman demanded fiercely.
“I caught him,” Tris replied. “He’s confessed. The arurimi have him now. It won’t be long before