Sandis picked a sliver from her foot as Rone scooped water from a horse trough into his mouth. They were at a stable behind an inn about a half mile from the east city gate. Water dripped from Sandis’s hair and clothes. The blood still stained them, and she thought she felt some scabbing at the roots of her hair, but she was so tired she couldn’t bring herself to scrub anymore. The sky was beginning to lighten at the very edges, and a breeze brushed by. Sandis gritted her teeth to keep them from shivering.
Rone scrubbed his face, kneeling over the trough.
Ignoring her aching feet, Sandis stood and walked away, hugging herself to keep the warmth in. She limped on both legs. At least the markings on her arms were gone, though blood still painted a line under her fingernails and toenails.
She made it out to the street, lit by lamps on the outsides of buildings, before Rone’s tired shuffle sounded behind her. He caught up with her, out of breath.
She kept walking.
“Sandis—”
“You can go.” She didn’t look at him. They passed under a lamp, and another breeze raised gooseflesh on her back, reminding her that she still wore her vessel’s shirt, exposing her script to the world. She should have panicked, but she was too tired. Instead, she reached back, grabbed the loose folds of fabric, and tugged them together at the base of her neck, where Ireth’s broken name tattooed her skin.
“I’m not going to leave.”
“Yes, you will.”
Rone sloughed off his jacket and handed it to her. She didn’t want to take it. Didn’t want the smell of him enfolding her, his residual warmth protecting her from the chill. But she couldn’t let anyone see her script. Especially now, when she had so few defenses to call upon.
So she took the jacket and pulled it over her wet shirt. She walked. He followed.
“A thank-you would be nice,” he said.
She stopped and turned toward him. “You can have it back.” She began removing the jacket.
Rone held up a hand. “Not for the jacket. For the rescue.”
Sandis stared at him. A single, hard cough—or was it a laugh?—ripped up her throat.
“Thank you? Thank you?” she asked, sour energy fueling her voice. “Why should I thank you? You’re the reason I was there, Rone.”
Tears burned her eyes, and she turned away from him, walking forward with new vigor if only to hide them. She brushed them away like stray embers from a fire.
“Sandis.” He jogged to catch up with her. “You don’t understand. My mother—”
“I hope you didn’t leave her in Gerech.”
He looked like she’d slapped him. “Of course I didn’t! Look, I came back for you. It’s just . . .” He groaned. “It’s messed up. It’s a heaping pile of crap, and I can’t sort it out one way or another. But I came back for you. I couldn’t let . . .”
He choked on the words. Silence fell between them. Sandis hugged herself and kept walking, her feet numb. Her eyes on the street. Somewhere, a block away, a horse pulled a wagon, or perhaps a carriage, judging by the sound.
Rone wiped his hand down his face. “We’ll fix this. We’ll sort it out. Kazen’s dead, so you’re free, and we’ll figure out this stuff with Ireth—”
“Ireth is gone.”
Rone stopped. Sandis didn’t, forcing him to catch up once more. “What do you mean?”
She wheeled on him again. “What do you think I mean, Rone? Use your head. A bound vessel can only be used to summon the numen she’s bound to. Kazen couldn’t summon Kolosos into my body unless Ireth was gone.”
“Keep your voice down.”
She scowled at him. Crossed the street to put space between them.
Rone caught up once more. “Gone? Like dead?”
Tears clouded her vision. God’s tower, Sandis was so tired of tears. “You can’t kill a numen. They’re immortal.” Her throat constricted. “He’s been bound to someone else.”
Saying the words out loud tore at her insides, like Isepia had attacked her instead of Kazen. She’d left Alys alone, again. She sucked in a deep breath to steady herself. Trudged forward.
“Oh, Sandis. I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
Rone sighed. “Where are you going?”
She didn’t answer. Passed two homeless people sleeping huddled together on the street corner.
“Sandi—” He stopped. Sandis kept walking until Rone uttered, “No. No . . . no, no, no.”
She turned around. “What?” The word whipped from her mouth.
Rone checked his trouser pockets, then his shirt. Darted to Sandis and grabbed her—no, the jacket. He checked the pockets, inside and out.
“Take it off.”
His panic pushed away her questions. She slid it off, keeping her back to a shop’s wall to prevent any lurkers from seeing light glinting off the thick gold marks. Rone turned the jacket inside out. Shook it. Squeezed the fabric in his hands. Dropped it and checked his pockets again.
Curse words spilled from his mouth the way blood had spilled from Galt.
“It’s not here,” he said, and Sandis’s stomach sank. “It’s not here.”
She stepped closer. “The amarinth?”
He checked his pockets yet again, then grabbed fistfuls of his hair. “It’s not here. I must have dropped it—”
His face paled. “I don’t remember grabbing it.” He shook his head. “You . . . Kazen fell, and I grabbed you, and I didn’t take the amarinth. It must still be there. We have to go—”
“Rone.”
He looked up at her.
Every inch of Sandis had turned to stone. Her eyes would fall from her head if she opened them any wider.
“You left it,” she whispered.
“We can go back for it. We can—”
She lunged forward and grabbed fistfuls of his shirt. “Was it still spinning? Rone, was it still spinning?”
“What? I don’t know, I didn’t see—”
Sandis fell to her knees, her mouth dry, her heart pounding in her ears.
“Sandis? Sandis!” Rone knelt in front of her.
She shook her head. “Kazen. If Kazen took it . . . You spun it right in front of him.”
He grabbed her shoulders. “Kazen is dead.”
“If he took it while it was still spinning . . .”
Rone’s eyes widened. She met them. “Does it work that way, Rone? Does it transfer?”
He swallowed. “I don’t know.”
Anvils pressed into her chest. Sandis dug her nails into the cobblestones, struggling to breathe. Kazen could have taken the amarinth. No, knowing him, he had taken it. He had seen his salvation . . . if the amarinth was still spinning . . . if its powers could transfer . . .
Then Kazen was alive. He was still alive.
She couldn’t breathe.
“Hey. Hey.” Rone rubbed her back. “Inhale, Sandis. Come on. It’s . . .” He hesitated. “It’s so unlikely . . .”
If Kazen was alive, then more grafters could be recruited. She would be hunted. The other vessels would be used, maybe they’d be killed, one after another, as Kazen sought to find a host for Kolosos. And the amarinth . . . how would they get the amarinth back?
She had lost Ireth, and now Rone had lost his immortality.
Rone’s hand stilled on her back. She looked up. Judging by the horrified look on his face, he had come to the same conclusion.
But he shook his head. “It’s unlikely. I just dropped it. It’s . . .” He didn’t finish his sentence.
They sat like that, together, in between shops, for a long time. Until Sandis’s hyperventilating made her lightheaded and she forced her breaths to lengthen, deepen. She couldn’t think like this. She wouldn’t.
But she had nowhere else to go. No one left to trust.
Except.
Blinking, Sandis pulled away from Rone and grabbed the jacket. The dawn was coming, and the first-shift bells would ring soon. Donning the jacket, she scanned the area, gaining her bearings.
North. She needed to go north and . . . west.
She crossed the street.
“Sandis,” Rone called after her, but when she didn’t stop, he peeled himself off the road and followed. “Sandis, I can get it back. I can—”
“Then go.”