Finally, she fetched up, leaning over with hands on her knees as she struggled to catch her breath. A worried look around revealed nobody paying her any attention and she dared to hope that she’d lost any pursuers. Still, she wasn’t about to stick around to test that theory.
She turned slowly, trying to get her bearings. She had no idea where she was. How did she get to the guild house from here?
Uphill,she told herself.Just go uphill.
She turned and set off at a brisk walk, casting nervous glances behind her. The narrow streets of Edinburgh seemed to stretch on forever but finally she began to recognize parts of it that she’d passed through with Oskar when they’d first arrived. She spotted the castle on the skyline perched on its outcrop and knew the guild house must be close.
She quickened her pace, almost jogging now, and finally turned a corner into the street that housed the guild house. There, she skidded to a halt.
The door to the guild house gaped open and a large crowd was standing in a semi-circle around it, watching as people were marched out of the buildings with their hands tied.
“What’s going on?” Lily asked a large-boned woman standing nearby.
“A raid,” the woman replied. “The Order of the Osprey are all being arrested.”
Lily went cold. “Why? What did they do?”
The woman shrugged. “A gaolbreak by all accounts. Freed a traitor. Someone by the name of Brewer.”
Lily reeled, suddenly dizzy. Brewer? Alfred Brewer? What?
“Are ye well, lass?” the woman asked. “Ye look a wee bit peaky.”
Lily sucked in deep breaths, fighting the sudden waves of dizziness that threatened to send her to her knees. “Have they got them all?” she asked in a strangled voice.
“Most of them, by all accounts,” the woman replied. “But the guards have put out a warrant for one that got away. Oskar Galbraith. The ringer leader, apparently. They’ve offered a decent reward as well. They must want him pretty badly. That Brewer fellow got away as well.”
Nausea suddenly roiled in Lily’s stomach. She stumbled backward. Oskar, a traitor? No way. What was going on? She had no idea but she clung to one thought: Oskar hadn’t been captured. He was still free. That meant she had to find him.
She turned on her heel and hurried away. Now that she noticed, there seemed to be more guards around than usual and they were busy knocking on the doors of the houses near the guild house.
What had happened? What had Eberwyn done?
She stumbled through the streets in a daze and only slowed as she approached Oskar’s townhouse. The door was open here too and she could see people moving around inside. Dreadpooled in her stomach. She was too late. The guards had gotten here ahead of her. She crept as close as she dared, trying to look nonchalant whilst straining her ears to catch any conversation coming through the open door.
“Anything?” she heard someone shout from downstairs.
“Nah, he isnae here,” came the yelled answer from above. “Must have gotten wind we were coming and fled.”
Lily backed cautiously into an alley.Think, Lily,she told herself.Think. They haven’t caught Oskar yet so where would he go?
Then she had it.
Keeping close to the shadows at the base of the buildings, Lily hurried away from the townhouse and back downhill, towards the more run-down end of town.
The last time she had been down this way she’d been attacked by Bryn’s men. It looked no safer the second time around. A slow fury was beginning to simmer in her belly. She was sick of people thinking they could get what they wanted through violence and pain. Well, she was a master at pain and it had no power over her anymore. Shewouldfind Oskar, shewouldfigure out where he’d gone and woe betide anyone who got in her way.
She realized she was clenching her fists and scowling but she didn’t try to modify her expression. It matched her mood perfectly.
As Lily neared the edge of a grimy, crumbling neighborhood, she finally found what she was searching for. The burned-out remains of a building reared up in front of her, its blackened timbers reaching into the sky like skeletal fingers.
Oskar’s childhood home.
She stopped and stared at it, taking in the sight of the charred walls and broken windows. She approached the blackened ruin, her eyes scanning the wreckage for any sign of life. If Oskar washere, there was no sign of him from the outside. The crumbling building looked desolate and empty.
Cautiously, she stepped through the debris and ducked under the skewed lintel. The air inside the house was thick with soot and dust, and pigeons had taken up residence in the rafters of the burned-out roof.
“Oskar!” she cried, her voice echoing through the emptiness. “Are you here?”
