Seraphina spent a few hours strolling up and down but didn’t dare to get close to the main gate. Keeping a respectable distance, she listened to the people going in and out, hoping to hear a voice she recognized, a voice that belonged to someone who would recognize her as well and vouch for her.
It was as if the people she’d known two years ago were no more. All the voices that reached her ears belonged to strangers, most of them sounding young. New students and apprentices.
Seraphina returned to the market, settled in her spot, and took out a cup she’d found in the chandler’s shop. Plan or no plan, she needed to eat. Once she had something in her stomach, she’d think of something else.
By now, everyone who could read in Ingolstadt knew the city watch was looking for a woman of twenty-four, with blond hair and no eyes, yet the people who stopped to listen to her sing didn’t seem to spare a single thought to her appearance. She kept her entire face covered, except for her lips, and her long hair tucked beneath her cloak. Maybe the fact that she chose to expose herself like that worked in her favor. An escaped prisoner wouldn’t display herself in the main market and would certainly not sing with the voice of an angel.
That wasn’t her own assessment. Matteo had once told her she sang like an angel, and mortals didn’t deserve to hear her voice. He asked her to join in every time he played the piano.
Seraphina ate that day, and the next. For three days, she followed this routine, spending the night in the abandoned building, loitering around the city in hopes of hearing a voice from the past, singing and earning enough kreuzers to not starve.
On the fourth day, her luck ran out.
“That’s her!”
Thudding steps and the draw of a saber.
“You two, with me. That’s her right there.”
Hartmann. From across the market square, she felt a finger being pointed at her, and she scrambled to grab her coin cup and push herself to her feet. Her right leg had fallen asleep, and she winced as she leaned on her walking stick. He shouted again, at the crowd this time, telling them to stop her. The people were confused, slowly stepping out of his way.
She knew it was him because she recognized his voice. As he’d recognized hers.
Seraphina pulled her hood lower, chin tucked into the collar of her cloak, and tried to determine in which direction she should run. For now, all she could do was hobble as feeling returned to her leg.
West, she thought. Only to turn and run straight into a massive chest. She took a step back and raised a hand to either protect herself or apologize in case this was an innocent passer-by, but the man caught her wrist and pulled her to him.
She gasped.
He leaned in, and the first thing that hit Seraphina was the smell of his skin. She knew it well. She’d been trapped with it for two weeks.
“Draw him away from the crowd,” he whispered in her ear, his breath warm as it snuck under her hood and crawled down the length of her throat. “Lead him somewhere secluded.”
She nodded, and he let go. She heard him walk away, probably to take care of the other watchmen Hartmann had summoned, and she was glad to find her leg was fully functional again. She bolted toward a row of houses and down the first alley that opened before her. The wind whipped at her face and blew her hood back. Seraphina let it fall to reveal her blond head, a beacon for Hartmann to follow.
She careened around a corner into a wider lane, then cut left again into another alley so narrow her shoulders nearly brushed both walls. Behind her, she heard Hartmann’s heavier footfalls and his ragged breathing. He was cursing, shouting at people to get out of his way. She heard a woman’s startled cry and something hitting the ground. Seraphina didn’t slow. She burst from the alley onto a street where a man carrying a crate jumped aside as she flew past.
She was relieved to notice her lungs weren’t burning yet. A few days of decent meals, albeit small, had returned her strength, and her muscles were happy to be put to good use. She veered right, then left again, taking a path she knew by heart even though she couldn’t see where her feet landed. Stone steps worn smooth took her to the river, but before she reached the bank, she took a right.
The postern gate was just ahead – the narrow tunnel cut through the wall where she’d hidden after escaping from prison. She plunged into the passage, her footsteps echoing off stone, and came to a sudden stop. Something was blocking the way to the other side. Approaching it carefully, she tapped it with her walking stick and realized it was a cart laden with barrels. Someone had abandoned it just outside of the tunnel, and now she was trapped.
“No...”
Behind her, Hartmann slowed, then halted.
Seraphina turned and felt him there, standing in the arched gateway. She lifted her stick and held it with both hands, feeling a rush of apprehension mixed with power flooding her veins. Here they were again, facing each other, him armed to the teeth, her carrying vengeance in her heart.
Getting stuck in a tunnel with Hartmann hadn’t been her intention, but it was playing out perfectly. Now she couldn’t run from what she needed to do. After his machinations had failed, he hated her enough to want to end her with his own hands, so it was a matter of life and death. It was him or her. He wasn’t giving her a chance, so when she finally spilled his blood and listened to his last breath leave him, Seraphina wouldn’t feel guilty in the slightest.
“Bitch.” He spat on the ground. “I have you now. Nowhere to run.”
She widened her stance and lifted her chin, letting him come to her.
“I could shoot you on the spot. Throw you in the river.”
She grimaced. “If you wish to alert everyone, sure.”
He wasn’t that dumb, or so she hoped. A gunshot would echo off the stone walls, carry across the water. The city watch would come running, and even Hartmann couldn’t explain away a fresh corpse and a smoking pistol. She’d seen how he operated, skulking in shadows, bribing guards, careful to keep his hands clean.
