We’d spent the night planning our escape, but when morning came, Taryn had sunk her claws into Rheya with a list of tasks that absolutely couldn’t wait, the witch.
“Go without me,” Rheya had insisted, pressing coins into my hand. “Get what we need.”
The baker sold me three loaves—day-old, but they’dkeep. I counted the coins with trembling fingers, hyperaware of the Runecloak stationed across the Square. Always watching. The clothier parted with wool socks for half their worth. Dried meat from the butcher, wrapped in paper. A sparkstone. Two water skins. Each purchase from a different vendor, everything tucked deep in my bag.
A Runecloak passed close and my burned palm throbbed. I focused on breathing normally, and he moved on.
I exhaled slowly.
A few more stops. Then we could leave this godsforsaken city and never look back. But everywhere I turned, more guards. Stationed at corners. Marching in pairs. Their eyes scanning faces, hands resting on sword hilts. They were looking for someone.
With the satchel heavy on my shoulder, I slipped inside the foundlings hall. The hearth in the infirmary crackled with low flames, warming the rows of sagging cots. Children too thin for their ages huddled under patched blankets.
“Should’ve known that was you,” Brisa muttered, hunched over a bed. “Only fool would be out on a morning like this without boots worth a damn.”
I held out the bundle. “I brought bandages.”
“About time. We’re down to scraps.”
I followed her to where a woman lay groaning in her sleep and helped unwind the old wrappings to give her fresh cloth. I’d boiled it the night before.
We worked in silence, the others barely glancing at me. I came now and then to sweep the floors or whisper stories to the little ones, but no one knew I’d been slipping coins under Brisa’s ledger. Or that half the herbs in her pantry were stolen.
A shriek of laughter broke the hush.
“Miss Aelie!” a small voice shouted.
A boy with a runny nose and wild curls launched toward me, tripping over a cracked floorboard. Kavi barreled into me, his skinny arms flinging around my waist.
“You’re late,” he grumbled.
I knelt to his level. “I’m early. You’re just impatient.”
“You said you’d bring me something.”
“I did.” I fished in my cloak, then grabbed a hawk carved from bone. “He’s yours.”
Kavi’s mouth fell open. “Is it magic?”
“It is, but only a bit. He keeps nightmares away, but only if you don’t brag.”
“I never brag.”
I laughed. “You bragged about killing a rat with your boot for two weeks.”
Kavi puffed out his chest. “That was ahugerat.”
I tousled his hair, and he beamed.
I stayed a few more minutes, memorizing Kavi’s gap-toothed smile as he drew stick figures with wings. How could I explain to a six-year-old that the world was too dangerous for people like me to stay in one place? Time was running out, and I was about to break another promise to a child who’d already been abandoned too many times.
I hugged him. “I have to go.”
He frowned. “Are you coming tomorrow?”
“No.” I forced a smile. “I—I’m going away for a while.”
“Where?”
