“How did you even know I was near?” she asked when he didn’t immediately speak.
There was no way this was a coincidence.
“Those in our court and sub-courts have orders to report your presence as soon as you enter our territory.”
She was right. How unexpected—and terrifying.
“I hadn’t realized you considered me so important.”
The idea that some of the best criminals in the city kept tabs on her comings and goings was uncomfortable. There were times she needed to access the tunnels quietly. She didn’t want anyone noticing her passageway and perhaps sharing it with hostile parties.
Blade rose in a smooth movement that had Tate clenching her muscles instinctively. They’d never been enemies, but Tate wasn’t naive enough to think they were friends either. People in his line of work rarely had such ties.
“Go back, Tate.”
The request left Tate feeling like she’d been sucker punched in the stomach as she struggled to understand the reasoning behind his order.
Because itwasan order. Tate made no mistake about that. The kind that would require physical force on his part if she tried to disobey.
This wasn’t the Blade she knew. If he wanted to take her life, there’d be no warning. It was why she never fully relaxed her guard around him no matter how many times he’d helped her out.
“Have you heard what happened at the palace?” Tate asked.
It was the only explanation that she could find. The Lucius’s network of informants rivaled Ryu’s. He had people embedded in nearly every government office and every house in the Upper. Probably the Lower too. There were times when she’d suspected Ryu and the Night Lords had an alliance of some sort. There were too many instances where they had worked together for the empire’s good. Not exactly the sort of behavior you expected in criminals.
It made Blade’s current actions even more perplexing.
“I’ve heard.”
“Then you know why I’m here.”
“I can guess.”
Oh joy, he was going to be cryptic in addition to being a blockade. How did Tate get all the luck?
“If that’s the case, I don’t understand why you’re stopping me.”
Tate couldn’t hide her impatience. Every second they lingered here, Peter got further away. Already the trail grew cold and her chances of catching him were dwindling.
Had something happened in the Lower that she wasn’t aware of? Something both Ryu and Dewdrop had neglected to notify her about?
“Take a look at what you’re wearing and then where you’re standing.” He pointed at her with his blade.
Tate looked down at her outfit. It smelled a little smoky but otherwise looked fine despite a pursuit across the city, changing to and from her dragon, and then a dash through the back alleys of the Lower.
She gently touched the tip of the dragon’s wings and looked up, not hiding her confusion.
Blade heaved a long sigh, expressing his impatience at her stupidity. “Anyone who sees you right now is going to assume the emperor sent you. How do you think they’re going to react to that?”
It was something Tate should have considered from the beginning. Usually, she would have; if she hadn’t been so focused on catching Peter.
There was a reason the Night Courts had such a strong presence in Cliff’s Shadow and Seaside, two of the worst slums in the city. The people who lived here didn’t stay if they had anywhere else to go. In society’s eyes, they were the discarded dregs, either too lazy or too stupid to make anything of themselves. It didn’t matter that most of those born here; died here. They never had the opportunity to be anything or anyone else.
In the lottery that was life, they’d lost as soon as they took their first breath.
In Cliff’s Shadow and Seaside, there were no city workers to clean the streets as they did in the rest of the city. No one to service the nonexistent glow lamps. For all intents and purposes, it was a neglected island in the middle of the city. A no man’s land the city officials didn’t want to concern themselves about.
“You’re not saying this out of concern for my safety.” Tate was very certain of that.
