Venick moved to Dourin’s side. His hand went to the green glass sword at his hip, readying for the draw, and never mind that they were woefully outmatched. Venick had battled conjurors before. He’d seen the way they used their power to bend the world around them, the tricks they employed to gain the upper hand. Unnatural tricks, like shadow-weaving and storm-summoning and blindness. Hell. If one of the approaching conjurors decided to blind Venick now, his sword wouldn’t do a damn thing.
So. To Dourin: “Think of a way to finesse us out of this, will you?”
“Oh, you are a funny one.”
Venick scanned the elves around them, the narrow streets, colorful merchant stalls on every side. Outnumbered, well and truly, with no easy escape. “It wasn’t a joke.”
“No? Then listen. We use a diversion.”
“A diversion?”
“There is a brazier behind you.”
Venick glanced. It was a bowl of fire contained within a metal grate, the kind merchants used to illuminate their wares and ward off the worst of the mountain chill. Venick could have laughed. Knocking it over would buy them a few seconds at best. It would backfire at worst. He imagined the city up in flames. “That’s your plan?”
“On my count.”
“Gods, it really is.”
“One.”
Venick shifted onto the balls of his feet. There were bodies on all sides. A bustling market gone still. Any of these elves could draw their weapons, but aside from the two conjurors quickly closing in, none of the citizens made any move to attack.
“Two.”
Venick wondered how many of these northern elves knew the truth about Farah’s rise to power. How many opposed her new regime. Farah had built an army of southern soldiers and conjurors, then used a loophole in Evov’s protective magic to march that army into this city. Her execution had been swift, fierce—perfect. Venick could admit that it was perfect. Could admit, too, that its perfection worried him. He wasn’t even sure that humans, who were bred for war, could have pulled off such a takeover.
“Three.”
The conjurors descended at the same time Venick kicked over the brazier, sending sparks and coals flying. And then he and Dourin were off, bolting blindly through the market and back into winding city streets. For one wild moment Venick thought it had worked, that their diversion had been enough to shake their pursuers. He thought—
Please.
—that they’d gotten lucky, that they might actually make it out of this alive.
You won’t.
No, they wouldn’t, because a moment later Venick heard the distinct sound of cloaks flapping in the wind behind them. Thethap thap thapof leather-soled boots on the road. He risked a glance back and saw them then, two black-haired elves quickly gaining ground.
Venick put on a burst of speed. He followed Dourin closely as the elf took a hard right, then another. Narrow streets gave way to even narrower alleys, sunless paths that looped up and around and back on themselves. Venick quickly lost track of their location.High, he thought, and thenlost, because he could no longer tell where they were headed. No landmarks. No clear view of the city. Just tall buildings set into the rock and a network of back alleys and two conjurors following close behind.
Until they weren’t. Suddenly, inexplicably, the sounds of their pursuers vanished. Venick threw another look behind him to discover the street was empty. The conjurors had disappeared.
Venick skidded to a halt.
A trick. A trap. It had to be.
He drew his sword.
Dourin stopped too. “Put that away.” Venick ignored him. He scanned nearby windows and rooftops, then looked higher, up into a suspended web of footpaths and archways. They were in a quieter part of the city now. A neighborhood, Venick realized, though the buildings here only vaguely resembled homes. They were cruder than the shops back near Evov’s center, more roughly carved, as if they’d been molded with child’s clay.
“I said put it away,” Dourin snapped. “Do you want the whole street to see you?”
“The conjurors—”
“We lost them.”
But that didn’t make sense. Those elves had been right on their heels. Venick turned to tell Dourin so, but paused when he realized Dourin had moved into the doorway of one of the houses. The elf pushed inside without knocking. “What—?”
