Zen averted his gaze. “Yes,” he said, his voice rough. “Thank you.”
She loosed a breath and stepped back. “So you’re not a Hin courtdog.”
Zen blinked at her wearily. “Do I look like I work for the Elantian government?”
She lifted her eyebrows and gave him a slow, sweepingonce-over from the tips of his patent leather boots to his Elantian-style merchant’s coat.
Heat rushed to Zen’s face. Right. He had dressedexactlylike a Hin courtdog. A traitor.
“How did you do it?” The girl’s tone had changed. She watched him intently, face half-shadowed. “Those cheap tricks with the lights and the fire and the glass window breaking—”
“They’re not cheap tricks,” Zen said. The girl’s eyes glimmered, but she said nothing more. “And I have questions of my own foryou,”he shot back, “such as how a songgirl at a teahouse managed to kill a high-ranking Elantian Angel.”With so much yin in the energies you use.
His scrutiny focused on her at the thought. He took in her outline, small and balled up tight like an animal prepared to strike. No matter how he searched, though, he could no longer find any trace of the yin energies he had sensed in Old Wei’s shop and permeating the Peach Blossom Room, clinging to the corpse of that Elantian Angel.
It made no sense. If shewerea demonic practitioner, or even a regular practitioner, why could he sense no traces ofanyform of qì emanating from her person?
The girl’s gall turned to defensiveness. “None of your business.”
“It is now.”
“I never asked for your help.”
It was Zen’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “Oh? Do I misremember the offer you made me back at the Teahouse?”
Without batting an eyelash, she closed the gap between them and held out a hand, palm upturned. “Show me the coin, then, O Not-Courtdog Mister of Magic.”
Zen’s breath caught as he flattened himself as much as physically possible against the brick wall. Unabashed little ingrate,using her cheap songgirl’s ways against him. His school would have had her expelled for such effrontery.
He was better than that. Trying to steady his pulse, he ignored her and glanced around them, taking in the narrow alleyways, the uneven street, the darkness that felt more comfortable than the superficial auric lights the Elantians used. “Where are we right now?”
“The slums.” The girl tipped her head to look in the direction of the main road. She still stood disconcertingly close. The scent of lilies was jarringly at odds with the rose-scented perfume that had choked the Teahouse. As though hearing his thoughts, her gaze snapped back to him, bright and bold. “I know it’s not exactly your cup of tea, mister, but the patrols never look here.”
Mister.He ignored the insult. “They might now,” Zen said, straightening slightly. The magician’s spell had faded enough so that the pain across his wound was bearable. It was still bleeding, but he had neither the time nor the materials to treat it right now. “We must get out of the city.”
The words had no sooner fallen from his lips than a faraway sound drifted to them: a rhythmic litany that clanged deep into the night.
The girl sucked in a breath. “The bells,” she whispered, and then her eyes snapped to him. “The dawn and dusk bells.”
Zen was not sure what to make of this. He had not grown up in a conventional Hin city, had barely spent any time in the Last Kingdom before it had been ripped from him. The Elantians had invaded, and the cities had become death traps for people like him. What hedidknow was that the distant capital of Tian’jing—a city his family had staunchly avoided—held a pair of bells that rang at dawn and dusk each day without fail. He was not sure why their song would drive such anxiety into the girl.
She was still staring at him as though he were mad. “FourGods, did you grow up in a nunnery? The city—it’s going into a lockdown.”
Ah. Zen tipped his head in the direction of the bells, eyes narrowed. Keeping a hand on his side, he pushed off from the wall and was relieved to find his legs steady. The world was no longer spinning. “Make for the city gates,” he said. “No time to lose.”
She shook her head. “That’s the first place they’ll check. The gates will be closed and swarming with Angels.”
“The city walls, then.”
“Impossible to scale. There are patrols that’ll kill us on sight.”
He hesitated. If they did not get out of Haak’gong soon, it would be crawling with Elantian soldiers and—worse—government magicians. The Elantian military stronghold would have been alerted by now, he thought, and soon he and this girl would be smoked out like ants in a trap.
If it really came down to it…
Zen made a split-second decision. “As long as you can lead us there, I can get us through.”
Her eyes shone like dark pebbles as she glanced in the direction of the Teahouse, a dozen or so streets back. Emotions shifted across her face like clouds across a night sky: hesitation, guilt, and raw sorrow.
