I rub the back of my aching head. I did fall. With the Collector and the Dread Viper from the bazar.
My breaths come faster, and Nephele reads the question on my face.
“I don’t know where Alexus is.” She tosses the cloth into the small pail beside the bed. “Orlena, Joran, and Zahira have been out looking for him all afternoon.”
Gods. Did the Dread Viper take him? How is that even possible? The Collector could turn him to bloody bits in seconds if he wanted. But again, I recall what Joran said. They have abilities all their own. I just don’t know what they are.
“We have to find him,” I sign. “I can check the waters.”
She grips my arms. “We will. But first, I need to know how you went from being in the armory bazar to being ten miles away in an inn. The innkeeper said plainly that you were brought here early this morning. Not hours later. Not in the time it would’ve taken you to walk here. Not even in the time it would’ve take you to run.”
Much as I don’t understand it myself, I decide it’s time to explain my abyss to my sister.
“That’s almost like portaling,” she says when I finish. “Like Fleurie. Or sifting, like the prince.”
I don’t know what it is, but the thought of being anything like the prince makes me recoil.
“Do you think the Dread Viper somehow took Alexus?” she says.
Before I can ask for a dish, water, and knife so I can see if he did or not, Orlena replies from the doorway. “I’m certain he did.”
The woman enters the room, Joran and Zahira close behind. They’ve been listening. Zahira sets the sword Alexus had been carrying against the wall, blood dried on the blade, while the Icelander shuts the door and remains there. He leans one shoulder against the wood, his hand on his hip, and studies me with a curious stare.
“We went to speak with the woman who found you,” Zahira says to me as she sits opposite me and Nephele on the other bed. “She took us back to the scene. You and Alexus arrived near an old granary that belongs to Orlena’s family.”
“I have a painting of it in the safehouse,” Orlena says. “You might’ve seen it along with maps. I created that wall for passers through to become oriented with the city.”
Gods. I remember.
“We found a discarded sword and blood soaked into the ground,” Zahira says. “A lot of it. And it didn’t come from you.”
Trying to recollect anything, I scrub my hands through my hair and think. “The sword,” I finally sign, and my sister translates. “I think he was stabbed. Perhaps when we fell.” I take a deep breath. “If I can see him in the waters, I can get to him and get him out quickly.”
“That wouldn’t be safe,” Joran says after Nephele translates. “That guard would’ve incapacitated the Collector’s magick and has likely taken him back to their headquarters. If Raina managed to sift there, or whatever you would like to call whatever magick she’s doing, they could incapacitate her too.”
“Incapacitate?” I sign to Nephele. That’s what their power is?
Of course it is. That’s why all those weapons in the armory fell to the ground like the air had let them go.
Nephele grips my knee, and I see the worry in her eyes as she turns toward Joran. “You said headquarters. Which is where?”
He shrugs. “Supposedly, no one knows.”
“The rumor is that the Dread Vipers live in the Aki-Ra Quarter,” Orlena says. “Over the years, they’ve been seen slipping into the area in the middle of the night. But no one dares go knocking on doors.”
“You have preternatural instincts and quite the sense of smell,” Nephele says to Joran. “You sniffed Raina out of thousands of people like a dog. Surely you can locate Alexus.”
One corner of the Icelander’s mouth lifts at her gibe, but then falls. “I’ve tried for hours now. This city is a confusing zephyr of aromas waiting to happen. Would you have me continue an impossible hunt? In search of a den of vipers, no less?”
He speaks to her as though he is under her command. As though all she must do is say the words, and he will respond as she pleases. And I think she knows it.
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’d have you do.” She stands and grabs two daggers from the other bed, the same ones from the bazar. Somehow, she procured two thigh sheaths as well. She hands me one, along with a blade, then lifts her eyes to Joran again. “And we’re coming with you.”
Full dark falls as me, Nephele, Joran, Hel, and Rhonin head toward the Aki-Ra Quarter.
With Orlena’s hand-drawn map in hand, we travel along the city outskirts, trying to remain unnoticed, dodging the thinner presence of foot soldiers and Dread Vipers on the lookout.
But it isn’t easy. Nephele can’t form a shielding construct because it might draw attention since the Vipers have such heightened senses for detecting magick. And Rhonin isn’t exactly the type of man an eye can miss.
