“Or do not escape with me,” Enisca snapped, brushing past Maren.“Either way, I need to leave Mere.I was hoping to do that with you, but I can find another way without your ship and crew.”
Olsa stepped forward.“Do you know where they are?”
The other Usti woman nodded, holding her gaze.“I have even arranged for your crew to be kept in one place, ready to leave.Should they be rescued.”
“Good enough for me,” Illya grunted, shooing us on and glancing back at the door.I strained my ears and picked up shouting from the other side, distant but growing louder.“Time to run.”
FORTY
The Four Faces
SAMUEL
Hartlay at the end of a long, broad dock on the west side of Ostchen.It was inaccessible from the main city, and not just because by the time we arrived, the tide had already begun to swallow large parts of the docks in calf-deep, icy water.
The area was guarded by a high wall and a strong gate, beyond which lay a private shipyard.As Grant and I watched from the shelter of an awning, guards moved into sight on the decks of the ships—all of them fastened to a nearly submerged dock.There wasHart, whole and well and facing out to sea, along with a nondescript galley with her rigging completely disassembled.
The question of whether or not my crew remained aboardHartwas quickly answered.A chorus of singing drifted up from the gratings in emphatic Aeadine.The guards, roused, stormed over to the grating and hammered.The crew sang louder.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked over to see Grant watching me with a broad grin.
“See, so many things can go well,” he said.
“Since when are you the company optimist?”I replied, glancing at the sky.The sun had long since vanished over the western mountain now, and darkness was nearly complete.The tide would soon be at its highest.
Grant blew out his cheeks and gave a half shrug.“The post was vacant, I suppose.Should we make for the cathedral?”
“I will,” I decided.“Please remain here and keep watch, mark if and when the guards change, and if anyone is allowed through that gate.”
Grant saluted with a dandy’s flick of the fingers.“Aye, aye, sir.”
***
The open square before the Cathedral of the Four Faces was packed despite the late hour.A small army of monks, priests and priestesses from various orders moved through a crowd thick with wagons, children, and livestock—refugees, fleeing the Black Tides.Families slept under their wagons or rough awnings, several dozen braziers burned and soldiers lingered on the periphery, watching the crowd with equal parts pity and wariness.
I wandered the edge of the crush as the bells clanged a merry midnight chorus, then a half hour passed.Faces were nearly impossible to discern, mottled with light and shadow.But the Other still lingered at the corners of my vision, pocked with magelights.If Mary was here and had taken off her talisman, there was a chance I would be close enough to see her without stepping fully into the Other.
“Samuel,” a female voice called.
I turned to see not Mary, but Olsa Uknara.She left the brazier where she had been warming her hands and disappeared down a flight of stairs, into an alleyway.
Startled and in need of answers, I followed her down a stair and two streets into the flooding region of the city.Olsa did not speak the entire time, leading me in silence through rising, frigid water.Unidentifiable objects drifted past us, and the chill of the night failed to curb the stink of brine and stewing human refuse.But the floodwater meant we were relatively alone—an old man passed with a child on his shoulders and a raft on a rope, two lanky youths carried crates on their shoulders, and that was all.
Finally, Olsa climbed a set of stairs clinging to a warehouse near the central docks.I splashed up after her, my anticipation rising.
Four figures waited inside, in the light of an oil lamp.My eyes were inexorably drawn to Mary, her face pale in the warm light.She looked haggard, her hair falling in tangles from her braid and her body wrapped in a boat cloak.
Before I was fully through the door, she reached for me.I crossed the intervening space in two strides and folded her into my arms, loosening only when she made a soft sound of pain.
I pulled back and looked down at her, discovering she wore only a shift underneath the cloak.She held her thigh, visibly thick with bandages, and offered me a tense smile.
“Not your fault,” she soothed.“I was shot.Do not stop hugging me.”
I obeyed but asked over her head, looking at the others for explanation.“What happened?”
“Very little.”Illya offered me a distracted wave and a crooked but not altogether humorous smile as he fell into conference with his wife.
“A great deal, rather.”Closer to the back of the room, a face I thought I would never see again smiled and half-bowed in greeting.
