“Stay here, hide here,” he suggested. “You’ll be safe until things settle down. Then, yes, I will help you rescue Lewis. I’ll help you get out of Harrow, too.”
That wouldn’t be much use without funds, but I did not say that. I was grateful for the offer and still might need to accept it.
“Mayfair!” someone shouted, affirming Harden’s words.
Harden stood up, looking at me apologetically. “Consider it? I’ll be back.”
“Sure. Go on.” I watched him hasten away, closing further in upon myself with each step he took.
I could not go after Lewis alone, even if I was sure he had not betrayed me. The Guild was simply too powerful. Pretoria might be able to do it, but convincing her would be no easy task.
My thoughts churned off from there, and I will spare the reader the extent of my ramblings. Suffice it to say that by the end, I had found a course of action that put me back on my feet.
Retrieving the artifact from Baffin was a daunting and highly improbable prospect. But if I moved quickly, I might not have to.
I took a shawl of a nearby chair and wrapped it about my shoulders, silently promising to return it someday. Then I looked for Harden, to say goodbye. But I could not find him.
***
I crossed a street, down which I glimpsed smoke in the northern sky, above the slated and tiled roofs, decorous gables, and a slowly turning weathervane. A cluster of soldiers moved from door to door of the shops along the way, ushering owners inside and checking locks. Several glanced at me, disheveled in my shawl and opera gown, but only to shout, “The city is in lockdown! Off the streets, order of the Grand General!”
“On my way!” I shouted back as I ducked into another alleyway.
Twists and turns passed me by. I was cold, but my skin prickled with anxious sweat. At one point I crossed a broad, echoing and empty market hall where the dispossessed clustered in dirty corners, conferring and eyeing me as I passed.
“Not safe out there, lass!” a man called, his voice quavering with age and worry.
I only touched my forehead and shouldered open a stiff outer door.
I made it a dozen feet down the next street before gunshots cracked. I threw myself under a cart. Someone called an order to stand down. Another gunshot cracked. Glass shattered.
On my belly, I watched soldiers sprint past. I did not see whoever they pursued, but judging by a smattering of whoops and howls, the perpetrators were enjoying the chase.
Zealots, I surmised.Or looters. Baffin was truly despicable, using Incarnadine and her crusade to tear the city apart and justify his own vendetta. Trying to useme.
The latter may not have come to fruition, but it clung to me. It made what I intended to do next all the sweeter.
The streets around the Hotel Cherron were thick with police and soldiers, coordinating and ordering locals about. I kept my head down and ducked into the alleyway where I had, not two days ago, stashed my stolen bicycle after throwing Guild Mage Howell off Pointer’s Bridge.
The contraption was gone, perhaps taken by another pair of needy hands. But the spot was deserted, and safe to catch my breath.
It took longer than was helpful. I had gotten so little sleep over the last few days, and next to no solid meals. I braced my hands on my knees in the shadow of the wall and stilled a wave of dizziness.
I needed rest. But first I needed to find Pretoria.
I eyed the front door of the hotel. Harassed-looking bellboys stood beside the doors as guards, but no one came in or out. I doubted my sister was still here, but even if she was not, she would have left a note. Or…
“Finally,” Pretoria said. She stepped seemingly from nowhere with a haze of skewed time, and gave me a fixed, low-chinned look. “You have ruined that gown. Where were you?”
I smiled a compulsive, relieved, and guilty smile. “I knew you would find me.”
“That is not an answer, dear.”
I took her in, head to foot. She was dressed in a simple walking ensemble, parasol in hand, and appeared none the worse for wear.
“The Guild did not spot you?” I asked. “Or did a Silver mage call at the hotel?”
She frowned. “Mage? No, though the bellboy warned me someone had been watching the premises, and I secured a new den. The Guild, the opera—that was a near thing. I was recognized by a mage and detained momentarily, but made my escape. Too late to find you, however. Where did you go?”
