The little stelka hugged the ground and showed me her teeth.
My voice came out ragged, like a growl. “I will end you. I mean it.”
The stelka hesitated, unsure.
If I ever went back to my world, I would burn every copy ofThe Thieves of the NorthI could find. I would build a Viking funeral pyre out of them on a raft, push it into Lake Travis, and howl like a wolf while flames consumed it.
The cloak stank, but not as bad as I expected, so I put it on and staggered around the shore of the small island. The fabric was wool but soaking wet and cold. I could really use some shoes . . . No. Stuffing my feet into boots filled with human sludge was beyond me. Barefoot it was.
The stelka watched me, wary.
The assassin who hid on this island, waiting for his victim to cross the bridge, mentioned that one of the piers had metal handholds for maintenance. I scanned the three piers. The middle pier offered a row of rusty metal brackets. My way out. I tied the bag of money around my neck and took one last look around.
Something was wrong with the river’s current ahead. Something odd . . .
There it was, about fifty yards away, a section of the river that seemed unnaturally free of ripples. It was the same color as the rest of the water, a muddy brown, but it was moving at a different speed, slower, as if it were fighting the rushing current.
I had no idea what the hell it was. It wasn’t in the books. I was absolutely sure it wasn’t. I would’ve remembered that. Every instinct in me screamed that it was bad and I had to avoid it at all costs.
The translucent mass cut across the current to the left, heading straight for the island.
Fear shot through me like an electric shock. I spun around and sprinted to the pier with the handholds, stumbling over fallen branches and weeds. The shrubs caught my cloak. I ripped it free and kept going, jerking my feet out of the mud.
Behind me something let out a desperate shriek. I looked over my shoulder. The little stelka was flailing in a clump of thorny shrubs, stuck up to her chest in mud.
The dark thing sped toward us. An eerie feeling squirmed along my back, like a clammy, wet hand brushing my skin. The stelka screamed, a pitiful frantic cry.
Damn it.
I reversed, tore back through the shrubs, yanked the little beast free, and heaved her onto my shoulder. She sank her claws into the cloak and my skin, clinging to me for dear life.
I crashed through the bushes, heading for the pier. Mud squelched under my feet. I slid on the sludge, caught myself, slid again, and skidded into stone. My fingers caught the first metal handhold, and I scrambled up. Three breaths, and I had climbed onto the bridge and whipped around.
Below me, a translucent body slid out of the river. It was formless and stretchy, like a ten-foot-wide amoeba swirling with terrifying darkness. It licked the shore of the tiny island, slid over the corpse, and slipped back into the water.
The corpse was gone as if it had never been there.
What the actual fuck . . .
The terrible creature lingered by the edge of the island, waiting, its surface rippling like some horrible oil slick. It couldn’t climb up the pier, could it? Surely it couldn’t.
I held my breath. On my shoulder the stelka froze, completely still.
The monstrous thing sank below the surface.
A moment . . .
Another . . .
The dark thing floated back up, pushed away from the shore, and the river took it, pulling it under the bridge.
I exhaled.
And realized I had a wild animal clawing into my shoulder. At that exact moment, the stelka realized she was clinging to a weird human. I jerked, she squeaked, I stumbled back, and she leaped off my shoulder and raced off into the night, vanishing between the houses at the other end of the bridge.
Okay then. So that happened.
I slumped against the bridge’s rail. The dark water rushed below me. I was definitely in Kair Toren. The Mage Tower was where it was supposed to be, the Bluestone Square was as described, Ogden Island, the bridge I was on, Lecke walking across Estret right on schedule—all of that matched. But there was also the body on the shore and then there was that thing, whatever the hell it was. That thing shouldn’t have been here. It shouldn’t have even existed. It wasn’t in the books.
