We make our way back to the Ram’s Head. Temujin and Chanar walk behind me and Inkar, and I lean against her for support. I may be getting stronger, but my bad leg will never be accustomed to dancing.
“Are you glad you came?” she asks.
I let out a contented sigh. “This was exactly what I needed. I feel awake again.”
“I’d wager Temujin would be willing to keep youawakeeven longer….”
She winks and I smack her. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw you two dancing!”
“It isn’t like that,” I insist, but chills shiver down my neck when I think of how we danced. And how we wrote in his Book of Whisperings. How he shows me the real Temujin hidden beneath the perfect mask.
We reach an intersection, crowded with revelers crossing in every direction, and my musing stops abruptly. Through the blur of faces and coats, I could have sworn I saw …
I shake my head.Stop torturing yourself.
But then the flash comes again. A distinct ripple of gold on black.
I pull away from Inkar and dodge through the crowd, squinting, my heart in my throat.
He shouldn’t be here.
I don’t want him to be here.
But there’s no mistaking the intricate, gleaming goldwork of Serik’s sunburst cloak.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“SERIK?”MY VOICE IS A SCRATCHY WHISPER. IRUB MYtired eyes to make sure I’m not hallucinating, but even with the hood drawn, I’d recognize his swaggering gait and the glittering hem of his cloak anywhere.
He’s alive. And in Sagaan.
A glorious, burning ache pours through my limbs like mulled honey wine. I trip over my feet as I take off after him. “Serik!” I call again, louder. Though now my voice is muffled by blubbering cries.
I need to see his face. Wrap my arms around him. Find a compromise that suits us both. It will kill me to watch him walk away again.
“Enebish? Where are you going?” Inkar tries to catch my arm, but I wiggle free.
“Go on without me. I need to—”
Serik darts around the corner and I barrel after him, leaving my half-formed explanation hanging in the air.
He races around one corner, then another, and I beg my stinging leg to move faster. It’s all I can do to keep sight of his cloak as he slips through another intersection and down a darkened street. Bright fiddle music trills from a shabby inn halfway down the block, and he scurries toward it. Dozens of signs plaster the windows, advertising fiddle duels and low-stakes games of nik. I smile as Serik’s shadow slips inside. It’s exactly the sort of place he’d hide out.
Inkar and the boys are chasing me. Gaining on me. Their footsteps pound the cobbles and they bark my name in hushed, angry voices. I’m being reckless. I know that. But I keep running anyway. I don’t even stop to consider how all thoughts of Temujin vanished the moment I saw Serik. I know only that the most primal, pulsing part of me insists I reach him.Now.
My bad leg gives out on the final step and I crash face-first through the inn’s double doors. Temujin bursts in on my heels, cursing and panting. “What are youdoing?” He leans over to help me up, but we both freeze because the common room is empty. And dark. Lit only by a pale shaft of moonlight streaming through the window.
I had expected a roaring hearth fire and tables filled with rowdy gamblers. Perhaps a cluster of fiddlers sawing away in the corner. But a mouse nibbling the leg of a chair is the only sign of life.
Unease creeps down my spine as I gape around the room. The inn clearly isn’t abandoned. The bar is freshly oiled and the benches are free of dust. The yeasty smell of ale hangs thick in the air. It’s decidedly closed, though strangely, the high-pitched strings play on—a phantom tune drifting down from the upper floors.
Chanar and Inkar jog up and lean against the door frame. “Have you lost your mind?” Chanar wheezes at me.
“Keep an eye on the street.” Temujin sends them out with a wave of his arm. “Make sure we haven’t been followed. Andyou—” He turns back to me, but I’m already picking my way through the tables and chairs.
“Serik!” I whisper-shout. He has to be here. Isawhim slip inside. This must be some sort of safe house. “It’s me!”
