I stand with her in the chapel in Covenant. She sings Trinity’s song and it rises to greet her, growing louder and louder until it vibrates painfully in my ears and shakes the ground beneath us. The orb of the Gate of Heaven teeters and rolls to the ground, splintering apart. The statues of the Twelve Heralds tremble, cracks spiderwebbing across their surfaces, and then suddenly they crumble and flake away into piles of rust. The base of their dais splits wide, blue-white light pouring from it.
I bend low over the light, peering down inside—
I come to with a gasp in a blazing bright room, the cold light of a dozen naphtha lamps searing the backs of my eyes. I squintas my pupils adjust and I can slowly take stock of my surroundings. Small, with walls lined with neatly labeled shelves and no windows, but an open doorway off to the side. I’m in the middle of the room, stripped down to my undershirt and pants, lying on what looks like a modified apothecary chair. Beside it is a table lined with medical and surgical instruments. There’s a needle and a flexible tube jammed into my arm, and on the other end of it is a pouch of clear liquid hanging on a hook—and an unfamiliar person with a round, tan face, dark, angular eyes, and slightly faded tattoos across their neck and forearms. The sides of their head are shaved, and the rest of their long black hair is wrapped up in an intricate pile of braids at the back of their head.
“You’re awake.” They quirk a smile at me as they reach for a pile of clean towels and a bottle of ointment on a nearby table. Then they look over their shoulder and holler, “Booker! Your friend is up!”
I struggle a little, trying to sit upright, but the person puts a hand on my shoulder to restrain me as Orion ducks through the doorway.
“Hey,” Orion says softly, coming up next to the chair, “how are you feeling?”
I lie back on the chair again, though the tension doesn’t leave my shoulders. My eyes flick around the room warily as the strange person ducks out of sight, making a ruckus somewhere else in the room. “Less likely to face-plant on the street. Which is an improvement. Where the hell are we? How long have I been out?”
“Only a few hours. It’s midafternoon.”
“A fewhours?” I jerk upright only for Orion to grab my shouldersand pin me back down. “Your best buddy Clint said we had two days at most, and here I am just wastinghoursof that on—”
The stranger pops back into view with an armful of medical supplies. “Necessary medical attention to keep you alive? Yes, how wasteful.” They dump everything on one of the shelves and then head for the door, giving me a little wave as they go. “I’m Liren, by the way.”
Orion leans one hip against the side of my chair. “Liren is Atlas’s spouse.”
I frown at the empty doorway Liren disappeared through. “Atlas got married? I didn’t know.”
“There was no way for you to know,” he says with a shrug. “Atlas is a rogue preacher, wanted by the law almost as much as the Skywayman is. Their marriage isn’t even a matter of public record.”
Rogue preacher.That part is new to me, too. Last time I saw Atlas, he was twenty, newly ordained to deliver the doctrines being handed down by the Heraldic Ministry. Apparently, he’d tipped over into public rebellion and excommunication since I pushed Orion away.
I drop my head back against the chair with a clunk. My limbs still feel shaky and hollow. “I don’t understand what happened out there. I shouldn’t have collapsed like that.”
“No?” Liren swings back into view, tapping their chin thoughtfully. “Because by my count you were exhausted, dehydrated, bruised in several places, and—this one’s my favorite—stabbed. Twice.”
I shoot a glare at them as Orion laughs. “I got that fixed. I took hair of the dog.”
They snort, folding their arms over their chest. “Oh well, then, who needs real medicine when you got black market pseudo-magic, right? Hair of the dog is an imperfect solution to major injuries, even when it’s done well.” Pressing cloth to the needle in my arm, Liren pulls the tube out in one smooth, quick motion. “And I’m betting that you played a little fast and loose with the dosages here, based on how your wounds reopened and you dramatically collapsed in public. That shit can be very hard on the body, and it’s not—hold your arm up like this—permanent for everyone. It depends on your metabolism, your health, even your activities.”
Orion shoots me a sympathetic look. “Train heists and storming towers are probably not on the approved activity list.”
My left arm up by my ear, I wiggle my fingers, seeing how they respond. “So am I better now? Can we go?”
Liren arches an eyebrow. “To be honest? You need sleep. You need real food. You need to be off your feet and out of trouble for at least a week.”
Orion puts out a hand before I can respond—which is probably a good thing because I was about to say something salty. “What if that’s not on the agenda for us?”
“Whatison your agenda, then?” Their eyes are steady on Orion’s face. “Kicking up a ruckus after escaping a prison train seems like an ill-advised move.”
Orion grins, shrugging. “Those are my best moves.”
Liren grunts, amused, and stomps over to the cabinets on the far side of the room, disappearing in a racket of clattering. “Fine, can you guarantee me a few hours of rest at least? Just a few hours.” They come back with a little stoppered jar and a handfulof bandages that they push into Orion’s arms. “This jar has an ointment that should help with pain and inflammation around the wound. Keep it clean. Regular dressing changes. Got it?”
As Orion nods, Liren squeezes his arm. “You can take them upstairs, Baby Booker. We got a free room or two where you can both rest for a minute.”
I try to get up all on my own, but I’m so exhausted still, my muscles about as useful as mush. Orion ends up pulling my arm around his shoulder and taking my weight, half carrying me down a short, dark, narrow hallway and through a swinging door. It opens into a big, warmly lit space filled with round tables and chairs, the walls lined with naphtha lamps surrounded by amber glass to cut down on the usual blue-white glare. On the far side, big windows face the street, busy and blazing in the midafternoon sunshine. The nearest wall is dominated by a long bar of welded steel-gray metal, backed by shelves of moonshine and budge, ale and hooch and benzene.
“A dram shop?” I stop and look up at Orion with raised eyebrows. “You took me to a dram shop?”
“No, I took you to Liren. Liren just happens to work out of a dram shop when they’re not using their medical education to help out devilishly attractive outlaws like you and me.”
Atlas comes down the stairs, dressed in new clothes, no hat to overshadow his face or cover his short mohawked locs. He eyes me leaning against his brother and gives me a small, tight smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.
