87
NOW: STEPS
Our departure was planned for that night. When the guards on the night shift rotated, the guards along the gates did too. Dermid had observed and surmised this over the last week. It was decided that the rotation that took place closest to the midnight hour was the wisest bet as it gave us the most darkness. Reed and Evangeline would join us to offer protection should the worst happen, and we would meet Dermid and Keir in the forest with the wagon and our belongings in the false bottom. Thane had given us more horses. He planned to leave the following day, acting as if it was time to take all of his business out of the timber forest. He had been finally paid in full by the army, and his choosing to leave would not be seen as suspect. Adelaide’s husband was inspecting an outbreak of vandalism that had taken place that morning on the other side of the city in his capacity as a high-ranking officer in Skow’s city guard. The vandals, according to Thane, were our scout friends.
The hope was that Adelaide’s husband would likely not realize she was gone from his house until a full day had passed.
Fox was beside herself, weeping over the goats and chickens. Myheart broke for her, but I explained that carrying them was not like taking Daisy, who was used to human companionship and altogether expected carrying.
What will we do when we get to Eccleston?she asked.
Tessa put her arms around Fox and said, “You leave that to us.”
I remembered then that she was only just about to turn eighteen, and that she had asked if I thought her family was among the penitents of Carver. She was still a girl. And I wondered again, for the thousandth time, if I had done the right thing taking her away from her parents. I knew that I had, but I still questioned it.
As the daylight dimmed, Adelaide, sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, tear tracks drying on her cheeks, asked without lowering her voice, “There’s no fire allowed. Without a torch, how will we find that door or even the second door?”
“Shut your mouth,” Ilsit whispered.
Tessa shot her a look that could kill and then said, “Reed has magic sight, my girl. He’ll see for us. It’ll be rough going, but we’ll follow him until we’re outside.”
“It’ll be over before we know it,” Jade assured her. “What we ought to do now is try and sleep a little. Get some rest; we may be on the move for a while before we first make camp after this.”
Ridiculously, I sat on our quilts and found myself thinking that with so many intelligent minds invested in the outcome, surely, after an hour of treading carefully and running to the timber yard, we would be free and easily so. I was a fool. And I understood as much when, by the white, wintery light of the waning sun that poorly lit the foremost half of the first level, I spotted Father Starling, Bertram Sheridan, and Captain Gerard. They were at a leisurely stroll along the rows of wagons, discussing something in clandestine tones.
“Ilsit,” I said, trying not to make a sound. She and I were the only two awake, agreeing that we would stay awake and keep an eye out for Reed and Evangeline.
“I see them,” she mouthed to me. Her eyes were wild, roaming. “Where the hell are Evangeline and your man?”
“Must you call him that?”
“Must you break his heart?”
“This is hardly the time?—”
“It’s no longer a good, hearty screw for him,” she interjected. “I can already see it in you. You want him, but you are afraid to want him.He’sall in.”
“You can’t know that,” I disputed. “Also, you’re very confident in knowing the workings of my heart for us only having been friends again for a winter and half.”
“It’s actually been seven, almost eight seasons now, not six, but go on. Protest away.”
“Ilsit, soon he’s turning thirty-four and I am turning forty-one.”
“And?”
“What if he wants children? Regardless of my age, I never wanted them. And we barely know each other. This has all been very quick.”
“And? Look, perhaps it’s presumptuous of me. But I have lived under your roof ever since Gerard threw me out. I have spent every day with you since. I can tell you have love for him. Go carefully, friend. It is rare I give a shit about a man’s feelings, but for him, I will.”
“Keir said the same thing to me,” I answered her, leaning to squint through the wagon spokes and through two rows to one side of us, where my three would-be murderers walked. “Can we please focus on Starling and his conspirators?”
We watched them until the sun was gone and the only rays of light were feeble strains from torches in the street. They stopped to speak to many people around us but never walked directly by our wagon.
“They’re gone,” Ilsit assured me.
“No. I didn’t see them leave through the front entrance.”
“Yes, but I also can see fuck all in this hell. I doubt they’re still here”
