I didn’t turn around, and it wasn’t until I was in the kitchen, a large, hot space that smelled of the evening's cooking, that I realized she wasn’t behind me.
I hesitated. There was a kitchen boy who looked at me with the wide eyes of someone who had decided this wasn't his business and was very committed to that decision.
I looked between him and the back door. The back door was bolted. He hurried over to it, and it was open in seconds.
I didn’t hesitate again, and I stepped out through the door and into the cool Florlunia night.
A narrow lane ran behind the inn, between the building and a low stone wall. I turned left at the end of the lane, jumping back when a shadow moved in front, and then saw that Nicco was already here.
“Where are they?” he asked quietly.
“They saw Larana. I don’t know where Baxley is. How did you get out?”
“Front door.” He said it like it was obvious.
“Should we go?—”
“No. Keep moving.”
We moved fast through the back streets of Bloomreach, not running, not yet, but the pace just below running that covered ground without announcing itself.
"What’s the plan?" I asked.
"Horses are at the inn,” Nicco said. "We keep a low profile, and we head out before first light. Hopefully, they’re waiting for us.”
I almost stopped walking. "We leave them?"
"If they’re not there, we’ll come back for them later, or not at all."
“Nicco! We can’t leave?—”
He grabbed my elbow and brought me to a stop. “They’ve been in there all evening, and anyone sitting there can vouch for that. Me and you? Not so much.”
His cold stare bore into mine, and I nodded. “Of course, you’re right.”
“Good girl.” He looked over his shoulder. “Come on.”
We turned down a narrower street. The buildings here were older, closer together, and the lamplight thinner. I was reading the town as we went, trying to remember the way back in case we got separated.
Which was why I saw them before Nicco did.
Or at the same time. It was hard to tell with him.
Two figures at the far end of the street. Not guards, the quality of their stillness was wrong for guards. Guards moved with the purposeful stride of people who had been given a task. These two had the stillness of people who had been waiting.
I knew that stillness.
"Nicco," I said.
"I see them."
Vorn's men.
Not the ones who'd left the square, these were different ones. That meant Vorn had brought more people south than I'd known, and they'd been watching long enough to know where we were staying and to get ahead of us when we moved.
Better trackers than any of us had given them credit for.
They came at us fast, and there was nowhere to go that was faster, so we didn't run.
