Fury.
“Maybe we survived to avenge them,” she said, slipping on her sandals.
Baki’s frowned as she handed over the horns of the sheep and started to walk past him.
“Rae, wait!” he said. “Where are you going? It’s not safe to be out this late!”
“I’m going to pay the brewer a visit,” she replied, leaving Baki and his sheep staring after her in the gloaming.
***
She kept to the shadows when she reached the city, slipping between buildings and through the alley where the fights took place each day. The streets were empty and filled with a heavy, mournful silence. She passed the darkened bakery, its workers gone home to get a few hours of sleep before returning to shape loaves for the new day.
Next door was the brewery.
Thin reed mats covered the windows, but through them Rae could see flickering lamplight and a figure moving inside. The front door was ajar.
She pushed through it without knocking.
An unpleasant, sour-sweet smell assaulted her senses as she stepped into the long, dimly lit room. The brewer stood with his back to her next to a line of tall vats nestled in piles of embers, each one filled to the brim with a bubbling brew. Shelves built into the back wall were filled with sealed jars of finished beer, waiting to be sold.
“We’re closed,” the brewer said, not turning to see who it was. He dipped a cup into one of the steaming vats. “Come back tomorrow.”
Rae stepped past the grain-sifting trays and ceramic sieves and into the lamplight. The brewer was a squat man, shaped not unlike one of the beer jars, and Rae towered over him.
“It was you,” she said.
The cup stopped halfway to the brewer’s fleshy lips and hovered there for a moment. Then he slowly set it down on a table.
“When I saw you coming out of the nomarch’s house that day,” Rae went on, still speaking to his back, “you weren’t delivering beer, were you? You were deliveringinformation. How long have you been working for him? Days? Weeks? Or were you with the High Khetarans from the very beginning?”
The brewer turned. “Raetawy, how disappointing that you aren’t dead.”
“I should have guessed you were a traitor,” she said, ignoring the comment. “You were always the loudest voice at those meetings, preaching cowardice disguised as reason, trying your best to keep the men from fighting for their freedom—”
“I was keeping them safe!And doing a mighty good job of it until you showed up, you stupid,stupidgirl.”
“Safe?” Rae asked in disbelief. “You told the nomarch about the meeting! We walked straight into an ambush because of you! All those men are dead because of you!”
“Their deaths are onyourhands, Raetawy, not mine!” thebrewer countered. “I tried to warn them. I even tried to warn you! Those that listened to me are still alive. And those that didn’t?” He threw up his hands. “What can I say? You reap what you sow.”
With a roar, Rae lunged for him, grabbing his tunic and shaking him roughly. “What did the nomarch pay you in exchange for the lives of those men? For the old soldiers? For the fishermen’s son? For Asim? What did he give you?”
The brewer shoved her away, and Rae stumbled back into one of the vats, sloshing some of the hot beer onto the dirt floor.
“I would have done it for free,” he sneered, spittle flying from his mouth. “Asim was a damned fool. He had it coming!”
Rae’s vision narrowed as rage overtook her. She wanted to hit him and keep hitting him and never stop. She went to reach for him again, but then there was movement at the door. She whirled to see who it was.
Three hooded men, their faces shrouded in shadow, had slipped inside the brewery.
“Rae?” the biggest one said. “What are you doing?”
She squinted at him. “Omari?”
“Baki came to get me and Menk. He told us you were coming here but didn’t know why. Did something happen?”
She pointed at the brewer. “He betrayed us! He’s been working for the nomarch this whole time. That’s how they knew we’d be at the Garden of the Dead last night. He told them everything!”
