Some kind of struggle, that was certain. One that happened a long time ago. But if Skyweaver wasn’t here—hadn’t been here in years—where was she?
Sudden shouts echoed up the stairs, breaking her concentration.
Eris strode to the narrow window, looking down. The black shapes of the Lumina were swarmingintothe tower now.
They were inside, and they were coming.
Eris wanted to take out her spindle and cross,now, but therewas something she’d come for. She’d made Crow a promise, and if she didn’t come through on it, he couldn’t help her.
She was good at taking things and turning them into something else, he’d said.
Quickly, Eris moved through the room, scanning the floor in the starlight, turning overturned furniture upright. Forcing herself to be calm.
She will have disguised it.And she will have kept it close.
But if that were true—if Skyweaver kept it on her—then Crow’s soul wasn’t here. Because the god of souls wasn’t here.
The voices got louder. Nearer. Soon Eris could hear their sprinting footsteps. She went to the door she’d come through and shut it. But there was no lock on this door. So she dragged the only unsmashed piece of furniture in the room—a heavy dyeing table—against it, needing to buy herself time.
There was a shelf full of empty jars and she searched this, too. She checked the floor beneath the loom. She checked everywhere. But there was no sign of anything harboring a soul.
Thud, thud, thud!
Fists rained down on the door, making Eris jump.
“Who’s in there?”
Eris stared at the door, watching it shake with each pound of a fist. The table wouldn’t hold it shut for long.
She was out of time.
Eris drew out her spindle and crouched down. Drawing a line across the floor, she waited for it to flare silver. Waited for the mists to rise.
Nothing happened.
The door inched open.
Eris drew a second line, and then a third. The mists didn’t come. The way across didn’t open for her.
She looked to the walls around her. They shone silvery in the starlight. Like steel.
Stardust steel,she realized, her panicked thoughts humming like bees.
She remembered the cuffs Kor had locked around her wrists.
Stardust steel prevented her from crossing.
I’m trapped. Trapped a thousand steps into the sky, with nothing but a door between her and a pack of soldiers. Soldiers who were throwing all their weight into it now.
The door shuddered, and held—but only barely. A loudcrackwas followed by several voices counting in unison. The next time they threw their weight against that door, it would not hold.
Eris looked to the only other possible exit: the narrow window. She pushed her way through broken, toppled furniture until she stood before the cracked glass, looking out. The walls of the tower were perfectly smooth. There were no handholds to climb, and the fall would kill her.
But even if she could somehow survive it: the window frame was too narrow. She couldn’t fit through it.
Behind her, the door heaved with the weight of the soldiers throwing themselves against it, forcing the table to move enough to let them through.
The Lumina crawled into the room.
