Alaric is convincing some of them.A few people are drifting away on the fringes of the crowd.But not as many as I might have hoped.
“He’s just traitorous scum!”one of the gang members calls out, pointing with a blade in his hand.“Get him!”
The crowd starts towards us, heading for the fountain.That’s when members of the resistance start to appear, charging to meet the ones trying to kill Alaric.They must have been waiting in the surrounding streets, carefully hidden until needed.They slam into the mob, and now the sounds of battle fill my ears.
“You planned this all along!”I say to Alaric.“Youknewthey’d come here.”
“My people heard Selene was trying to organize all this,” Alaric explains, even as his people fight with the gang members coopted into the mob.“She paid the gangs to move with the crowd, with the idea they’d all meet here.I told my people to be waiting.”
Magic fills the air as the resistance battle against the gang members in the crowd.Small bursts of flame flicker, and darts of power.One man moves with extraordinary speed as he swings a club at another, only for it to shatter against skin that’s briefly like stone.This is Aetheria, and even the simplest fight involves power most people in the world beyond could only dream of.
Alaric’s people are being selective, pushing aside ordinary members of the crowd, trying to target the gang members instead.One member of the resistance suffers a cut to his arm, only for Thalia to run to him, healing the injury in seconds.A man in the colors of one of the gangs stands over her as she works, raising a blade.
Alaric leaps into the fray then.Literally leaps, jumping down from the top of the fountain so his feet connect with Thalia’s attacker.He draws a pair of daggers, plunging into the fight, his illusions producing a trio of copies that swirl around him, making it hard for anyone to know exactly where he is.
I curse and jump down, determined to help.A man comes at me with a blade and I sidestep, tripping him and sending him tumbling into the crowd.Another attacker tries to grab me, so I elbow him hard in the stomach, doubling him over just in time for my knee to rise and meet his jaw.
I can see some of the ordinary people fleeing from the fight, but the gang members are still fighting with swords and knives, turning this into a bloody, deadly battle that makes my heart beat faster with adrenaline.
Worse, the same guards who were standing back before are moving forward now, clearly intending to arrest as many of the resistance as they can.I avoid a blow from another gang member, twist a blade out of his hand, and try to work out what I can do that might help.
I can feel animals nearby and I reach out with my powers, summoning them, hoping it will be enough.A swarm of rats comes from a crack in the stones, coming up from the layers of catacombs beneath the city streets.Birds fly down through the darkness, drawn from all around by my powers.I send the small creatures into the fight to bite and peck and claw, making people cry out and fall back.It isn’t much, but I hope it will buy us time.
“Alaric, we need to go!”I call out.
A quartet of Alarics looks round at me, and he lets his illusion fall so that suddenly, there’s only one.He looks as though he might throw himself back into the battle, too caught up in the wild joy of it to stop, but then he nods.
“Everybody back!”he calls to the resistance.“Make for your bolt holes!”
We start to retreat.A guard grabs for me, but Alaric punches him hard enough to send him sprawling and we run.I send a few more small creatures at the guards, hoping it will be enough to distract them as we flee.
Members of the resistance are scattering in every direction, fleeing into the night.I hope the dark spaces of the city will protect them, even as I know the magical lights on so many of the streets will make it hard to simply disappear.
There’s no time to think about it, though, because Alaric and I are sprinting along the streets.He has a grip on one of my arms as if afraid of losing me.I call on whatever speed and grace I can draw from an alley cat to keep up, moving swiftly through the night.
Alaric pulls me into an alley suddenly, throwing up a wall of illusions across the entrance and holding me close as a squad of guards goes thundering past.We start to move slower now, slipping through the night in silence, while around us, the sounds of the hunt for resistance members go on unabated.
We reach an inn that seems to have closed, as if the owner’s afraid of the violence in the city, but Alaric takes out a key, opening one of the doors.I see a guard rounding the corner, but before he can look around and see us, Alaric pulls me inside, shutting the door behind us.
We’re safe, at least for now, but I suspect that, after tonight, I will never truly be safe again.I was seen fighting with the resistance, and that means…
That means the guards will hunt me wherever I go in the city, now.
CHAPTER NINE
“How many people were hurt?”I ask Alaric, as we both sit in a backroom of the inn.Sunlight is just starting to come in through the windows.“How many were captured?”
Alaric shakes his head."I don't know yet.After an attack like this, everyone goes to the ground and then makes contact with one another when they can.They all have their own hiding places the rest don't know about so they can't give away that information if they're captured."
“You mean, if they’re tortured,” I say.“You really think Rowan and the senate would allow that, even now?”
Alaric fixes me with a level look.“Plenty already have been.Remember when Domitian tried to take over?”
“Rowan isn’t Domitian,” I point out.
“I know that,” Alaric says, “but he may not be the one in charge right now.Individual groups of guards will report to whoever’s bribed them the most, and will do whatever they’ve been paid to.”
“You think the corruption runs that deep?”I say.“You think there arenohonest guards left in the city?”
