She flashes him a dark glance. ‘She’s gone a fair road already, love.’
The room stinks of copper and rot. She cracks a window, listening to the sound of the port flood in. The sea isn’t far, not far at all.
Turning back to face Shroudweaver, she says ‘We can’t lead her here? You’re sure? We’ve pulled her and Slick a pretty dance before.’
‘No,’ Shroudweaver muses. ‘Not here, not Hesper. She knows we’re here. She’ll be expecting us to lure her in, find some way to force her to make a stand. And even if the guilds are leery of sallying out, they’ll fight like cornered rats for their home. For their purses.’
Shipwright adjusts the covers, rubs contorted muscles. ‘So, you’re taking me back. To Thell. Both of us.’
She runs a critical eye over Fallon’s scorched body as she kisses the taste of burnt sugar from her teeth. ‘Like we didn’t have enough problems.’
Shroudweaver looks up at her, one eyebrow raised. ‘Where else do you suggest we go? The Halls are far and roaming. The Burners are all held under root and briar. We need something to end this. We need somewhereto end this.’
His voice drops. ‘This needs to end.’
Shipwright sighs. ‘Don’t take that tone with me.’
Shroudweaver smiles sadly. ‘Love. Salt-hair sweetheart. We knew it would come to this.’
‘You knew,’ she says, and there’s that knife again like a hot blade turning in her heart, cutting hope from under her ribs. ‘Youknew. And you said nothing.’
‘I’m sorry, Ship. I am. I didn’t think I had it in me. That she would push us this far.’
She stands, pushes her hair back. Below her, Fallon twists in the bed and moans. That sound, ragged and wordless, almost stops her throat. Almost.
‘Youknew. You’ve always had it in you. And I’ve loved you for it. You don’t back down. Not even when you should. But you should have told me.
‘You should have told me.’ Again, and fiercely.
Shroudweaver places a hand on either side of her hips. ‘I should have. I did.’
She pushes his hands away. ‘Not in front of fucking Fallon. Not spilt out over some maudlin breakfast in the same wretched tower where my best friend fights for every spit-flecked breath.’
Her voice shakes. Worse, it burns. ‘Not when we are going back there. To the blood, and the dark.’
His answer is weak. He doesn’t even convince himself. ‘We survived it before.’
Shipwright shakes her head. Feels tears burning at the back of her eyes. ‘Not all of us. Barely any of us. Neverenoughof us.’
He moves into her again, kisses her chest along the sternum, up the collarbone. ‘It’s different now. We’re different now.’
She winces. ‘We might be, but are they? Do you remember the last time we were there? Do you remember their faces? Probably not. You were watching our friends. Our allies.’
She shifts uncomfortably, moving to swipe the cloth across Fallon’s stubbled jaw. ‘Me, I was watching your back. Which meant I was watching the rest of them.’
She moves her hand across the covers to take his. ‘Do you know what I saw, love?’
His says nothing. His mind focused on diagnosis and remedy, on spittle and blood. So she says it for him.
‘Rage, love. Rage and hunger. We ran with a wolf and we pulled it back right before the kill.’
He slides his hand loose. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’
She feels the anger inside her and handles it, like she always does, pushing it down until it barely frays the edge of her voice.
‘If it wasn’t that bad, then why have we never gone back? Three wretched years getting harried from pillar to post. Three years of drownings, deaths and burials, and we have never once gone back.’
‘No need,’ he murmurs. ‘We still had options. There was still a chance.’
