“If this kills him—”
“I will also perish,” Roan murmurs past lips blue from the cold, glancing at me over his crooked glasses.
Does he think I’m a monster?
“Course not.” I crack my neck, doing another perimeter scan. “But you’llbegfor death.”
Feeling Kaan’s gaze blaze across the side of my face, I catch the slightest twitch of his mouth from my peripheral.
Not sure why he finds this amusing. He’s about to get sapped. On enemy grounds.
Roan takes the flask, corking it as Kaan binds his hand with a strip of material torn from the hem of his robe, all four of us peering through the foliage—either scanning the perimeter or watching for the sky to clear. After what feels like a small eternity, Roan hobbles across the courtyard, getting lost amidst the churn of snow. He looks miniature compared to the wall he begins painting with broad strokes of Kaan’s blood. Such a thin layer that it doesn’t drip out of shape.
Hopefully that means the pull won’t be too bad.
He finishes the most elaborate rune I’ve ever seen, then returns, passing the flask to Kaan before drying his bloody hands on his pants. “That should do,” he says, breathing on his bunched fists. “Lark?”
Kaan digs through the pocket of his pants, retrieving a sodden parchment square that must’ve missed the waterproofing runes.
All three males groan.
“What about a used one?” I ask, pulling out the lark Kaan sent me earlier.
Roan shakes his head. “Won’t work. I need a fresh one so I can trick it into fluttering toward Kaan’s blood.”
“He sent me this. Can’t you just pinch the return fold? I’m sure Clode won’t mind nudging it toward the rune for me.”
Roan frowns, taking the lark. “I keep forgetting you can hear the Creators in here …” He looks at me like I’m some oddity he’dloveto dissect with a magnifying glass and a scalpel. “Why is that?”
Probably the same reason I was able to step past the runes that protected the book.
“Wish I knew. I’d bottle that shit and dish it out to the masses.” My eyes narrow. “How big will this hole be? Making enemies with the entire ready-mounted battalion is not my idea of a good time.”
“Just a little bigger than Kaan,” Roan clarifies, unfolds the lark, checks it, then refolds it again. “And the noise will be easily overshadowed by the dragons near the gate.”
Right …
Kaan pulls out his weald.
I stiffen, looking away.
“Are you okay, Moonbeam?”
“Never better.” I jerk my chin at Roan. “Let’s get this over with before he freezes to death and Pyrok grows too sober to think straight.”
“She’s speaking my language,” Pyrok mutters. “Plan?”
“The moment we break through, we need to make for the underground canal,” Kaan says, scanning the heavy gray sky. “Should we get separated, the closest entrance is near the durvil fruit distillery. It’ll be easy to lose any tails down there, and they can’t check every vessel. We’ll secure stowage west across the border.”
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing.
Everyone follows my gaze to our left, where dense mist is billowing over the wall. It cascades down like a waterfall, pouring into the Citadel’s courtyard and puddling across the stark white ground.
“Miel Et Muíem,”Kaan murmurs. “Moving Mistsin the common tongue.”
“I didn’t think they migrated this far north?”
“Not in over an eon. Could be handy coverage, but they host a hungry hive of waifs. We’ll have to be on guard if the mist takes us over.”
