Beyond the golden flames, Fie saw a towering shadow, crowned in a helmet ragged with notches.
“Get them out,” Pa spat.
Fie shook her head, frantic. “No,no—”
Tavin dragged Jasimir to his feet, wrapped an arm around Fie’s waist, and said, “Yes, chief.”
She’d forgotten how damned fast he moved.
Fie saw walls of gilded fire. A break in the flames. A saw-edged Vulture helm. Pa’s face cracking into desperation.
And then she saw naught but blood-soaked sunset as the prince, the Hawk, and the Merciful Crow tumbled over the side of the bridge, down to the black water below.
CHAPTER NINE
IN THIS LIFE OR THE NEXT
Fie had never expected to die quiet.
Young, maybe. On the end of a sword, also likely. And doing what she did best: picking a fight over something easier left alone.
She did not expect to die swallowed whole. But the Fan River had done just that.
The river churned with thrashing limbs and arrows like viper strikes, gurgling through the sides of her mask. Yet beyond her glassblack eyes lay naught but the bottomless dark of the reservoir sucking at her heels.
Then Pa’s bag of teeth floated past.
Something snapped. She fought to catch at the leather—but Pa’s sword slipped free—she couldn’t lose it, she had to get them back to Pa, back to the chief—
The blade bit into her palms and fingers, and red bloomed in thewater. She didn’t care. She’d return Pa’s sword or die sinking to the bottom of this damned well.
Someone yanked at her hood, dragging her up until she broke the surface. The silence of the river shattered into howling alarm horns and a roar of falling water.
“Hang on!” someone shouted before a wave slopped over Fie. The river wouldn’t give her up easy, stuffing watery fingers through the mask and into her teeth, into her nose, drowning her in wet mint leaves. The current twisted her round and round until one hip slammed into a rough stone edge.
And there the river changed its mind, flinging her away, down into a slick blur of blue tile and reeling red sky. Some ironclad panic kept her bloody arms locked around the tooth bag and the broken sword, not caring that one wrong twist could gut her like a fish. She couldn’t lose Pa’s teeth, she couldn’t lose the chief’s blade, she couldn’t, she couldn’t—
Fie tumbled into one of the boys’ backs with a solid, wet smack.
Tavin swore and yanked her to her feet on startling steady ground. She gulped for air but only choked on more water trapped in her mask’s beak, doubling over. Hands pushed her hood back and worked about her hair until the mask fell loose.
The world spun tipsy around her as she fought for breath and bearings alike: bright tile, bewildered faces, bare skin. Bathing steps. The current had pushed them into one of the reservoir’s drainage chutes, down to a plateau where the chutes broke across bathing steps. A mosaic of a dead Swan god frowned elegantly down at her from his perch on a mother-of-pearl moon.
Another chorus of alarm horns shrieked to life somewhere above.
“Here.” Tavin tossed her mask aside and reached for the blade and the bag. She jerked back, blood threading her fingers. He winced. “You’re hurting yourself—”
“I don’t care.”
“Please, Fie.” He glanced over his shoulder, and if it weren’t wholly impossible, she’d think he sounded something near desperate. “You don’t have to let go, just let me help you tie them down. It’ll be a lot harder to help your father without fingers.”
Help Pa. She had to help Pa. She managed a stiff nod and let him pull the cloak from her shaking shoulders, then handed the sword and bag over, blood dripping down her wrists.
“I’ll heal you once we’re in the clear,” he muttered, tearing off a strip of crowsilk and wrapping it around the blade, then knotting it at her belt along with the tooth bag. “If we’re lucky, you won’t pick up an infection… and here’s company. Go.”
Shouts and the stamp of Hawk boots rattled the air as Tavin pushed her and Jasimir into the next water chute. Fie plummeted down tile and stone worn smooth beneath years of water, rooftops and brick walls flashing by, alarm horns droning above the crash of water.
The chute spat her out into open air. For a tripe-twisting moment, tile and sea and upturned faces reeled below—then she plunged into the waters of Third Market’s canal. Her head missed the edge of a cargo barge by a finger-span; her breath erupted from her all at once in a bubbled wheeze. One bloody hand grabbed the edge of the barge. It rocked and veered more than it ought to. She broke the surface and squinted up.
