Page 65 of City of Stone and Silence

Once again, the Council and the pack leaders gather in one of the smaller chambers.

I can feel the missing faces, like broken teeth in a punched-out grin. Shiara is with Catoria and her people, and Thora is still asleep upstairs. Jack is here, looking unusually disheveled and baggy-eyed, her short hair teased into unruly spikes. Zarun leans against the wall, a bruise blooming across his handsome face and a bandage wound around one arm.

Was Safiya here the first time? I can’t remember. Guilt still tugs at me, but its pull isn’t as strong as before, as crippling. To command is to sacrifice. I think Meroe and her father were both right. Their sacrifice and mine.

“I assume you’ve all heard what happened by now,” I tell them. “I’m sorry if I’ve been … unavailable. I’ve been thinking.”

“Thinking hard, it looks like,” one of the pack leaders says from the back row.

I look down at myself—still barefoot, still smeared with dirt—and grin. The moment of tension dissolves into a round of laughter.

“People are dead because of me,” I tell them. “I did what I thought was right, and now they’re dead.” I pause, because I’m not sure what to say next. I’m sorry doesn’t seem adequate.

“That’s what happens, on a hunt,” Zarun says. “You make decisions. Sometimes people die.”

There’s a murmur of agreement from the others. And, I realize, they do understand. Zarun and the Council ran Soliton in the name of the Captain for years, and every pack leader faced the same choices on a smaller scale every time they went out into the dark. You make decisions, and sometimes people die.

I fight the urge to glance over my shoulder at Meroe. Instead, I look straight ahead, and push on.

“If anyone else wants to take a shot at this,” I tell them, “now would be the time to say so.”

One by one, everyone looks at Zarun. With Shiara gone, he’s the last member of the old Council still here. He raises his eyebrows, then shrugs.

“You’ve got my advice, if you want it,” he says. “But I’m still with you, Deepwalker.”

“Clever Jack owes the Deepwalker and her partner her life, now,” Jack says. Her old flair is returning, though her mask has not yet hardened, and I can still see pain in her eyes. “Speak and she will obey.”

The rest of them agree, less volubly. A grunt, a nod. The pack leaders are not a group of men and women given to emotional displays.

“Just tell me one thing,” Zarun says. “That’s a dozen of our people Prime has killed now. I assume you’re not planning to let him get away with it?”

“Of course not. He needs to be dealt with.” I take a deep breath. “But it’s going to be more complicated than we thought. I think we’re going to need help.”

13

TORI

My bravado lasts almost until we get back to the gate to the Eleventh Ward.

I can feel it slipping away, the furious adrenaline that powered me through the interview with Thul, the determination I’d felt afterward. With every step, that energy drains from my body, replaced with a dread as black and thick as tar. By the time we reach the gate, I’m wobbling on my feet, and Garo has to help me through the short queue. I barely register the faces of the guards as we show them our documents.

Immortals. The word has loomed large in my nightmares since I was a little girl. Even before I knew the details, I understood what it meant. The Immortals had the power to tear my tiny family apart, to rip me and Isoka away from one another. Whatever other horrors they could inflict on us seemed almost immaterial, compared to that. In the Second Ward, they’d been an abstract fear, a vague worry about disaster, like the risk of a tsunami or a hurricane. Now, though, they’re horrifyingly real.

I have no idea how long ago they’d come for Isoka. She could be dead—it’s impossible for me to imagine that, death was too much like giving up, my sister would never do it. She could be trussed up in the back of a cart, headed out to some distant outpost of the Legions. She could be stalking back and forth in the darkest cell under the palace, beating herself bloody against the bars. She could be—

“Tori.” Garo takes my arm. “Tori! Are you all right?”

I blink, looking up at him. “What?”

“You just about fell over.” He casts around for a moment, spots an inn with lamps in the window in spite of the late hour. “Come on. Let’s see if we can find you a place to rest.”

I nod, feeling numb, and let him pull me toward the lit doorway. We’re still close to the Low Market, and there are quite a few inns around, catering to merchants and fishermen. This one must be very cheap indeed, because it doesn’t even have a common room, just a narrow counter where a pinch-faced woman hands out keys and sells clay jugs of liquor. Garo gets us one of each, and pulls me upstairs, where he struggles with the newfangled padlock on the door.

The room is barely big enough for two people to lie down side by side, but at least it’s clean, a sleeping mat rolled up in one corner with a threadbare pillow sitting on top. Garo kicks the door shut behind us and guides me to a seat on the ground.

“I’m all right,” I tell him. “Just … tired.”

“You’ve had a shock,” Garo says. He uncorks the little clay jug and holds it out to me. “Drink. Just one swallow.”