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The girl stilled. “What?” Her eyes were a shocking shade of blue, rimmed in red. Almost the same color as Eavus’.

“Mine’s blue. A purple blue, like wildflowers. What’s your favorite color?”

“G-green.”

Green was a good color. The color of leaves, of moss, of fresh new things.

Every instinct screamed resistance.

To be blessed by the gods was to bring souls into their keeping. All Revni had ever wanted was to be worthy of the soti name.

“I’m leaving,” the small man insisted. Revni heard him at the door.

You made me a promise, the god sneered. You have sworn to me. You are my child.

But she found her own voice squirreling up, beneath all the shouting and all the blood, the crackle of fire and the crying screams:

I swore to Eavus, too.

Revni curled open the girl’s fist and pressed the sword hilt into it. “Take this. Do you know your way out?” The girl’s nod was a jerk of the chin. “Don’t let anyone stop you. Get home. Get somewhere safe.”

Revni stood, and turned.

“Let’s go.”

She followed the man’s hunched solders up a servant’s stair. It snaked between walls and eventually deposited them on a balconied bridge. The inner courtyard below was completely empty, but the open air carried all the shouts and sounds raging on the other side of the walls, metal clanging and wood cracking, dark plumes of smoke and the sour stench of burning pitch. Revni shrank, scurrying through the next door to another hall, this one painted with delicate-looking men and women eating small fuzzy fruits and wearing so little clothing Revni had the fleeting thought they must be cold. But the little man waved her to continue, and so she did, barely noticing the subtle changes to the halls until it became obvious—they were thinning. What had started out as spacious had narrowed to no more than one-man wide, and the windows and decor had disappeared.

“Where are you taking me?” Revni hissed. The bells had finally stopped, thank Hjen, because Revni’s ears were ringing. All the noise was dampered, she noticed. Those screams and cries felt very far away.

“There are only two ways into the prefect’s inner rooms. The main door, which he’ll have gone up, and the whore’s passage, which puts you in his closet.”

“Whore’s passage?”

He shrugged. “Servant’s entrance if you like. But we know what it’s used for.” The hall had gotten so thin Revni had to turn to the side, and even the small man shimmied to reach the slim door.

“Wait.”

What was she doing? She couldn’t just barge in. She needed to think. The ring of hobnails on tile pounded closer—someone coming up behind.

“No time, no time.” The man pointed. “They’ll send a guard soon, and no more chances. It’s a closet, see? I bring you here, and then you go into the room. I go. I go.”

The man opened the latch and slipped inside so quickly Revni had to leap to follow.

She was blind. The room was so dark her eyes couldn’t adjust. Her outreached hand touched knit, jingled something metal that made her flinch back. She wanted to call out, but realized she didn’t know a name.

“Man!” she finally whispered sharply. “Man!”

“Shhh.”

Revni froze, listening. Faint shuffling—the little man moving about. The low rumbles of quiet speech. A thin crack of light was finally becoming apparent—the door to the prefect’s rooms. Revni took a small step, but a bony hand shot out and stilled her arm.

“I open,” the little man whispered, so quietly that the pah of his lips was louder.

“No,” she hissed. “Wait.” She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t have anything to defend herself or bargain with but her own bloodied hands. She needed to think. The outline of the door became visible, a dark smudge where the handle was, a man-shaped shadow blocking it. People on the other side were talking. Gods, was this the prefect’s private rooms? He could be right there. What was she thinking?

“You go,” she whispered tightly. She pushed closer, reaching out a hand to try to pull him back, but he didn’t move. She reached her other hand, groping for something, anything she could use. Nubby wool, embroidered silks. That metal thing—a long, cool shape, studded. Something sharp pricked her finger. “Leave the way we came. I’ll wait here.” Wait, and hide, and listen. Her heart pounded so loudly she was afraid the man would hear it.

“I open,” he repeated stubbornly, and before she could stop him, bright light flooded her and shouting assaulted her ears.