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His fingers were firm under her chin, but his touch was gentle as he cleaned her injuries. She had a cut above her eyebrow too, apparently, and she closed her eyes so it wouldn’t drip and sting. Her lip, she knew, was the worst. She had been tasting the metallic tang of her own blood all day. The liquid he dabbed tasted sharp and sour and sweet all at once, with the faintest hint of garlic.

“What happened?” Eavus asked, and she knew he meant more than the wounds.

“He caught me sleeping,” she said tightly. To say more—the horror of waking up to those hands on her, the wrench in her arms and the knife in her back, trying to force her body to fight when deep sleep was still clinging so hard that she barely comprehended what it meant when he’d tied her hands, ripped her ring off her finger, plucked the knife and her papers of freedom from her belt. She’d repeated the words Eavus had made her memorize: setu lire, I am free, but he’d laughed and tore the paper in one long rip, and then—The shame of it burned her cheeks. “I should have made a barricade,” she tried, but it didn’t come out like a joke and Eavus didn’t laugh.

Did you know? The words burned within her, but she wasn’t ready to ask. Not now, not when he had just saved her a second time.

Eavus’ eyes ran over her, checking his work, and that solid practicality unwound something taut within her. Until his look shifted. and that low, warm feeling coiled in her belly instead, the one she couldn’t put a name to.

“You took out your braids.”

The tan lines on his cheeks made his eyes look even bluer.

“You shaved your head.”

The tan lines must have been from the helmet. They reminded her of that stripe of mud, back when he was feverish, and her fingers flexed with the urge to scrub them out.

Eavus ran a self-conscious hand over the short fuzz. “Regulation.” He gestured to her person. “Anywhere else?”

Revni shook her head, pressing down whatever had risen within her.

“Now what?”

Eavus wrung out the cloth, dropping his voice. “I’ve told them that I’d smooth things over and then send you north. So you can get home. To your Dinaeii people.” His smile twitched. “But we have to move quickly. I’m on duty⁠—”

“What duty?”

“A mission,” he said, annoyed at the interruption, “—and if they think we know each other, there’ll be suspicions. I’m on thin enough ground as it is. So do you need anything else? Or are you ready?”

Revni took a deep breath. More running. But what was the alternative?

Eavus seemed to exhale as she stood. Revni took up the pitcher and gave it another sniff.

“Wine?”

He nodded. “For the pain.”

Revni took a massive, gulping swig. It tasted like it smelled—that same sharp and sour and sweet—and it burned in her throat in a way different than the stew, but just as comforting. She wiped her mouth.

“What will happen to the driver?”

“Who?”

“The slaver.” She gritted her teeth. “Snatching innocent people.”

Eavus tucked his helmet under his arm and guided them towards the gates. “They weren’t all innocent,” he began, but off her glower thought better of continuing. “Nothing,” he said tightly. “He’ll sell who he can here, water his oxen, and be on his way west to the mines by noon.”

Revni halted, her vision going spotty. “Nothing?!”

“Shh.” Eavus looked nervously around. No one seemed to have noticed, but he paused before exiting the thin maze between buildings.

“You can just steal people and get away with it? If it hadn’t been for you—for me—those six people would still be in a cage right now!” Her throat felt raw from holding back her shout. “Not to mention all the others,” she reminded him, “the ones who had your stupid mark, who had escaped. Now they are back enslaved.”

“It’s not my mark,” Eavus insisted, waiting for another break. “It’s the law.”

“A bad law, made by bad people, means nothing.”

“Come on, go.” He slammed his helmet on his head and marched forward, not waiting for her or looking. She hurried behind, every muscle in her body twitching. He turned down an empty alley, then another, and when they emerged, they were in the wide area they’d come down before. Eavus plucked up a pole strung with objects from where it leaned against a wall and kept moving without breaking stride. His eyes flicked in the direction the wagon had gone. “You and I just cost him the price of seven healthy people,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. “He’ll come for us, if he gets the chance. We have to move, now.”