The Eagle And The Nightingales

and_dealing_with it.

Hopefully those same mages hadn't sensed the power she'd brought here. That was supposed to be one of the protections, but who knew? It was Elven-work, and chancy at best, constrained only by what this particular mage felt like doing at the time.

'Can you stand?' she asked in an urgent whisper, glad that she could not clearly see all the damage that had been done to him. 'We have to get out of here, before_'

'The mages_are gone,' he interrupted her, breathing as hard as if he had been flying for miles at top speed. 'I heard them say_they were leaving_for the night.'

Well! That put another complexion on it entirely! They were as secure here as they would be anywhere, and as likely to remain undisturbed. With only the guards below_who, with the absence of their masters, would be slackening their vigilance at the least, and with luck would be getting drunk on the masters' wine_there was no one to disturb them.

'I can heal you again, T'fyrr, enough to get us both out, over the rooftops. You can still climb, can't you?'

A feeble chuckle. 'Only if you can heal my talon-tips, beloved. I would not be very silent, otherwise.'

'I can do that,' she replied, her heart swelling. He said it! He called me 'beloved'! There had been times in the dark of the lonely nights, waiting for word of him, that she had been certain when he came to his senses, he would be revolted by her love for him. She could have misinterpreted what he'd said about the Spirit-Brothers; he could have mistranslated. But_

But he would not use those words so casually unless_

Unless they were so real to him that he could use them casually, as casually as flying.

'Then let me work the magic on you, beloved,' she said, with a joy so great it eclipsed fear. 'And this time_don't try and help me!'

He only chuckled again, a mere wheeze in the darkness, and let her work her will on him.

The trip back over the rooftops had been nightmarish, but not such a nightmare as trying to get out past the guards would have been. She had been able to give him strength enough to climb, and had been able to heal the tips of his talons so that they didn't bleed every time he moved a hand or a foot, but there hadn't been enough time to do more than that. Every time she thought she heard a door slam below, or footsteps in the hall, she had been jolted out of the trance.

The return trip was easier than it might have been_she didn't have to make side trips over every roof in the district to check her device for his presence. Some of those charming, ornamental rooftops had been the purest hell to get across the first time.

Why do people pitch their roofs that steeply? Doesn't it ever occur to them that someday, someone is going to have to climb all over it, replacing slates and cleaning chimneys?

Evidently not. Perhaps that was why this district had deteriorated; the charming manses were impossible to keep in repair.

She was able to pick out a path that, while not precisely easy or gentle, at least avoided the worst of the obstacles. But it was a long time before they came to one particular abandoned house at the edge of the district and were able to slip down through the holes in the roof that had let her and her accomplice have access to the roof-highway in the first place.

They felt their way along staircases that shook and groaned alarmingly with every step they took, and down halls that must have been ankle-deep in dust by the amount they kicked up. But they reached the street level without mishap, and just inside the front door, Nightingale stooped in the darkness and felt for the bundle she had left there.

It wasn't anything anyone would be likely to steal; this neighborhood hadn't deteriorated so far that a bundle of rags was worth anything: a tattered skirt for her, to go over her black trews and black shirt, a bedraggled cloak, and an equally tattered great-cloak for him, big enough to completely envelop him. It was as threadbare as the skirt and wouldn't have done a thing to protect him from the wind or weather, but that wasn't the point.

'Here,' she said, and sneezed, handing him the cloak. She pulled the skirt on over her head and wiped the roof-soot from her face and hands with the tail of it. He fumbled the cloak on after a moment of hesitation.

'Won't I look just as odd in this?' he asked as he tied the two strings that held it closed at the throat.

'Yes and no,' she told him. 'There are plenty of people who go cloaked at night, even in the worst heat of summer_and anyone who does is probably so dangerous that most people deliberately avoid him. Someone who