head. Someone who had slashed two-dozen throats wasn’t somebody to pity.
And yet… he’d never had a choice about his career, about what he was. Hollowcrest and Raumesys had spent years- decades — molding Sicarius into a weapon, a blade as deadly as that black dagger he wore at his waist. Could one turn a man into a sword and then blame him if all he knew how to do was cut?
Wondering if the others were right and she was crazy, Amaranthe picked her way toward Sicarius. Every time she leaped from snow-slick roof to snow-slick roof she risked a fall. Sicarius had to hear her coming, but he didn’t look back. The train started up a slope and slowed down, so the wind wasn’t battering her so fiercely by the time she sat down beside him, though the cold snow chilled her backside.
“Fair evening,” she said, the first thing that entered her head. Maybe she should have rehearsed.
Sicarius acknowledged her with an impassive look, nothing more. He wasn’t wearing anything thicker than his usual trousers and long-sleeved shirt, and she recalled that he hadn’t been carrying any gear beyond his weapons when he leaped into the train. Killing up to the last minute, she supposed.
“Aren’t you cold?” Amaranthe asked.
“No.”
She touched the back of his bare hand, concerned he might be neglecting his health and risking frostbite, but his skin was warm beneath her own already-chilled fingers. “How is that possible?”
“In their natural habitat, mammals become cold-adapted in the winter, burning summer’s fat stores to efficiently heat the body. When humans clothe themselves in parkas and sleep in artificially warm environments, they fail to achieve this adaptation and do not thrive in the cold.”
“So… what you’re saying is that you have no physiological need to cuddle.”
That comment earned her another impassive look. Maybe someday she’d learn to stop joking with him. He didn’t seem to appreciate it, and trying to make him smile seemed destined to remain a fruitless endeavor anyway. Besides, his cool look reminded her that, murdered men not withstanding, he had a reason to be irked with her too.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Sespian’s… bump,” Amaranthe said. “I didn’t think your knowing could change anything, and I figured you’d worry for no reason.” Though he didn’t pin her with one of those soul- piercing stares, she felt compelled to add, “And I was worried you’d do something… rash if you found out. Which, as it turns out, you did.” She tried to keep her tone light, but a hint of censure crept into it anyway.
“Those who are dead will not trouble us further. Those who I could not reach will be afraid to leave the security of their homes. Men who live in fear rush when patience is called for, and they question their decisions at every turn. They falter and make mistakes.”
Nothing in his tone suggested he would apologize for his action or admit he might have made a mistake himself. Amaranthe wondered if they would ever see eye-to-eye on questions of humanity.
“Now that you’ve taken the action you meant to take, can I have Books’s journal back?” she asked. “He’s not happy that you… Well, he wasn’t done with his research, and I want to give it back to him.”
Though he continued to face forward, a hardness came to Sicarius’s eyes, and she half-expected him to refuse or say he wasn’t done with it, but he reached into a pocket and handed it to her.
“Thank you.”
Amaranthe flipped through the pages, and a chill that had nothing to do with the snow crept through her when she saw the neat, precise check marks penciled next to many of the names. Pencil. Something so sinister and cold ought to be drawn in blood.
She tucked the notebook into an inside pocket on her parka. “Do you still intend to join us in the train infiltration?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Business concluded, his silence seemed to say. Amaranthe ought to leave him be, but she found herself reluctant to do so. Even if he’d been forged into a blade from his earliest years, he’d been born a human being. Deep down, he must have the same emotions and needs that everyone else was born with. Knowing someone cared and wanted to offer him comfort would have to matter. Wouldn’t it?
“Are you sure you don’t want me to bring you a blanket? I’ve been sleeping in a pile with the boys to stay warm, so I don’t need mine.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry about the implant,” Amaranthe repeated. “Sespian must know about it and have some plan to deal with it. Maybe this request of his is part of that plan. I’ve only ever talked to him when he was under the influence of that drug, but he seemed bright even then.”
Silence.
“He’d have to be smart, right?” Amaranthe said, thinking he might feel the situation was less hopeless if she could remind him that Sespian had the wherewithal to help himself. “You’re no dull blade, and I never heard anything to suggest Princess Marathi was either.”
Sicarius continued to stare straight ahead.
“I’m sure we’ll get him, and it’ll all work out in the end.” When Amaranthe’s comments elicited nothing but silence, she admitted defeat and placed her hands in the snow, ready to push herself to her feet.
“I know what you’re trying to do,” Sicarius said.
Amaranthe froze. She’d only wanted to help, but his words sounded like an accusation.
“Oh?” she asked carefully.
“Yes.”
“And?”
He was still gazing straight ahead, and she almost missed his soft words: “I appreciate it.”
Amaranthe blinked. Three words shouldn’t mean so much, but a lump swelled in her throat nonetheless. Not trusting her voice, she gave him a hug made awkward by their seated positions and the moving train, then released him and returned to the others.
Akstyr ducked behind a stump and flattened his hands over his ears. Books knelt beside him, watching a flame dance up a long fuse attached to a cord of blasting sticks nestled at the base of the rockslide. At the last moment, he, too, ducked his head and covered his ears.
Even in the open, with nothing but a field of stumps to reflect echoes, the boom was deafening. Boulders bigger than Maldynado flew into the sky, and rock shards slammed down, battering the earth like a hailstorm. More than one chunk hammered Akstyr in the back, and he tried to tuck himself into a tiny ball.
A long moment passed, and something tapped him on the shoulders. Books.
Akstyr lifted his head. A dust cloud filled the air, and a moment passed before he could make out the results of the explosion. So many rocks littered the stump-filled hillside that it looked like a quarry had vomited. However, a dark tunnel opening waited in the hillside where only boulders had smothered the slope before. Though rubble half-buried the entrance, Akstyr and Books ought to be able to wriggle inside.
“Huh,” Akstyr said.
“You needn’t sound so surprised.” Books dusted off his clothing and headed for the mineshaft.
“I didn’t know professors knew how to do useful things. Like setting explosives.”
Books gave him a withering scowl. “You don’t believe some of my ecumenical knowledge might be useful in determining where to place blasting sticks to achieve the desired result?”
Akstyr climbed over one of the rocks in the entrance. “I guess.”
Before following him in, Books stopped to light a lantern.
“I can make light, you know,” Akstyr said.
“I should not wish to rely on you. If you were hit on the head by a falling rock, where would that leave me?”
“Carrying me out?” Akstyr grinned.
Books didn’t. His scowl hadn’t entirely disappeared either. There were too many stodgy oldsters in the group. Akstyr always felt like they were judging him.
Books looked back toward the stump field where they’d landed the dirigible. “I hope nobody was around to hear that explosion. I shouldn’t like to return to find our borrowed conveyance had been stolen.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t stand around all day and talk then, eh?” Akstyr had already crawled over several
