“Out!”
By the sound, the voice belonged to a woman, and an old one at that. Caim stood his ground. Warm air wafted from the room beyond, carrying with it a strange blend of sweat, crabapple, and sour wine. He stood up straight and kept his knives out of sight.
“I won’t hurt-”
“Get out!”
Caim winced as her voice carried through the apartment. If there was anyone else in this building, they would have heard her. He didn’t need any unwanted attention. He started to back away down the hall. Then she stepped after him and pointed a long object at him like an impossibly long finger. A cane.
“Challen? What are you doing here? Your mother will be-” She sounded confused, but then the shrillness returned. “You broke my teacup!”
Caim remained where he was.
“Come on!” she snapped before he could say anything. “You’re letting in the cold.”
Caim followed at a respectful distance as she turned and shuffled back inside. He stepped into a cramped kitchen. A rickety table sat against the near wall. Three dirty glass jars sat on a shelf above the table; two were empty, the third was two-thirds full of dead roaches. On the other side of the room were a cast-iron stove and a battered coldbox. The light came from the stove’s feeble flame. A stack of papers, leaflets by the look of them, sat on the floor beside the fire pan.
The old woman jabbed her cane at the table’s sole chair. “Sit.”
While he obeyed, she went over to the stove and fidgeted with a dinged teapot. She wore a shabby housecoat that didn’t look thick enough to keep a dog warm in this weather, and a pair of what he took to be woolen boots at first; but then he realized with a closer look that she had old shirts wrapped around her feet.
Caim took off his gloves as the old woman poured two cups and brought one over to the table.
“Mind you don’t break this one,” she said.
Caim nodded and sniffed the tea. It smelled awful. He set it aside when she turned around. Traces of memories tugged at the back of his mind. Everything was recognizable, and yet not quite right. The stove, for instance, had been in the corner once where the coldbox now stood. The walls were cracked pea-green plaster, but splotches of a darker color peeked from under the peeling strips of paints. Brown? Yes, he saw it clearly now. This had been their apartment, his and Kas’s, when they lived in the city.
While Caim looked around, the old woman perched on a wooden stool. She looked like a bird hunched over her cup, shoulders bowed and the sleeves of her coat drooping from her spindly arms.
“Everyone says old Ida is losing her mind,” she said. “But I still remember you and your father. What was his name?”
“I don’t think I am who you think I am.”
“Such a handsome man he was. A bit scary at first, but he had the heart of a kitten. Used to come over some nights when you were sleeping. We’d sit right here and talk until dawn. Very nice man.”
“A lot has changed around here. The city feels…”
Caim wasn’t sure how to finish that statement. In this neighborhood, which had once been a flourishing community full of life and well-being, the dogs outnumbered the people, and probably ate better. It was as if the entire city was…
“Dead,” she said.
Caim sat back in the chair. Yes, that was what he’d felt, like he’d been walking through a graveyard, every building a charnel house holding naught but the dead and their caretakers.
“What’s happened?”
“Happened?” Her thin shoulders rose and fell. “They’ve all left, or gone down to Arugul’s dark realm since she came. All the good ones dead. And those that stayed behind have been sucking this town dry like a pack of ticks on a dead hound. The duke don’t see it. My husband gone. My sons gone, too. And this”-she shook her cup at the walls and ceiling-“this is where I spend my last days.”
A talon of cold slipped between Caim’s ribs to prick at his heart. “Are you talking about the duke’s witch? What do you know about her?”
The old woman gave a sharp laugh. Her eyes, which had looked glassy a moment before, stared at him intently. “You shouldn’t have come back, child. Dark’s been waiting for you.” Then she coughed into her balled-up hands.
“What did you say?”
The old woman’s coughing fit lasted several moments as Caim tried to get her attention with no results. Finally she waved him away.
“Ida doesn’t go out at night anymore. It’s not safe for an old woman on these streets. The shadows.” She wheezed into her cup. “They’re always watching.”
The hairs at the nape of Caim’s neck stood up. He knew what she meant. He could feel them watching him, too. This city was infested with them. The scabbard on his back quivered. Or maybe it was his imagination.
The old woman swayed on her seat, mumbling to herself. Caim set a stack of silver coins on the table as he got up and left the apartment. He’d seen enough. There was nothing here but ghosts and memories, a few good, but more than enough bad ones to drive him away. He missed Kas. And Kit and Josey. Hell, he even missed Hubert.
Caim dropped down the stairs two at a time, heedless of the creaking protests of the boards and the twinge in his thigh. He understood this city now. There were no great mysteries to be solved; just living, breathing, dying people, and he knew where he fit in among them. He wouldn’t wait for morning to leave. If he couldn’t find a guide, he would make his own way. But first he had to do something.
Shadows scattered as he emerged from the tenement’s front door.
Kit huddled behind a pillar of black-veined stone in a field of weathered stalagmites. She couldn’t stop shivering as the wind lashed her bare skin. She had been so long out of the flesh that every stimulus down to the most minute sensation set her off, and nothing in this never-realm could be considered gentle.
The presence returned, gliding past her in the mists. She had first noticed it a few candlemarks ago. Or was it a few days? There was no day or night here, only endless nothing. The first time she’d thought it was Caim’s shadow pet, come back to annoy her again, but as she stopped and waited for it to appear, the presence took on a predatory quality. The disturbed miasma of clouds made her nervous; she’d built up the terror in her mind until she had no choice. She fled.
She’d escaped the feeling that time, but it had returned. Ducking her head, Kit ran until she found someplace to hide. That’s when she came upon this strange formation of rocks. She didn’t know why they were here, but she was grateful for them.
Caim, please give me a sign. Show me how to get back to you.
There was no answer, nothing but the gray haze and the vast, approaching presence. The prickliness was stronger now, growing with every step she took, but she had no idea how far away it might be. And what would she find when she got there? A trap set up to ensnare Fae-folk caught in the Barrier? But what other choice did she have?
The mists parted, and Kit ducked as a long shape like the fluke of an enormous fish sliced through the murk over her head. She couldn’t control the tremors racing through her body as the presence crashed over her. It was gone a moment later, but the next time it might not be content to pass by. She pressed her chest against the hard stone.
A rumbling snarl cut through the howling winds. Kit sat up as a long, low shape emerged from the storm. She threw her arms around its broad neck and hugged it tight. The shadow beast indulged her for a pair of heartbeats before leaning away.
“I’m so glad to see you!” Kit wiped away the tears in her eyes. “Don’t go disappearing on me again. You hear?”
The creature blinked, and then it looked in the direction the monster had gone.
“I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid.” Kit looked over her shoulder toward the source of the tingling. “I think there’s someplace I need to go. It might be a way out, but I don’t know. What do you think?”
The shadow pet blinked at her. Kit looked into the mists. She had to make a decision before it was too late.
