She woke alert and fever-free in the wooden room she had seen in her dream. Surprised, she struggled to prop herself up on her elbow. The effort made her heartbeat leap to double time.
A kerosene lantern squatting on a desk provided dim illumination. She was lying on a cot against a wall opposite a closed door. The only other pieces of furniture were a wooden chair and a stove burning next to a stocked coal bin.
A sickly odor permeated the air. Amaranthe lifted the scratchy wool blanket draping her and sniffed. Great. She was the source. Someone had removed her soiled clothing, but she badly needed a bath.
Abruptly, she laughed. Who cared if she reeked? She was alive!
But where was she?
On the nearest wall, a large rectangular panel of wood hung from hinges like some makeshift shutter. Curiosity won out over fatigue. She wrapped the blanket about herself and sloughed off the cot. Despite the heat radiating from the stove, the scuffed and dented wood floor wept coldness. She propped the panel open with a stick apparently there for the purpose. An optimist would have called the rectangular opening underneath a window. She decided “ragged hole sawed in the planks” was more accurate.
She looked out upon an enormous icehouse. One- to two-foot wide blocks formed a frozen mountain that stretched into the rafters. Her room was almost as high. A metal staircase to her right led down to the sawdust- strewn floor.
Motion drew her eye. Sicarius. He had pulled out a few blocks and was practicing kicks and punches from atop them. With agility that would have embarrassed a cat, he hopped from one slick perch to the next. Sometimes he spun and kicked midair, yet he never slipped when he landed. She expected him to look up and acknowledge her-without a doubt he had heard that panel creak up-but he continued his routine without pause.
Amaranthe dropped her forearms on the edge and watched him. Despite the chilly environs, he wore no shirt. Since his usual black shirts were fitted, the sculptors-would-pay-me-to-model physique wasn’t a surprise, but it was…eye-catching. The way his relaxed body flowed like water curling along its course before it contracted into steel for a strike was mesmerizing. He went into a series of open-handed blocks, each a demonstration in economy of motion, each followed by what she imagined were joint locks. With those shoulders, he would have no trouble twisting someone’s arm off.
After a long moment, she snapped herself out of her gawk with a shake of the head and a self-mocking snort. All right, girl, we are not going to be attracted to the amoral assassin.
Amaranthe moved away from the window and noticed a newspaper on the desk. The front-page headline gave her a start. Rogue Bear Kills Two More on Wharf Street.
“Bear?” she muttered. “Did a sober journalist write that?”
Paper in hand, she slumped down on the hard chair. Stumps was surrounded by hundreds of miles of farmlands and orchards. One rarely saw a raccoon in the city, and she couldn’t remember ever hearing of a bear sighting. A bear killing people sounded even more unlikely.
The Wharf Street part stood out for a different reason. She glanced toward the window and the frozen stacks beyond. All the ice houses in the city were near the docks, which meant this building was close to-maybe right on-Wharf Street. Something new to worry about. Wonderful.
Reading the story wasn’t enlightening, and she couldn’t help but think back to Hollowcrest’s admission that the papers didn’t always print the truth.
After finishing, she grimaced at the date. Assuming it was today’s paper, she had lost four days between the dungeon and the sickness. Only two and a half weeks remained until the emperor’s birthday celebration. What could she possibly do to stop Hollowcrest and Forge in so little time?
She had no money, no weapons, no idea who comprised Forge, nothing. She needed an ally, but now that she was on the less desirable side of the law, she could hardly go to her enforcer friends for help. The only one she could ask was someone already marked as a criminal…
Amaranthe laid the paper on the desk, edges lined up with the corner, and walked back to the window. Now Sicarius was sprinting through some sort of twisty footwork course he had constructed. If she didn’t say something, he’d be down there all day.
The next time he finished a lap, she cleared her throat nosily. Sicarius looked up at her.
“Just wondering why I’m alive,” Amaranthe called down. “And why we’re camped in an icehouse.”
Sicarius acknowledged her with a twitch of his hand, but continued his exercises.
She returned to the cot. Just walking around the tiny room left her depressingly weak. And cold. She nudged the cot closer to the stove and pulled the blanket more tightly around her. It smelled of sawdust and more pungent sickbed odors.
A few minutes later, Sicarius entered, fully clothed again.
“The icehouse happened to be near where you collapsed on the trail,” Sicarius said. “There was a limit to how far I could carry you through the city without drawing attention. It is also fully stocked, so the workers have moved on to filling another warehouse down the block. Disturbances have been infrequent.”
“Thank you,” Amaranthe murmured. “How did you, ah…I wasn’t expecting… They told me the disease was always fatal.”
“Yes, unless healed by someone who understands the mental sciences. I recognized the symptoms of Hysintunga and found a shaman.”
The mental sciences? A strange synonym for magic.
“A shaman in the empire?” she asked. “In Stumps? You can be hanged for reading about magic. I can’t believe anyone would risk practicing it here.”
Or that it existed. Even when the surgeon had casually discussed magic in the dungeon, it had failed to penetrate her long-held beliefs. Or disbeliefs rather. Amaranthe prodded her arm where the bug had bitten her. Nothing remained of the wound. Perhaps it was time to question those beliefs.
“Most people in the empire either do not believe in the mental sciences or would not recognize them being practiced regardless,” Sicarius said. “Though this is not an easy place for foreigners to live, sometimes it is safer than what they leave behind, especially if they are hunted by fellow practitioners.”
Fugitive magic users? In her city? Amaranthe rubbed her face.
“He must not have been too bad of a fellow if he was willing to help me,” she reasoned.
“He was paid well.”
“Oh.” Amaranthe swallowed. She had only meant to seek Sicarius in order to relay information to him. She had not thought he would be able to save her, or that he would bother even if he could. “Thank you,” she said again, the words inadequate. “I owe you-”
“An explanation.” Sicarius regarded her intently. “Clarify the situation with the emperor. I could not understand the incoherent jumble you spit out before falling unconscious.”
So, he had helped her because he wanted her information, not out of kindness. That was not surprising, but it reminded her how much talking she was going to have to do to convince him to become her ally.
Amaranthe gave a detailed description of the conversations she had shared with Hollowcrest. She recited the words on the letter verbatim. Those experiences, when she had thought she was dying, were indelibly imprinted in her mind.
Sicarius’s face remained unreadable throughout her narrative. At the end, he gave her that cool stare he did so well.
“Hollowcrest gave his reasons for wanting you killed, described the tea he’s using to drug Sespian, and explained why he feels the need to manipulate the emperor in the first place.” He folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “To you.”
His tone didn’t change to suggest it was a question, and it wasn’t until he tacked on the last two words that Amaranthe realized it was a statement of disbelief.
It hadn’t occurred to her that he might think she was lying. Before, when she had been lying to him, he had sensed it. She stared back at him and willed him to sense she was telling the truth now.
“Yes, he did,” she said.
“Hollowcrest had no reason to tell you anything, and he doesn’t explain himself, or justify his actions, before killing people.”
“Honestly, I was surprised myself, especially when he came to chat in the dungeon,” Amaranthe said. “Do you suppose… Could he have thought I’d escape-or that you’d come get me and help me-and that this was a
