attentionshifted forward again.
She found a round tin can in the bag. Somefancy spread? It didn’t matter. As they neared the bottom of thebridge, and the floating home in the process of being refinished,Amaranthe tossed the item down the slope.
“Oops,” she said, “dropped something.”
She bent, as if to try to catch it before itcould roll away, and launched a backward kick into the enforcer whohad been walking on her right. At the same time, she jabbed anelbow into the sergeant’s gut. Without waiting for them to gathertheir thoughts, she vaulted over the railing.
Though she anticipated the drop, it stole herbreath. With the water low this time of year, she fell twelve orfifteen feet before hitting the roof. She rolled to keep frombreaking an ankle, but got tangled up with the shopping bags, andan ill-placed stove vent made the landing even more painful.
Shouts sounded above. A crossbow quarrelthudded into the roof.
Amaranthe scrambled over the side, landing onthe deck near the finishing equipment. She found the varnish andunscrewed the tin.
Thumps came from the roof-the enforcersfollowing her down.
“Over here!” one shouted.
She dumped the varnish all about and struck amatch. She dropped it in the liquid and darted around the corner ofthe house. Flames flared to life behind her.
“Wait, don’t go down!”
“She started a cursed fire!”
Amaranthe hurled a deck chair into the waterunder the bridge, hoping the enforcers would think the splashresulted from her diving in. As she eased around another corner,she silently apologized to the poor homeowner whose house she wasvandalizing. Maybe she could send money later.
“Did she go overboard?”
“I heard a splash. There!”
“Somebody get a bucket! This fire is-” Theorder broke off in a round of coughing.
Hoping they were all peering into the waterunder the bridge, Amaranthe slipped up a ladder leading to theledge along the canal. She skimmed through the shadows to thegrate. It remained unlocked. She eased over the side and alightedin the tunnel.
When she leaned out to pull the grate shut,she glimpsed the fire she had started, and she gaped. The flameshad spread to the wall and roof of the home. The intensity of thelight illuminated the canal and turned the water a burnishedorange. People on the street were gathering. If the enforcers didnot give up their search and send someone to alert the ImperialFire Brigade, the owners of that house would lose everything.
She pulled the grate shut, pausing to leanher head against the cold bars. “Dumb move,” she whispered. Yes,she had escaped, but at what cost? She didn’t have the kind ofmoney it would take to reimburse the homeowners.
Amaranthe straightened, and a wine bottle inthe bag clunked against the iron bars. How she had managed to keepthe silly groceries with her she did not know.
She turned her back on the canal, and thedevastation she had wrought, and ran up the tunnel.
In the alley behind the newspaper building,she checked both directions before crawling out of the passage.Careful to do it quietly, she eased the manhole cover back intoplace. She stood, then jumped with surprise when she found a shadowlooming next to her.
“It’s me,” Sicarius said before she couldthink of flinging a shopping bag at him.
“Thank the emperor,” she breathed. “We needto go.” She trotted to the nearest street.
“Yes.” He fell into step beside her, and theyheaded away from the canal. Shouts rang out behind them- peopleyelling at others to help or run for the fire brigade. “I saw theenforcers,” he said.
Great. Another witness to her arson, thoughhe would probably approve of such tactics. That didn’t make herfeel better.
They jogged past rows of factories, dormantfor the night, and crossed into a residential neighborhood. Severalblocks into it, on the edge of a park, Amaranthe dared to stop tocatch her breath and collect herself. She dropped the canvas bags,hardly caring if she damaged something. The bottle of wine rolledout and bumped to a stop against a tree root.
“What happened after I left?” she asked. “Didyou follow Mancrest?”
“Yes. An army lorry rolled into the alley andpicked up two squads of soldiers. The Mancrests left out the front.They parted ways, and I followed the journalist to his house.”Sicarius eyed the shopping bags. “You still wish to speak withhim?”
“Yes.” Amaranthe snorted. More than ever sheneeded to make friends with Mancrest. “I need someone to squash thefront-page headline I foresee hitting the papers tomorrow: Notorious Criminal Amaranthe Lokdon Commits Arson on the 17thStreet Canal.”
“That can be arranged,” Sicarius said, thoughhe hesitated before saying it, as if he was not certain they werethinking of the same way that deed could be done. Good guess.
“Not with threats of pain,” Amaranthe said.“Or actual pain.”
He said nothing.
She crouched, putting her back to an oak, andlooked up at him. Streetlights burned at both ends of the park, butfull night had fallen, and darkness hid Sicarius’s face. His blackclothing made it hard to pick him out, even a few feet away.
“Out of all the enforcers you’ve…killed…”She had a hard time saying that. Whatever happened, she had stillbeen an enforcer for nearly seven years, and it was painful tothink of harm coming to her old colleagues. “Out of all of them,did you ever start the fight? Or was it all just a matter of themtrying to kill you?”
“If I perceived them as a threat, Ieliminated them.”
“But you never saw a couple of patrollersstrolling down the street and decided, oh, yes, there need to befewer enforcers in the world, so I’m going to leave the shadows andstick a knife in their backs?”
“You know I did not,” Sicarius said, a hintof reproach in his normally emotionless voice.
“I know. Sorry. I’m just trying to figurethis out.” She dropped her head in her hands and dug her fingersinto her scalp. She liked to think she was bright, but maybe shewas just delusional. She ought to have been able to escape withoutwreaking havoc. If she truly were smart, she would not have beencaptured in the first place. But as long as they worked in thecity, and went out and about to pursue missions, it seemed unlikelyshe could successfully avoid the enforcers every minute of everyday. She needed them to look the other way, but her stomachclenched at the idea of blackmail or any strong-arming. “How can Imake them understand that I’m on their side and they don’t need totry to capture me, no matter what the bounty says? I feel like wemade some progress with that water scheme, but again so few peopleknow we were involved. And every time something like this happens-”she waved back toward the canal, “-it’s a step backward. I’m notsure they’ll ever forgive me for what happened to Wholt and thoseother enforcers.” She thought of her discussion with Basilard andwondered if she was delusional for believing she could find a placein the history books as a hero. “Maybe I should give up on heroicsand become a villain. The money’s better, I hear, and you’re a fineexample of how easy it is to become notorious.
She sighed and dropped to her knees to grabthe wine bottle and shove it back in the bag. “All right, I’m donewhining. Thank you for listening.”
In the dim lighting, she did not at firstnotice when Sicarius grabbed one bag and extended a hand for thesecond. She gave it to him. She was cursed tired of carrying thethings anyway. Maybe he knew that. He surprised her by offering hishand again, this time to grip her arm and help her up.
“Hm,” she said. “If I’d known it would resultin you carrying things for me, I’d have moaned and complained toyou more often.”
“Easy?” he said as they headed off down thetree-lined street.
“What?”
“You think it’s easy to becomenotorious?”
“Well.” She managed a faint smile. “You makeit look easy.”
“Huh.”
