Ill news travels fast.
—ERASMUS
Rowen and Jonathan set out early the next morning, heading still farther from the negligible town. Frederick had agreed with them—“Perhaps more time and distance and then, if young Lady Astraea is truly found innocent of all witchery and allowed to come home…” He had paused, the worry clear in his eyes. “Then might you return as the prodigal son and reclaim the lifestyle you came from. But until then,” he said sadly, “it is best to avoid most everyone. People talk. And if a reward is offered…”
So they turned their backs and their horses’ buttocks to Philadelphia and continued on until they came to a tavern. Jonathan dismounted and tied Silver up while Rowen stared down at him in disbelief.
“Follow me,” Jonathan requested.
Rowen nodded, joining him. “Why not? As they said at Jordan’s party, I am no great leader of men.”
Jonathan shrugged. “You led me on this particular adventure.”
“Somehow that makes me feel no better.”
Just inside the tavern’s door, Rowen froze, his eyes darting from side to side. He’d hoped such a brief stop so early in their race from the city meant they’d outrun any unwanted attentions, but that was before he noticed two posters hanging on the wall. The one to his left announced a manhunt for the murderer Rowen Albertus Burchette, while the one to his right included an artist’s illustrated rendering of a short-nosed, broad-foreheaded, thick-necked version of him from shoulders up and in stark black ink.
He was not sure which to be more offended by, the one revealing his middle name to the world or the one that claimed a “faithful reproduction of a murderer’s image.”
He motioned to Jonathan with his chin. The same chin now covered in an unappealing scruff. If he’d had access to a proper razor and strap he’d do the thing himself, bringing his face back to a proper cleanliness instead of allowing his sideburns to crawl toward his chin.
Jonathan frowned, running his hand across his own stubble, pulling thumb and forefinger together at the end of his jaw in a thoughtful gesture before striding forward to the bar.
Rowen blinked. Then, throwing his shoulders back, he followed, standing at Jonathan’s side.
“A bit of your house ale for my friend and me,” Jonathan requested of the flat-faced man behind the bar. He pulled out a coin and tapped its edge on the wood.
The man swept the coin into his meaty palm and filled two tankards, setting them down with a clank before the two younger men.
Jonathan took a long sip of his ale. “Any news of import?”
Rowen nearly spit his ale out when the bartender hooked a thumb in the direction of the posters.
“Riders came through here this morning, putting those up and asking questions. Two fellows, one of decent breeding, are on the run. Seems the ugly one”—he pointed to the image of Rowen—”shot a man of higher rank.” The bartender leaned across the bar, saying, “Probably told he was ugly as the south end of a north-facing mule.” He nodded, lips pursed in a smug smile.
Jonathan laughed. “He is one ugly bastard.”
Rowen’s face colored at the comment.
The bartender pulled away, laughing, and said, “And in my opinion a man should never be shot for speaking the truth.”
“True, true,” Jonathan agreed.
They drank the rest of their ales in silence, Rowen pouting and Jonathan occasionally chuckling to himself.
“What precisely was your intention—going in there and asking for news once you’d seen we are
Jonathan snorted. “No. No we are not. Some other poor bastards are—and one of them is quite the ugly brute.” He reached up and tweaked the tip of Rowen’s nose. “Be thankful you’re a handsome beast, you ladykiller, you. No one would dare imagine you and that man on the flyer are one and the same.”
With a laugh, he mounted his horse, nodded to Rowen, and nudged Silver into a trot.
Even though her Making Tank placed her higher up in the tower with a small barred window overlooking the wall and the water of the lake beyond, none of it interested her today.
“What does it look like?” The voice beyond the wall, introduced as Caleb, asked.
Jordan jerked upright from where she slouched, dozing in the scant and slanting sunlight. Caleb’s voice echoed in her ears. “What does
“The outside—the sun, the sky, the valley … any bit of it.”
“Do you not see it when you are taken for Making?”
He laughed, the sound sharp and cutting. “No. The Maker knows how I miss it—the outside, so he keeps it from me. I have not seen the sky in…” There was a long pause as Caleb thought. “Nineteen months, three weeks, and … two days.”
“So long…”
“I refuse to be numbered among his success stories,” he hissed. “I will not let him break me.”
“You are not a Witch either?” Jordan asked, turning around and scooting as close to the hole in the wall as she could get.
Laughter roiled up again, but this time it was heartfelt. “If I have my way, the Maker will never know what I truly am. I will always control who truly knows the truth of me.”
Jordan nodded and rolled up to a standing position, crossing the small space between wall and window in only a few short strides. With a new appreciation for the world outside her window, she described the scene with all the vividness and detail she could muster.
The Maker summoned Jordan to the laboratory early that day. The Wardens growled and shoved her inside, closing the door behind her. She pitched forward, catching herself inches from falling against a table’s edge. Straightening, she brushed her hands down the front of her dress to neaten it. It was more out of habit now, she realized, than need. Her dress was irrepressibly filthy and the last things to right the damage were her own grubby fingers. She looked at her fingernails and the dirt always edging beneath them. She hooked a nail beneath another and did her best to clean away the offensive grime, but shortly gave up. Some battles were no longer worth fighting. Besides, when they realized she was innocent surely they’d give her a proper bath and a new dress to return home in.
If they realized she was innocent. Her fingers flew to the pin still nestled in the deep folds of fabric at her elbow and she traced the edges of its shape with one hesitant fingertip. The metal was cool to the touch and smooth as silk.
Rowen’s heart.
Her own heart beat a little faster at the thought.
Or maybe it was the strangeness of her surroundings.
It seemed odd that the Wardens would leave her here, in the Maker’s main laboratory, unattended. In the dark.
Waiting for the man who would only bring her more pain.
She stood perfectly still, her eyes roving the poorly lit space, her finger and thumb stroking the heart pinned to her sleeve.
Alone in the chamber, her eyes widened at the noise of something tapping softly near the room’s dim corner, like fingers on glass. She eased her way toward the noise, her eyes wide and round to better pull in the little bit of light that showed from the resting stormlights. The room’s walls were lined with long wooden countertops covered in jars, fat or fluted glass tubes, sturdy-looking beakers, and oddly shaped bottles and boxes. Some were stoppered with cork, others with rubber or metal, and disturbingly few bore labels she
