“I see something there though, like ink staining the snow.” I squint my eyes, peering into the failing light. Letters. I see letters written with dark stones or ash. “I think it says help.”
Soren rises to his feet.
“Who could it be for?” I ask absently.
“For us?” Soren suggests. “Or the shield fae?”
A kraa carries across the snow-swept plain of the innerlands at our backs.
“Or the ravens,” he adds.
“Perhaps for everyone,” I say.
We remain silent until the sun slips away and the night draws a curtain of protection around us. We sit in wait, long after the tower bells stop ringing, signaling demon hour. We wait a while longer then keep close to the brush until the drumming quakes the earth in a foreboding attempt to keep the night howls at bay. The half-moon illuminates an irregular path of stones as we cross the hills to the cliffs on the edge of Battersea.
“Let’s keep clear of the patrol on the sea wall,” Soren says.
“Can they swim?” I ask.
Soren laughs, low and dark. “Let’s not find out.”
The moon glows behind the towers of Fjallhold. A cloudbank comes in off the water, shrouding the harbor and the rest of the villages in fog. The torches flicker like eerie eyes in the distance.
We scramble along the side of the mountain to the rear of the castle and approach Bearsden. The backwash of the rising tide flows into the moat. The memory of the foul-smelling tunnel when we broke in makes my throat thick.
We stop every few minutes and listen, but all we hear is the shushing of the sea. The air is still and the floating mist envelops us as well. Soren guides me confidently but slowly as we navigate the rocky terrain without being able to see more than an arm’s length ahead of us.
Soon, we’re on the other side of the clouds. Just as I’m about to exclaim my relief at being able to see again, Soren places a finger over his mouth. We silently slip back into the fog on the edge of the black sand.
Low voices carry across the water, echo in the fog, and cascade down the hillside. I’m not sure about their source. Patrol? A pair of starving dowsies like Soren encountered when I hid in the tree the first night I was here? Demons? My fingers hover over the sword Vespertine let me take from the cave.
Boots crunch over loose stone and the hissing voices continue.
“I told you, Scriv, I’m skint, clear out of dukhs. If you could wait until next week, please,” a man’s voice pleads.
“The striddlies will be rotten by then.”
“Come on, Scriv. You know I’m good for it.”
“I know you have the dukhs. Do you want me to leather it outta you? Pay now or I’ll find another customer who’s more willing,” growls the man named Scriv.
“It’s for my children. My wife.”
“Your children are a bunch of orphans you make work for those dukhs jangling in your pocket with the promise of food, and your wife is in the ashpit. I know you’re a liar and a thief. It takes one to know one. Pay or get lost.”
The dukhs jangle as Scriv suspected and then he says, “That’s more like it. Now go, before I leather you anyway.”
The mist parts and the back of a wide man with jowls and meaty fists appear. He spins, angling a blade at us. “Who’s there?” he asks. His eyes streak with equal parts fear and menace.
Soren steps forward, undaunted, his blade shining in the light.
Considering Scriv’s girth, in an astonishingly swift movement, he slashes the air and then wraps one arm tightly around my neck like a noose. Chills run through me as he squeezes, but one well-aimed kick between his legs sends him squealing. We’re close to the castle and I don’t want to risk revealing my power unless I have to.
Soren lands his blade on Scriv’s wrist, flicking the weapon from his hand. Before I can grab it, a wave washes it into the water.
Like a bull, Scriv charges, knocking into Soren with his shoulder. They tumble to the ground, sending up a spray of black sand. Soren punches him in the side of the head and he reels into me, knocking us both onto the damp ground. I twist onto my back and then kick him in the chest with both feet, landing on top of him and punching him in the eye. With one boot on his chest—my own heaves—, Soren appears at my side with the blade aimed at Scriv’s neck.
“I’d have had better luck with a torch. I thought you were ghosts. Where’ve you been, Soren?” Scriv says as if they weren’t just fighting.
“Away,” he answers.
“I heard,” Scriv says. His eyebrows waggle suggestively when he takes me in.
“Then why’d you ask?”
Scriv leers. “She’s prettier in person.”
I snarl, recalling the thin woman in the street mentioning someone named Scriv.
“We need to get into Raven’s Landing,” Soren says.
“Not wise, but why?” Scriv asks. The lines around his eyes suggest he’s already calculating what might be in it for him.
Soren glances at me quickly and lowers his weapon.
“We have something for the king, but we need to deliver it to him in a,” he hesitates, “in a particular way.”
“I’m a particular kind of guy,” Scriv crows, getting to his feet and dusting off his jacket.
“I’m aware. You’re a man of details, in the know, on the inside. No one,
