“Give me the knife, Bee.” I pulled off my right glove, set the blade to my little finger, and sliced. The skin creased and reddened, but no blood appeared.
Bee snickered. “Do you want me to do it?”
“No! You’ll hack off the whole finger just to be sure.”
“Give me that.” She pulled off her own glove, took the knife, and neatly opened a delicate cut on her palm.
“Let your blood fall on the stone,” I said.
Warmth stung on my own hand as a bead of blood oozed red down my finger. All at once, I tasted summer on the wind.
“Like this?” Bee held her hand above the stone. Her blood dripped onto the grimy surface.
“Cross now! Hurry, Bee.”
Bee slammed into the stone.
“Ouch!” said Rory.
Bee took three steps back and tried again, as if sheer force of will could force rock to open. She thudded into stone, then cursed with pain.
My drop of blood slipped. A stain appeared on the stone and was absorbed. A roll of distant thunder whispered. A crow fluttered down to land atop the stone. The earth sank beneath my feet as stone and soil melted away.
“Cat’s going through,” said Rory.
“Not unless I go with her!” Bee dragged me stumbling back as Rory snarled and that cursed crow cawed like a captain alerting its troops.
“This won’t work,” said Bee. “That hurt.”
“Bee can’t cross,” said Rory, “but you will, Cat. Your blood opened the gate.”
Heaving, I dropped to my knees into a crackling carpet of snow. Nothing came up. My finger smarted. My tongue burned, and I swallowed blood.
“Someone is peeking at us through the boarded-up door,” said Bee. “I don’t like this place. And that crow looks like it’s hoping to peck out our eyes.”
Recovering from the wash of weakness, I groped along the wall with Bee in the lead and Rory behind. Unearthly voices rushed and mumbled in my ears as if I stood with one foot in the spirit world. A magnificent stallion cantered out of the wall, muscles rippling along a coat more brown than bay, and then it was gone. A saber-toothed cat lolled in our path, huge jaws widening in a startled yawn as she saw me, and then she was gone. A winged woman emerged from the coal haze that smeared the sky, her skin as black as pitch and yet glowing as with hidden embers, and then she was gone. A leaf trailed across my cheek with a glistening line of dew.
A shining face, masked and unkindly, filled the alley like a towering cliff of ice ready to calve and bury me. Chill fingers closed on my heart until I couldn’t think or breathe.
“Cat?” Bee’s fingers closed over my hand.
Then it was gone, and the voices fell silent. I sagged against Bee, and she held me up.
“There’s blood on your lip,” she said hoarsely.
I licked it off, its tang as bitter as seawater.
We staggered out to the old arched gate just as a company of soldiers rode up the lane.
“Beatrice! You’ll not escape me this time!”
Legate Amadou Barry reined up beside us, accompanied by a dozen Roman guardsmen in swirling red-and- gold capes and carrying burnished round shields more decorative than useful. Amadou bent from the saddle with the ease of a man accustomed to horseback and reached for Bee, meaning to sweep her up. She leaped back, the kitchen knife flashing as she took a swipe at him.
“I’m not yours to take!” she cried.
“You must get out of here! A riot’s about to break out. It isn’t safe.”
“Safer here than in a golden cage.”
“Beatrice, you have no idea of the cruelties of the world. I will protect you.”
“Legate, you have no idea of how condescending you sound. I’m not interested in your kind of protection.”
Had I ever thought him a diffident and humble young man? He was not even arrogant. He was simply a man of such exalted rank that he existed above considerations like arrogance and humility. He grabbed Bee’s wrist and twisted until she dropped the knife. “You’re coming with me.”
Rory leaped. He slammed into Amadou, and Bee jerked free as both men went tumbling to the ground. Guardsmen converged. A sword flashed down at my brother’s head. I parried with my cane as Rory rolled away. A cane made of wood would have been riven by steel, but the soldier’s blade shivered to a dead stop with a ringing shringgg. Rory jumped to his feet, yanked the rider’s leg out of the stirrup, and heaved him off the other side.
Bee grabbed the knife and sliced the bridle of Amadou’s mount. The harness slipped. We retreated toward the gate as Amadou Barry got to his feet, his expression so blank I wondered if he had actually lost his temper. The bridle was a loss.
On the other side of the gate, the crack of firearms split the air, punctuated by furious howls and the stiffly barked commands of a military captain: “Turn! Make formation!” More reports answered, sharp and short. The Roman guardsmen looked startled. Those were not muskets.
“Rifles!” shouted a male voice from afar. “Fire again, lads! We’ve got the muscle now! They’re only got swords and pistols!”
From the militia, in answer: “ Charge!?”
“Run!” I cried.
We pelted up the lane away from the old gate. The roar of a full-fledged battle crashed over us. People squeezed through the archway, disrupting the Roman guardsmen as they tried to assemble around their legate. With swords drawn and crossbows leveled, the men drew into a tight formation. Bricks flew from the crowd. The curve of the lane took us out of sight.
“Blessed Tanit!” cried Bee, near tears, “let him not be harmed! Oh, how hateful he was!”
“I wish you would make up your mind!” The noise of a district ablaze with fighting echoed around us, as if every lane, alley, and dank alcove had gone up in flames. “He’s not at all what I first thought he was.”
“That’s why it makes me so angry!” She looked ready to carve her anger into one of the houses we passed. “I thought I could trust him, but I can’t!”
A deep vibration knifed through my body. The somber bass of the bell dedicated in the temple of Ma Bellona, he who is valiant at the ford, cried across the city. The authoritative tenor of the bell dedicated in the temple of Komo Vulcanus, who keeps his secrets, answered. The sister bells joined, followed by the droll bass of Esus-at- the-Crossing and Sweet Sissy’s laughing alto. Last and most unexpectedly, because it was so rare, the raw contralto of the queen of bells, the matron of plenty and protection who guarded the shrine of Juno Lennaya, filled the air with a din that shook houses. Through the voice of its bells, Adurnam had joined in the conflagration.
We pressed on. The cursed lane tossed us straight back into the churning chaos of a street as wide as Enterprise Road. Its pavement was lined with the newest gaslight fixtures, although half of the glass shades had been shattered. The sheer mass of people surging along the street brought us up short. Everyone was shouting and cursing, the buzzing of voices like a nest of angry bees.
Rory used the bags to batter a way through the crowd. We plowed in his wake.
“Watch it!” A man threatened me with a cane. My blow broke it in half, and he fell back.
As we reached another intersection locked with wagons and carts, thunder rumbled.
Rory cocked his head. “That’s not horses.”
Bee pointed to a shop whose sign bore a clock-faced owl. “There! We have to go in there.”
We reached the awning. Bee opened the door and went in with Rory. An icy taste ground through the gritty flavor of coal smoke. My ears popped as the air changed. My sword’s hilt burned. I shut the door hard behind us, shop bell jangling.
The man at the counter had silver hair, spectacles, and a shop full of ticking clocks, no two of which showed the same time. He set down calipers.
“Maester,” I said, “begging your pardon for the intrusion, but if you have shutters, I recommend you close your shop now. A storm’s coming.”
