The pirate shoved her down to sit in the chair. Another pirate produced a rope from beneath his narrow robe—it made a lumpy outline, but she guessed none of them cared about fashion—and tied her hands behind her, then looped rope around her to tie her to the chair.
Ghazarian shut the door behind them. “The Device,” she said. “Take it.”
Two of the pirates pawed her, patting her all over, including in places the Device couldn’t possibly be hidden. Zara ignored them. Showing fear would only make them torment her worse. “How did you find me?” she said.
One of the pirates pulled the Device out of her pocket and handed it to Ghazarian. She held it up and turned it around in the dim light. “Light,” she said, and one of the pirates took out a matchlighter and lit the lantern on the table. It threw strange shadows over Ghazarian’s face, exaggerating her eyebrows and the curve of her lips. Ghazarian took the Device to the lantern and held it close to the flame. “How does it work?” she asked.
“I want to know how you found me first,” Zara said. Stall. Find a way out of this.
“You do not demands to make,” Ghazarian said. “Tell how it works.”
Zara didn’t speak. Ghazarian whipped out her knife and held the blade against Zara’s throat. “Tell.”
“If you kill me, you’ll never know,” Zara said. “Look, I’m curious. Tell me, and I’ll talk.”
Ghazarian snarled at her. The knife blade pressed closer. Zara held as still as she could. Getting out of this was going to be difficult, particularly if she wanted to get the Device back. Don’t taunt, be reasonable, she thought, but to what end? She really needed a plan.
Then Ghazarian grinned. Her canines had been filed to sharp points. She set the knife on the table and took a familiar wooden box with a glass top from within her robe. She showed it to Zara. “You must thank the Karitians. They show me how best to use this.”
“How does it work?” Zara said, discarding a number of defiant responses.
Ghazarian grinned again, those canines catching the light of the lantern and the bluer light of the moon that now filtered through the small window. She flipped open the glass top and displayed a square of fine-grained leather stretched taut. It was deep red and pulsed like a beating heart. “We have this from its maker,” she said. “It gives you how close you are to the Device but not where it is. It uses little source.”
She closed the lid and turned the box upside down, pressed her thumbnail into a nearly invisible slot, and another lid popped open. “This we do not know before the Karitians find it. They thorough are.” Zara saw a quivering arrow like the needle of a compass, pointing directly at the Device on the table. “This uses much source, but shows where the Device is.” Ghazarian closed the box and picked up the Device, then held it up so the brass case caught the light the way her teeth had. “So. What does it do?”
“I don’t know,” Zara said.
“You know what it does. You will tell.”
“You chased it down, followed me all this way, and you don’t know what it does? Why did you want it so badly, then?”
Ghazarian kicked Zara in the stomach, making her cry out. “You tell,” she said. “Its builder did not know.”
“I don’t know either,” Zara lied. “How could the builder not know?”
Ghazarian kicked her again. “It complex is. Many parts,” she said. “The builder makes only one, then the Tremontane government takes it to put all together. The builder knows only what his part does. So he makes this.” She waved the box in Zara’s face. “It follows the part. It went to your city, the Aurilien city, then it left to the south. It—he follows the Device to Umberan. He cannot follow more without a ship. So he hires me.” She set the tracking Device on the table next to the lantern.
“What happened to him?”
That canine smile again. “He tell me the story. He say the Device valuable is. He tells all and then—I do not need him more.”
That chilled Zara despite the muggy night. “Well, I picked it up from a dead man, so I don’t know how it works. I thought it was a watch.”
“I do not believe.”
“I’m sorry about that. I’m telling the truth.” Please don’t have Telaine’s gift.
Ghazarian picked up her knife. “I think you do not.” She stroked Zara’s tangled hair, then wound a lock of it around her fist. With a stroke of the knife, she cut it off. It didn’t hurt, but Zara gasped in surprise. Oh, yes. It’s going to be torture.
Now what? Zara went furiously fast over her situation. She was outnumbered. She was tied up and unarmed. The Device was out of her hands. Ghazarian was the sort of person who enjoyed hurting others. She’d go on hurting Zara even if Zara told her how to work the Device, which meant no matter what Zara did, this could only end one way—in her death. The question was, how could she make that death count?
She let her eyes go wide and panicked. “No, don’t! I swear I don’t know anything!” she exclaimed.
Ghazarian set the tip of the blade at Zara’s temple. Zara whimpered as the knife cut a long, thin line down the side of her face and along the line of her jaw. “Do you not? Maybe I take your ear next. Or a finger.”
“No. Please.”
Ghazarian took the arch of Zara’s left ear in her fingers and pulled it away from her head, setting the edge of the knife beside it. “Tell.”
Zara cried out, “All right! I’ll tell you! Just stop!”
The tiniest pain ran down Zara’s neck as Ghazarian made a cut in the fleshy part of her ear, then withdrew the knife. “You weak are,” she said. “Tell.”
“It’s too complicated,” Zara said. “But I can show you.”
“You think me to trick?”
“No. I swear. It really is too complicated to explain.”
Ghazarian sheathed the knife and stepped back, gesturing at the pirates. One of them cut through Zara’s bonds, and she breathed out in relief. She was still going to die—Ghazarian had given in too easily for that not to be the outcome she had in mind—but at least she wouldn’t have to untie herself when she finally recovered. She rubbed her wrists, stalling for time.
“What is?” Ghazarian said.
“I’m not completely sure,” Zara said. “Like I said, I took it off a dead man and it was hard to work out that it did anything.” She held out her hand, and Ghazarian hesitated, then handed her the Device.
“It makes noises when you turn the stem.” Zara demonstrated. “That changes these bumps on the surface, so it probably does several things, but I only found one.” She went through the sequence Blackwood had shown her, and the Device began to glow green. The pirates crowded around her, stifling her. Ghazarian shouted at them, and they stepped away. Zara turned the stem a few more notches, then pulled up on it. Nothing happened. Exactly as planned.
She made a face and pulled harder. “It’s stuck,” she said.
“Try harder, or I take a finger,” Ghazarian said.
“I’m trying.” Zara shoved the stem in, then pulled it out, wiggling it. The thing couldn’t be that tough, could it? Come on, damn you, she thought at it, then whacked it hard on the table. Ghazarian grabbed it and tried to take it away from her.
“You will break it,” she said. “Let me.”
“No, I almost have it,” Zara said.
“Give it to me.”
“It’s almost free—please, give me time—”
With a snap, the stem came free from the Device. Ghazarian, holding the case, stumbled back a few steps. The green light vanished. Zara clutched the broken stem. “You broke it,” she said.
“I? I do not to break. You do this thing, you fool.”
“I was doing fine until you had to interfere,” Zara shouted. “Now it’s broken and neither of us will get any benefit from it. You’re the stupidest person I’ve ever met!”
Ghazarian drew her knife. “You do not speak so to me,” she said in a low, menacing voice.
Zara struck, not at her, but at the tracking Devi
ce on the table, sweeping it to the ground. The case cracked, the glass lid shattered, and metal coils and gears spilled out of it like it had been gutted. “I’ll speak to you however I want! Stupid, impatient, arrogant! I don’t know why anyone obeys you, if this is what you do when you capture ships. Do you sink them with the cargo on board? That’s the sort of thing I’d expect from an idiot—”
Ghazarian roared and ran at Zara, grabbing her by the shoulder and thrusting her knife up and under her ribcage. It burned cold agony all the way in, and Zara screamed, not caring who heard or what they thought. “Who is the idiot?” Ghazarian whispered to her, then shoved her away to fall hard on the floor.
Zara lay looking up at the ceiling. Hadn’t it been lower just moments before? She brought her hand up to touch the wound and felt hot blood pouring out of her. If Ghazarian hadn’t reached the heart, this could go on for a while. The pain was gone now. Instead she felt cold all over, which was nice after the heat and humidity of the day.
Far away, she heard someone speaking, but she couldn’t understand the words. It might have been Eskandelic—but surely she would have understood that, because she was almost certain she spoke Eskandelic. Then her heart gave an erratic leap, fluttered a few times, and stopped. Gratefully, Zara slipped into death. Twice in a week, she thought, I really need to be more careful.
***
Hot sunlight burned Zara’s face. She blinked, then closed her eyes again and turned away from the bright sun. Her bed was hard and gritty, which seemed odd. Surely by now she should smell coffee, if the light was already that bright. But this didn’t seem to be her bedroom—
Memory returned. Ghazarian’s knife. The Device. She pushed herself up and looked around. The tiny house seemed smaller in daylight, its lumpy bed farther away. She rolled to her knees, stood, and had to grab the chair to keep from falling over. The cut ropes still lay on the floor around it like headless snakes. She kicked them to make sure they weren’t actually snakes, then had to sit down and put her head between her knees, she was so lightheaded. That had been a ridiculous thought. She must have lost a lot of blood before her heart stopped beating.
When she wasn’t quite so dizzy, she sat up and looked around. The lantern was still on the table, the tracking Device lay shattered on the ground, but Alfred’s Device was gone. A sick feeling passed over her. Of course, there was no way she could have stopped them taking the Device, but it still felt like failure.
Then she remembered. She opened her right hand and let the stem of the Device fall onto the table. They had the Device, but no way to use it. Not the ideal solution, but better than letting them have a working communication Device. Though she had no idea how they’d use it if it were working, if Jeffrey had the only other one. It didn’t matter. She picked up the stem again and put it in her hidden pocket. Might as well not leave any trace of it behind.
She contemplated the broken tracking Device. It was no good to anyone anymore, but she crouched and gathered up all the tiny pieces and tucked them away in her pocket too. It made a funny bulge, but maybe Theo could do something with it. Assuming she could get it to him.
Now, what day was it? Zara stuck her head out the window. Morning, probably not later than ten o’clock. The pirates had found her at sunset, but which day? She prodded her gory tunic. It was completely dry, stiff with her blood, which could mean it had been more than one day she’d lain there, or it could mean things dried quickly even in this climate.
She knew about how long it took her to heal many injuries—fifteen minutes for a deep scratch, two days for a broken bone, seven days for being shot through the head—but she thought she’d been healing faster in Dineh-Karit. And she’d always healed more slowly in Eskandel and Veribold than in Tremontane. Her guess was her healing was directly related to the amount of source available, which meant it might be true Dineh-Karit had more source even than Tremontane. Not that she had time for philosophical analysis. She had to get back to Goudge’s Folly, and she had to do it soon, no matter how long she’d been gone. Blackwood needed to know what had happened to the Device.
She looked down at her tunic again. There was no way she wouldn’t draw attention in it. And as far as drawing attention went, why hadn’t anyone come to investigate the shouting and screams coming from this house the night before, or two nights before, or whenever it was? She opened the chest and found it empty. If the house was unoccupied, that might explain the lack of interest, for which she was grateful. Heaven only knew where a Karitian might have hauled her “corpse.” She shook her head and had to sit down again. She was still not thinking clearly. It didn’t matter why no one had come. What mattered was getting to the docks and finding a boat.
She stuck her head out the window again. The alley was empty. She heard no noises from any of the houses. Carefully, she opened the door, looked to either side, then moved on to the next house and knocked. No one answered. She tried the knob; the door was unlocked. She went inside and leaned against the door briefly. This house had the same furnishings as the others, but the blanket was red. Individuality? Or had the store simply run out of blue blankets?
She threw open the chest and began rummaging through it. Cup and bowl, a comb and—thank heaven—a change of clothes for the owner of this house. She pulled out tunic and trousers, both a dull gray that didn’t suit her coloring, not that it mattered. What mattered was they were both made for someone two sizes larger than she. Well, she’d have to make do. She could probably wear her own trousers, especially since she didn’t want to give up the advantage of the hidden pocket, but the new tunic…
She stripped out of her own clothes, reversed the trousers after a moment’s consideration, shrugged into the oversized tunic, and folded the ruined one with the bloody side inward so it looked like an ordinary bundle. Then she went back to the house of her captivity and found the longest rope to use for a belt.
She stood in the center of the room and took a deep, relaxing breath. It was probably a good thing she couldn’t see herself, because she no doubt looked ridiculous, but as long as she looked like a Tremontanan servant, she didn’t care. There was a pitcher of warm water on the table, and she used the too-large trousers to wash her face free of dirt and blood. She’d forgotten Ghazarian had cut her. She settled her bundle comfortably in her arms, tugged the tunic down to conceal the bulge in her pocket, and sent up a prayer to ungoverned heaven this would work.
She’d forgotten how lost she was until she exited the alley and realized she had no idea where to go next. No. No despair. She checked the position of the sun, which was already hot and sending up prickles of sweat under her hair and beneath her breasts, and started walking eastward. She knew she was west of the river and the great plaza-road, and if she could find those, the route to the docks would be obvious.
Heat radiated from the concrete pavers, burning through the thin soles of her ridiculous sandals. She kept her head down and her shoulders slumped. It was the heat that made the pose feel so natural and not her emotional exhaustion. Physically, she felt fine, but the city weighed her down with its monotonous construction and the constant silence and the knowledge that her face made her a potential victim of this system.
She thought about Ransom, about whether he’d made it back, and prayed she’d find him again. The way he’d looked at her…he was nothing like Hank, and yet he had that same intent, searching look she remembered so well. The look that said he saw past the face she showed the world to the woman she was inside.
She remembered a long-ago conversation about not being afraid to care about people just because those relationships inevitably ended, and her friends in Longbourne, and how even though it hurt to leave them, it would have hurt worse never to make those connections. But love, romantic love, wasn’t that different? Or was she just afraid? Because Zara North was never afraid of anything, and if that was what stood in the way—
She bumped into someone and cursed herself for daydreaming in an enemy city. The person she’d run into
didn’t recoil, just took a step back and made a funny bow. She carried a parcel much like Zara’s and her red hair hung loose around her face. “You’re Tremontanan,” Zara said.
“So are you,” the woman said in a dull voice. “Excuse me.”
“Wait,” said Zara. “I’m lost. Where is the river?”
The woman’s dull expression turned suspicious. “What?”
“The river? I am new here, and I don’t know where anything is.”
The woman pointed back over her shoulder. “Just there.” She still looked suspicious.
“Oh, how foolish of me,” Zara said. “Excuse me.” She made a clumsy imitation of the woman’s bow, then hurried away. She could feel the woman watching her, and the prickles of sweat turned into droplets. She’d been afraid of attracting the attention of the Karitians; it hadn’t occurred to her to worry about northerners as well. She walked faster. There was nothing to worry about. That woman wouldn’t betray her. Probably.
She came out on the riverside so abruptly she stumbled and went to one knee, throwing out a hand to stop herself falling. The heat of the concrete burned her palm, and she snatched her hand back, blowing on it to cool the skin. A few Karitians passed, paying her only enough attention to step around her. Sticking out her other leg to trip their smug faces would be satisfying, but that would draw far too much attention, so Zara kept that impulse to herself. She waited for the Karitians to pass, then got to her feet and headed north.
She passed one of the docking platforms, empty now, and took the first bridge she came to. If she hadn’t heard the distant cries of the sea birds, if not for the scraping of her soles on the square white stones of the bridge and the sound of the river, she might have believed she’d gone deaf. She once again felt like screaming or singing, anything to break the unnerving silence. What kind of country was this? Why the silence? Why the identical houses? She was tired of being fair-minded. Anyone who lived like this had to be crazy.
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