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“I’ve lost my coat,” Wil said, his voice small and thin.

He was shaking his head and staring into his open pack like it might have mercy on him and swallow him whole.

“It was here just a moment ago, I had your money in the pocket, your guns—
shit
, your guns, I’m sorry—but now I can’t find it.”

It made Dallin’s heart clench a little, the lost despair in Wil’s voice, the hunch of his shoulders. Dallin was glad Calder wasn’t hearing this. “You’re wearing it,” he told Wil calmly. “And I’ve already got my guns.” He wanted to step over, lay a hand to Wil’s shoulder, say something soothing, but again, it seemed like a lie, and he sometimes had a hard time knowing if a comforting gesture would be welcome or not.

Wil didn’t say anything, merely looked down at his sleeve, blinking at the weave of the coat. His hand went 261

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to the coat’s pocket, feeling the bulk of Dallin’s purse, then he flicked a look over at Dallin, wild eyes marking the guns safely in their holsters. Dallin had seen the look before, and not just in Wil’s eyes.

I’m afraid, Captain. I want to go home. I’m only a
farmer-tailor-blacksmith-sixteen year old son of a poor
man who had no other trade to turn to…

“Pick up your gun, Wil,” Dallin ordered, stern command.
Man your gun, soldier.
He watched as Wil’s eyes drifted to the rifle lying beside his boot, hung there.

“He knows we’re here but not where. He wants your magic but it’s
yours
and you’ve got it. We can get out of here before he finds us, and we can beat him if we can’t, but I need you to pick up that rifle.
Now
.”

Wil nodded, kept nodding as his hand reached out, curling around the gun’s stock and gripping it tight. Like the cool of the metal itself had doused the feral terror, the bobble-ish nodding stopped, Wil’s shoulders unlocked themselves, and a long breath fetched itself into his chest. “Right,” he breathed. Laying a trembling hand to his pack, he shouldered it and stood with only a slight wobble. He turned to Dallin slowly. Swallowed so hard it looked like he’d got one of those bloody potatoes caught in his throat. “Remember your promise,” he wheezed.

“I remember all my promises,” Dallin told him steadily.

“Including the one where I don’t let it come to it.” He paced over, took up the ammunition and distributed it between their pockets and the packs. He looked at Wil calmly when he was through and cinched his pack shut.

“We can do this,” he told Wil forcefully. “
You
can do it.

Now, let’s go.”

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They left the same way they’d come. Dallin didn’t remember much of their arrival, just a vague image of dead leaves and dried-up pricker bushes, but the set of the sun was nearly the same, and the weather hadn’t changed. Still cold and sunny, just edging on true winter but not quite there yet. He missed his coat, but at least he had the cloak. Even the wind was sighing past the tops of the walls as it had the day they’d first arrived. Dallin fervently hoped that this day, as alike as it seemed, would turn out markedly different. He made sure both he and Wil had their hats in place, hunched himself as small as he could, and took rearguard while Calder took point. Wil walked between them, munching nervously and without much enthusiasm on a biscuit.

The backstreets were even quieter than they’d been that day Dallin and Wil had rambled through them. He concentrated on scanning for trouble. Watching. It wasn’t only about avoiding suspicion anymore—now it was about avoiding being seen altogether. With that skittering little buzz hovering once again just at the bottom of his spine, Dallin set his teeth and moved along as quickly as they dared.

Wil’s quiet panic remained, but he was thinking through it now, doing his best not to let it interfere with what they had to do. That furious, ground-in survival instinct had taken over where fear would’ve had him paralyzed. He was watching, too, his gaze flicking to all points, never resting in one spot for more than a second or two, assessing and dismissing, the badger watchful and wary. Good. Dallin could use those teeth about now.

Wil’s glance lingered only once, when their little group flitted past the alleyway where Dallin had failed so badly and allowed others to drive their course. Wil turned to Calder, asked, “What happened to her?”

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about the haggard woman who’d spouted prophecy through her drug-haze.

“She’s gone to the Mother,” Calder answered tersely.

“She was only waiting for you.”

Dallin’s first knee-jerk was to wonder if Calder had killed her. He glared, but didn’t pursue the cryptic remark and hoped Wil wouldn’t, either. One crisis at a time, and getting out of here was a lot more important right now.

To his relief, Wil fell silent, wary glance skittering again to all points. He held the gun gripped tight in both hands, index finger of his left hand twitching constantly over the safety. Dallin smiled grimly in hearty approval.

They walked silently for quite a while, pace quick but careful, ducking out of sight behind sheds and privies when necessary. Even crouching on the ground behind a refuse cart once when no other cover could be found.

The passersby were few, but the risk of being spotted far too high. They were in one of the less-prosperous parts of the city. Shabby tenements and rundown little lean-tos made up the predominant architecture. They kept moving steadily deeper into the slums. It made sense, Dallin supposed. In his experience, the poor and determined were those who had little choice but to find their way around the law. He wasn’t at all surprised that if there was a way to get in and out of Chester undetected, it would be in this part of the city. There was definitely something to be said for the resourcefulness of the desperate. Just look at Wil.

As if he’d heard the thought, Wil stopped abruptly, cocked his head a little, thoughtful and with eyes narrowed. If Dallin hadn’t been paying attention, he would’ve barreled right over him. As it was, Dallin stopped, too, and frowned at Wil, who turned to him slowly, jaw set.

“We need the horses,” he told Dallin, as if he’d just 264

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said,
People need water to live.

Dallin’s frown deepened as that unnerving buzz winding through him notched itself up to a high-pitched whine. “We can’t—”

“We have to.” Wil cut his glance to Calder, who was just now pacing quickly back toward them, having walked ahead before he’d noticed he was no longer followed.

“We have to go get the horses.”

Calder’s eyes didn’t roll, but Dallin could tell they wanted to. Pressing his lips together grimly, Calder shot Dallin a disapproving glance, then narrowed a stern look on Wil. “It’s safer to leave them, and we’ve already passed the turn to the city’s stables.”

Wil didn’t even acknowledge him, just looked back at Dallin, steady. “We have to,” he repeated.

Dallin really didn’t want to. Not only would it be too risky, but it would take time they might not have and make their trail easier to follow. Something was coming, and Dallin really didn’t want to be here when it arrived.

But the look in Wil’s eyes…

“Are you sure?”

Wil nodded. “And another for Calder.”

This wasn’t that dance of grudging, not-so-secret affection that had so amused Dallin since he’d bought the horses. Wil didn’t want the horses right now because he liked them. In fact, Dallin had no doubt Wil wouldn’t think twice about leaving them behind or killing them himself if it meant a clean escape.

And what if I gave you a prophecy? Would you believe
it?

Dallin sighed. This was close enough to one, he supposed. And yes, he definitely believed it.

His jaw tightened just a little. “There’ll be a staff there.

Sneaking won’t be an option.”

Wil looked down. By the set of his face, Dallin figured 265

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he’d already known as much. “I’ll take care of it.”

Dallin had no doubt. That was what worried him, even more than being recognized.

“Trust me,” Wil murmured and peered up to meet Dallin’s eyes squarely, as close to calm as Dallin had seen him since Calder had flung himself into the basement earlier.

Dallin sighed, nodded. “You’d damn well better know what you’re doing.” He shifted his gaze to Calder, hardened it. “The man says we need the horses. Take us to them.”

Surprisingly, Calder didn’t argue, but he didn’t look happy about it. His mouth pinched tight, and he glared between the two of them for a moment before wheeling about and leading on without another word. Dallin gave Wil a dour smile, shrugged, and gestured him ahead.

Wil lingered for a quick second, leaned up and dropped a swift, chaste kiss to Dallin’s mouth. “Thank you,” was all he said.

Right
, Dallin thought.
Perhaps you should save that
until we make sure I didn’t just get us caught or killed.

Backtracking, at first, then making their way through twists and turns into streets and alleys Dallin hadn’t seen before. It was only a few minutes before the very distinct mingled scents of horse and hay, sweat and manure whiffed toward him.

Calder halted at the mouth of the lane that opened out onto what looked like a moderately busy thoroughfare.

“We’re in the southwest corner of the city. The gates are that way,” he pointed north, “and our exit is that way,”

to the west this time. “If we get separated, head down the way we came and keep on until you hit the wall. Follow it west until you see a great wooden building, used to be a milliner’s. The roof’s half-caved, you can’t miss it.

There’s a thick growth of trees behind it, and a midden 266

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heap. Behind that, there’s an opening. A man named Rylan fancies himself the gatekeeper, and he’ll want at least ten gilders, but don’t give him more than four. Tell him you were sent by the Exile.” He shook his head. “I don’t know if you’ll fit the horses through.”

“If we get that far,” Dallin told him, “we’ll worry about it then.”

“I’ll take him in,” Calder said. “You stay here. No sense in risking both of you.”

Wil frowned, shooting a tiny flare of panic at Dallin, but Dallin narrowed his eyes at Calder. Why did everything the man said have a vague sinister ring to it?
So, if he dies,
you already have your Guardian ready to go find your
new Aisling for you? I don’t think so
.

And with that nerve-bending feeling of being watched crawling all over him, well… He didn’t want Wil depending on Calder if this went bad. If something happened, Dallin had a much more vested interest in keeping Wil alive than Calder seemed to.

Dallin shook his head. “No. You keep watch, I’m going with him.” He ignored the protests, turned to Wil and nodded across the street. “Come on. Head down.”

No one marked them as they crossed, just went about their business, whatever it was, and only slipped uninterested glances toward them then moved along.

Weapons had been forbidden on the day they’d arrived here, so Dallin hadn’t realized that almost everyone seemed to go armed as a matter of daily course. He cautiously approved. The Guard and the Constabulary might have a somewhat lackadaisical attitude toward defense from the little he’d been able to observe, but apparently the citizens didn’t. On the other hand, perhaps they were all simply a particularly vicious, cut-throat lot. He hoped he wouldn’t have to find out.

Wil took the lead as they crossed the dusty yard, 267

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heading without hesitation toward the double-doors of the massive building that housed the city’s stables. It was a fairly busy place, workers coming and going, leading horses in from the paddock or out to be exercised.

Several young girls were at work currying by the fence that separated the stables from the yard, sharing buckets and brushes between them. They laughed and chattered as they worked, and called out teasing advice to another as she loped a horse past the paddock’s fence. The girl merely smirked a little and flipped them a vulgar salute as she crouched in the saddle, the others shrieking good-naturedly before once again minding their own work.

“D’you know where our horses are?” Dallin asked Wil.

Wil was smiling a little, watching the girls. He turned to Dallin. “I do, but we can’t just go and get them. They have the tack locked up. We’ll have to get someone to get it for us.” His gaze shifted from right to left, looking for a likely mark, Dallin suspected. Wil smiled again when his eye settled on a tow-headed lad, leaning against an empty stall, staring at the girls and absently sharing bits of his apple with a docile little roan.

“Is that—?”

“Miri.” Wil was nearly grinning now. “She must’ve just had a bath. I told the lad to take care of them, told him they were pretty keen on apples.” He looked back at Dallin, delighted. “I think he listened.”

I don’t think he had much of a choice
, Dallin didn’t say. “What d’you have to do?”

But Wil was apparently already doing it. “Shh,” was all he said, eyes fixed on the lad. “Come on, then,” he whispered.

As though he’d heard, the boy’s head came up, turned, eyes gone vacant but with a bit of that hunger beneath the gaze that Dallin had seen in that man in Dudley. Muted, 268

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somehow, not nearly so feral, but still unsettling. The boy stared at Wil, mouth quirking up in a smile that was both thrilled and famished. Slowly, like there was fishing line strung between them, he led the horse over to Wil, stopped in front of him, eyes for Wil and Wil alone.

Miri puffed out a happy snort and dove her nose straight at Wil’s neck. He ignored her mostly, only shrugged at her a little, but kept his gaze locked with the boy’s. The boy stepped in closer. He almost looked like he wanted to throw his arms around Wil, but he merely tipped in, almost-but-not-quite touching. With a gentle little smile, he closed his eyes and slipped a quiet sigh into Wil’s cheek.