“We’ll manage.”

I snorted very quietly. “You will not.”

“If we’re caught, we can claim that we bribed a guard.”

I dismissed him with a wave of my hand, which he couldn’t see. “We should get moving,” I said, making herding motions with my good hand, which he also couldn’t see.

“Gen, it’s only been two days. Three since we were arrested. You can’t manage.”

“I think,” I said stiffly, “that I am more of an asset than a liability.”

“Gen, that’s not what I meant.” He put out one hand in the dark to touch my shoulder, but I shifted away. “Gen, we can’t ask you to risk yourself again.”

“This is a change from your earlier position,” I pointed out.

“I was wrong before.”

“You’re wrong now, too.”

“Gen, the queen of Attolia doesn’t bear you any ill will.”

I thought about her parting smile. “I think she does,” I said.

“All she wants from you is a promise of your service.”

“Well, she isn’t going to get it.” I’d heard too many stories about the things that happened to people who worked for her. “Can we stop discussing this just now?” I started to move away as I spoke, and they followed me in the darkness. With my feet bare, I stepped gingerly, and it was easy to remember to favor my bad shoulder.

“How did you get the keys? Where are the guards?” Sophos wouldn’t stop talking as we moved through the pitch-dark. “And why are all the lanterns out?”

I sighed. “I didn’t get the keys. They took my clothes and probably burnt them. They left my lock openers and the other things from my pockets on a table in my room.” I’d left the magus’s cloak pin and Ambiades’s comb behind. I’d brought the penknife in case I needed it again. We came to a corner, and I felt my way around it, then reached back to take Sophos by the hand.

“Be quiet,” I whispered, “and try not to pull on me.” I was a little unsteady on my feet and afraid that he would pull me right over if he stumbled.

“What about the guards,” he persisted, “and the lanterns?”

The guards, I told him, were at the end of the corridor guarding a deck of cards, and the lanterns were out because I blew them out. “This way,” I hissed, “when they hear us chatting like happy sparrows in our nest, they won’t immediately be able to find us.”

“But where are we going?”

“Would you shut up?”

My left hand, the bad one, brushed along the wall until it bumped against a door handle. The pain stopped me in my tracks, and I squeezed Sophos’s hand hard to prevent him from bumping me. “Hold on,” I whispered. They stood quietly while I worked the lock on the door. Fortunately I had a key that fit closely enough and could turn it with one hand. “Watch the door,” I said as I pulled it open. It rumbled, but the hinges didn’t squeak. “Don’t bang your head,” I warned the magus.

We walked down a tunnel only as wide as the door. The walls arched into the ceiling just a few inches over my head. There was a stone door at the end that had a simple crossbar fastening on the inside. Once through it, we were outside the castle on a narrow footing of stone that ran under its walls. In the silence we could hear waves lapping against the stone under our feet, and in the river there were ghosts of reflections from torches set in sconces along the sentry walk above our heads.

“What is this?” Sophos asked.

“It’s the Seperchia,” said the magus. “Remember this stronghold sits in the middle of the river and defends the bridge to either side.”

“I meant, what is this?” Sophos said, and stamped his foot on the stone under him.

“This is a ledge that runs around the entire castle,” I explained, “so that they can maintain the foundation. We’re going to follow it to the bridge into town. Keep your voices down. There are guards.”

“Why is there a door?”

I left it to the magus to answer.

“They dispose of bodies by throwing them in the river.”

“Oh.”

“Sometimes the guards will sell a body back to the family if they wait here in a boat,” he said.

Sophos finally kept his mouth shut as we crabbed our way around the castle. There was no moon. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, so I kept it on the castle wall and checked with my forward foot to make sure there was always ground underneath me. The magus put himself between me and Sophos, and he was careful not to bump. We crept around one corner, and then another. There were no torches burning on the bridge, and if there were guards watching, they were posted on the towers, not on the bridge itself. The three of us snuck across.

Getting through town proved to be trickier than leaving the castle. Without the moon we had to pick our way carefully, and I had a difficult time leading the way I wanted to go. The fires in the houses had been banked hours ago, and there was no glow through the windows to help us. Dogs barked as we passed, but no watch came to check on them. The road from the castle led away from the river. We left it, hoping to cut back to the water, and got lost in narrow streets. Twice I almost walked headlong into the invisible walls of houses before we finally came to another road that ran along the riverbank and passed a bridge.

“We stay on this side,” I said, and the magus didn’t argue. We moved very slowly past dark houses. I was happier without moonlight because I didn’t have to worry about hiding, and going slowly, I had time as I took each step to favor my shoulder.

“Gen,” the magus asked, “how are you?”

“Good enough.” I answered, a little surprised at how capable I was feeling. I was weak but clearheaded. My shoulder hurt, but in a distant way. The pain was only sharp when I stumbled, and I didn’t stumble often. I felt as if I were floating very gently down the road, buoyed by an invisible cloud. The night all around was filled with the usual noise of bugs and jumping fish and distant dogs howling, but there seemed to be a bubble of silence that surrounded us.

The moon eventually came up, and the going was easier, but the magus didn’t try to hurry me. He and Sophos were both patient, but Sophos kept wanting to chatter as we walked. I realized that he was frightened and that talking helped him, but I needed to concentrate all my energy on my feet. The magus talked with him. We kept moving until just before dawn.

We weren’t many miles from town, but the road we followed ran up against a rise and turned inland. In order to stay with the river, we needed to follow a narrower path that climbed through the rocks along the bank. We stopped to rest. I leaned against a convenient stone pile and slid to the ground. I tucked Sophos’s overshirt, which was fortunately a long one, underneath me and closed my eyes. My feet were cold. I ignored them and slept for a while. When I opened my eyes again, there was enough light to see the color of the world. The magus’s overshirt was wrapped around my feet, and the magus was gone.

I jerked my head around to look for him, and wished I hadn’t. My body had stiffened while I slept. Sophos was still asleep beside me, curled up on the ground. The magus was standing a little way away, looking down through the rocks at the river. I called him, and when he turned to look at me, his face was bleak. Little birds began to peck in my stomach.