Four Roads Cross (Craft Sequence #5)(73)

“So you take care of the girls.”

Her arms clenched, drawing back the reins, and the golem slowed. Matt watched her force herself loose. The tension didn’t leave her shoulders, back, or arms, but she faked relaxation well enough. “I pick up what he drops. I maintain.”

“What that gargoyle did to him won’t last forever. He comes back, he’ll walk the same trail as before. And that’s bad for him, and dangerous for you.”

“I know, Mr. Adorne.”

Which was a door closing.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“If there was a way to force him to rest, I’d take it. The girls need the space. So do I.”

A bump shifted crates in the truck bed. Matt turned to right a few squash which further jostling might have rolled onto his eggs. “I might have an idea,” he said when he settled back beside her.

“What?”

“Rather not say much until I’ve talked to people. Don’t want to promise anything.”

They crested the ridge and descended from the forest to the city below, its road-veined circle quartered by the bite of the bay. “Matt.”

“Yes?”

“The story. Gracklet?”

“They’re real. I made up the bit at the end about the vurms, and there’s a name for rallybird that sounds better in Eld. But gracklet are about as common as mountain lions in the Geistwood, maybe a quarter the size, solitary for the most part. They claim territory like spiders do. Friendly, though. Human soulstuff’s too tight-wound for them to drink, and they’ll only go for you with their fangs if they’re hurt or you threaten their eggs. I saw one once when my dad took me camping. Scales aren’t as bright as they get down south, but still brighter than you tend to find up here in winter country. You see one, you offer a bright feather to Kos and a silver coin to Seril.”

“If this is another setup for a joke, I will hurt you.”

“Honest. Old Coulumbite tradition there. Mom’s side of the family, and her people go back to this soil. It’s a strange world we live in.”

She nodded, though that might have been a bump in the downhill road.

*

Tara woke beneath a too-familiar ceiling. Pale yellow metal beams supported white panels overhead; a metronome ticked her heartbeat and a needle pen scraped the sound’s shape onto a palimpsest. She sat up and swore at the pain in her skull, then swore again when she saw the man reading a magazine in the chair across from her bed.

The metronome popped prestissimo as she forced herself to her feet, arm still fabric-cuffed to the heart monitor. Her hospital gown billowed, and stitches pulled in her side. She drew her knife by reflex; the speed of its departure grayed her vision.

Not that there was anything objectionable, on first glance, about the man in the chair, reading a copy of this month’s De Moda. He was lean and strong, a pleasant topology of muscles evident beneath white shirt and charcoal slacks. Good chin. Very green eyes. Emerald, almost.

“What?” Shale said, half-risen. “What’s wrong?”

She caught her breath and guided her nightmares of claws and teeth and chains back to the prisons where they lived in daylight. Her knife faded into the glyphs that ringed her hands and webbed her arm. “Nothing,” she said. “I haven’t seen you looking human in a long time.”

He glanced down at himself, confused. “Did I get it wrong?” The features looked different draped over his skull.

“No. I mean, the wardrobe’s a bit missionary.”

“That’s the point.”

“The last time we talked like this was after I cut off your face and stapled it to a mannequin.”

“I remember,” he said without humor.

“So, we survived.”

“Nobody’s more surprised than I am.”

“I did what I could,” she said. “There were too many.”

“Is this how Craftswomen say thank you?”

“We don’t, as a rule. But, thank you. I remember the ambulance. Before that it’s blurry, except for … the fire. Damn. So he did it.”

“Kos aided us.”

“He shouldn’t have. I need to get to the sanctum. Where in the nine hells are my clothes?”

“Shredded. Unless you want to pass for a cover model on a planetary romance, I think they’re a lost cause. Try these.” He pointed with the rolled-up magazine to a garment bag on the chair beside him, which bore the crossed-keys logo of Adelaide & Stears. “I guessed your size. Hope I wasn’t too far off.”

She snatched the bag and closed the curtains around her bed with a wave. As she untied the back of her gown, she heard him say, “You’re welcome.”

*

The nurses had a fit when Tara tried to check out. Fortunately, the hospital knew how to handle fits. Tara ignored the usual arguments: that she should spend the day in bed at least; that her injuries, though superficial, merited observation given the slow infections that could spread from demonglass. Not a risk to her. Probably. Under normal circumstances. Regardless, she couldn’t afford the time.

“That was an unorthodox exit,” Shale said when they were safely a block away from the hospital. “They probably aren’t used to patients who turn into eight-foot-tall shadow monsters and jump out a window.”