The Glass Arrow(61)

“If you leave, I’ll be blamed for what you … and that animal did.”

She’s talking about Brax, but she’s staring straight at Kiran as she says this. He glances my way. She’s obviously figured out there’s something different about him, but she doesn’t know the half of it.

“I don’t know why I helped you,” I mutter. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Kiran gives a little snort, which doesn’t help.

“A dead Watcher,” she says, almost to herself. “No one’s going to buy me now. They’ll think I did it, you understand? They’ll look for me. I won’t even be able to hide in the Black Lanes.”

Kiran points to a saddle blanket and I hand it to him.

“Take me with you,” Daphne says.

Now I’m the one who snorts.

“Please,” she says, stepping closer. When Kiran moves, she jerks to the side and breathes in sharply.

“Please,” she begs now. “I can’t stay here. I’ll be hanged.” She grabs my sleeve, but I shake her off. Big tears are rolling down her cheeks.

Kiran is throwing a saddle on the chestnut mare. This one isn’t shiny like the others; the leather is dull and well worn.

“You should have thought of that before you stuck your guard.” I want to throttle her. If she hadn’t started that fight, I never would have gone outside. I never would have stepped in. That Watcher would still be alive and I’d be free right now.

Maybe Daphne had it right letting Straw Hair go to fry like that. Right now I wish I’d just left my half friend to defend her own self.

I toss Kiran the plastic bottle to stuff in his saddle bag and when I turn back, Daphne’s practically crawling all over me.

“They would have marked me,” she whispers, clawing the front of my tattered dress. “I can’t be sold. I won’t pass.”

I shake her off.

“What are you talking about?”

Her hands pull down her face. “Last auction I was almost sold.” She closes her eyes tight. “Almost. He chose Iris instead. After we met.”

She doesn’t need to say anymore. She broke the purity rule. And judging by the tortured look on her face, it wasn’t by choice.

I push past her as Kiran leads the mare out of the stall, and she crumbles into the side of the barn. She’s bawling with full force now, holding her arms before her like a child begging to be picked up.

“Clover, you can’t leave me.”

“Go,” I tell her, one last time. I turn back to Kiran, who’s watching Daphne’s display with his brows knit together.

Then I look lower and see the dripping band of blood from the wire that was hooked around his left side. It looks like oil in the dim light. Thick black oil.

“Your side.” I rush to him, and he looks down, as though noticing it for the first time. When he lifts his arm, his face warps into a cringe. The shirt is stuck to his skin. He peels it away slowly. The wound is so deep I can feel it in my own side, as if I’m the one that’s been hit.

I skirt around him into the storeroom just past the stall. There are three saddle racks, one atop the other on the side wall; five or six large containers filled with grain and pellets of some kind; and a floor-to-ceiling shelving unit directly to my right. There I find bandages for the horses; I grab one and hurriedly unwind a long piece of four-inch-wide felt.

“I’ll bind you up for now, but it won’t hold for long.”

Kiran shrugs away from me as I make for his chest with the wrap. He’s grabbing a Driver jacket off the peg on the wall and preparing to pull it on over one arm.

“You’re going to bleed through,” I tell him.

Kiran slows and then, sighing painfully, lifts his arms so that I can wrap the bandage around his body. When we’re on the outside, I’ll make a poultice to pack the wound, though I know something as deep as this is better suited for city doctors and their stitching kits.

“You’re talking to the Driver,” Daphne says, as if I didn’t know. I ignore her.

“Ignore her,” I tell Kiran. “She’s not coming with us.”

“You haven’t been listening!” she cries. “They’re going to hold me responsible! I have to get out of the city!”

“She’s right.”

My fingers freeze. “Kiran,” I say between clenched teeth.

Daphne stumbles back so hard she hits the wall.

“He can speak!”

“What a surprise,” I say, trying not to pay attention to the fact that it took him weeks to talk to me, but only minutes to speak in front of Daphne. I finish bandaging him a little more tightly than I probably should, and bind it with the tie attached to the end.

Kiran shrugs painfully into his long, dusty coat and stuffs something from the pocket into my hands. When I look down, I see a wadded bunch of fabric. Something pale yellow and lacy.

I swear my whole body goes red.

“It’s a dress,” he says. “I’ve only got one.”

I take it and shake out the outfit. Even though I’m not yet in it, I can tell that it’s going to be snug.

“Did you get it in the Black Lanes?” I frown, thinking of the brothels we passed on the way to the auction stage and not sure I want to know how Kiran got this.