“Behind you,” Kitay said suddenly.
Rin twisted around, expecting a soldier. But it was just one of the Gray Company—a young man in a cassock, carrying a meal tray in his hands.
His mouth fell open when he saw her. His eyes flitted, confused, between her and Kitay, as if he was trying to determine the appropriate number of people for one cell. “You—”
Kitay twisted the key and jerked the cell door open.
Too late, the missionary turned to run. Rin dug her heels into the ground and chased him down. His legs were much longer than hers, and he might have gotten away, but he tripped over his cassock just as he reached the corner. He stumbled—only for a split second, but that was enough. Rin grabbed his arm, yanked him further off balance, and kicked at the backs of his knees. He fell. She called the fire into her palm. It came back so quickly, so naturally, a well-worn glove slipping over waiting fingers.
She jammed her clawed hand onto his throat. Soft flesh gave way to her burning nails like tofu parting under steel. Easy. It was done in seconds. He went without so much as a whimper; she’d chosen his throat because she didn’t want him to scream.
She straightened up, exhaled, and wiped her hand on the wall. The magnitude of what she’d just done hadn’t hit her; it had happened so quickly, it didn’t even seem real. She hadn’t decided to kill the missionary; she hadn’t even thought about it. She’d simply needed to protect Kitay. The rest was an instinct.
She felt a sudden, bizarre urge to laugh.
She cocked her head, observing the crimson streaks shining wet and bright on marble. For some reason, it gave her a dizzying rush of delight, the same confusing ecstasy she’d felt when she poisoned Ma Lien.
It wasn’t about the violence.
It was about the power.
It wasn’t as good as killing Nezha, but it felt close. For a wild, untethered moment, she considered dragging her bloody finger along the wall and drawing him a flower.
No. No. Too indulgent. She didn’t have time. The wave of vertigo passed. She came back to her senses; she was in control.
Focus.
“Come here,” she called down the corridor. “Help me drag him into your cell. We’ll put him on the cot, cover him with a blanket—it’ll buy some time.”
Kitay wandered out two steps from his cell, keeled over, and vomited.
Their escape from the church proceeded with astonishing ease. Rin and Kitay waited by the door to the dungeons, listening against the wood to an ongoing Hesperian sermon, until they heard the Nikara civilians standing up from their pews. Then they opened it a crack and slid out to join the press of moving bodies, invisible in the crowd. Jiang and Daji rejoined them as they spilled out of the doors, but none of them spoke until they’d walked for several minutes down to the other end of the street.
“You’ve gotten taller,” Jiang told Kitay once they’d turned the corner. “Good to see you again.”
Kitay stared at him for a moment, as if unsure how to respond. “So you’re the Gatekeeper.”
“That’s me.”
“And you’ve been hiding in Sinegard all this time.”
“Lost my mind for a bit,” Jiang said. “Just starting to get it back now.”
“Makes sense,” Kitay said weakly.
All considered, Rin thought, he was taking this rather well.
“Questions later.” Daji tossed Kitay a brown tunic, which was far less conspicuous than the tattered rags he’d been wearing since Tikany. “Put this on and let’s go.”
They left the New City in a horse-drawn laundry wagon. Its original driver had carried a gate permit to take infirmary linens to the river for washing; Daji had charmed him into relinquishing the wagon and permit both. While Daji drove the wagon confidently through the streets, Rin, Kitay, and Jiang hid under piles of linen stacked so tall they could hardly breathe. Rin squirmed, hot and itchy, trying not to think about the brown stains surrounding her. She felt the wagon stop only once. Rin heard Daji answering a guardsman’s questions in very convincing pidgin Hesperian, and then they passed through the gates.
Daji kept driving. She didn’t let them emerge from the linen piles until over an hour later, when the New City was nothing but a tiny outline behind them, until the sound of dirigibles had faded away and the only noise around them was the constant hum of cicadas.
Rin was relieved when the New City faded out of her sight. If she could help it, she never wanted to set foot in that place again.
That night, over a meal of dried shanyu root and a stolen loaf of thick, chewy Hesperian bread, Daji and Jiang interrogated Kitay for every shred of information he’d gleaned about the Republic. He had no solid details on troop placements or campaign plans—Nezha had fed him only enough information to seek his advice without creating a liability—but the little he did know was tremendously useful.
“They’re in endgame now, but it’s taking longer than it needs to,” Kitay said. “Vaisra turned on the Southern Coalition the moment they failed to produce your body, as you would have expected. But the Monkey Warlord—well, really it’s probably Souji’s work—rallied a surprisingly strong defense. They learned pretty quickly to create decent bomb shelters. Once he realized the airships weren’t getting the job done, Vaisra sent in ground forces. The south have beaten a retreat back to the corner of Boar Province for now. They’ve holed up under the mountains and forced a standstill for weeks, hence why everyone’s centered in Arabak.”
“The New City,” Rin amended.
He shook his head. “It’s still Arabak. No one here calls it the New City but the Hesperians, or Nikara in Hesperian company.”
“So the holdup is just a consequence of the terrain?” Daji asked. “What about the Young Marshal? Word on the street is he’s falling apart.”
Rin shot her a surprised look. “Where’d you hear that?”
“A pair of old women were gossiping in the pew behind us,” Daji said. “They said if Yin Jinzha were in charge then all the southern rebels would have been exterminated months ago.”
“Jinzha?” Jiang frowned, digging his little finger into his ear. “The older Yin brat?”
“Yes,” Daji said.
“I think I taught him at Sinegard. Utter asshole. Whatever happened to him?”
“He got plucky,” Daji said. “I turned him to mincemeat and sent him back to Vaisra in a dumpling basket.”
Jiang arched an eyebrow. “Darling, fucking what?”
“Nezha’s exhausted.” Kitay quickly returned to the subject. “It’s not entirely his fault. His Hesperian advisers keep making insane demands that he can’t accommodate, and the Republican cabinet are pulling him in twenty different directions so that he doesn’t even know which way to shatter.”
“I don’t get it,” Rin said. “You’d still think he’d be faring better with his advantages.”
“It’s not so simple. This remains a war on multiple fronts. The Republic’s pretty much conquered the north—Jun’s dead, by the way; they flayed him alive on a dais a few weeks ago—but there are still a few provinces holding out.”
“Really?” Rin perked up. That was the first piece of good news she’d heard in a long time. “Any provinces that are armed?”