the sphere so it parted as if she had slit it with a knife, and held the skin
apart so Wess could leave.
Wess thought the shaky uncertain feeling that gripped her would disappear when
she had solid ground beneath her feet again.
But it did not.
Wess and Lythande returned to the Unicorn in silence. As the Maze woke, the
street began to fill with laden carts drawn by scrawny ponies, with beggars and
hawkers and pickpockets. Wess bought fruit and meat rolls to take to her
friends.
The Unicorn was closed and dark. As the tavern-keeper had said, he did not open
early. Wess went around to the back, but at the steps of the lodging door,
Lythande stopped.
‘I must leave you, frejojan.’
Wess turned back in surprise. ‘But I thought you were coming upstairs with me
for breakfast, to talk …”
Lythande shook his head. His smile was odd, not, as Wess had come to expect,
sardonic, but sad. ‘I wish I could, little sister. For once, I wish I could. I
have business to the north that cannot wait.’
‘To the north! Why did you come this way with me?’ She had got her bearings on
the way back, and while the twisted streets would not permit a straight path,
they had proceeded generally southward.
‘I wanted to walk with you,’ Lythande said.
Wess scowled at him. ‘You thought I hadn’t enough sense to get back by myself.’
‘This is a strange place for you. It isn’t safe even for people who have always
lived here.’
‘You -‘ Wess stopped. Because she had promised to safeguard his true identity,
she could not say what she wished: that Lythande was treating her as Lythande