Behind Sanctuary’s walls. What if Tempus is coming? He might well be too late.
What good anything if they come too late? Listen to me. Listen to what I have to
tell you and test whether my advice is good.”
“You,” Janni said, and Stilcho, his back to the black air and the river, felt a
tenuous grip on both his arms, gazed into a face all but solid, and Janni’s best
aspect-Janni as he had been-before. Before Roxane. “You’re the only one I can go
to. The only one I can reach. I’ve been through the town-” Gods knew what that
compassed, the nightbound wandering down the winds: Stilcho guessed. “Stilcho,
before the gods, we’ve got precious little left. The dead of this pesthole
patrol her streets; they watch her bridges. Half of them are Roxane’s. Some of
them-some of them aren’t anyone’s. Man, you are still a man, they left you that
much-are you that afraid of Ischade? Is it that? You slip her cord and she-takes
away whatever she gave you? Is that what you march to now, man? You took an
oath. You meant it once. You kept it and those dogs fouled it; and I’m asking
now, I’m asking you get my partner out of this. He’s necessary, don’t you see
that? He’s-what he is. And they’ll use him. Roxane’s wrung the sense out of him
and the priests will get the rest-“
“You’re the worst kind of ghost, Janni. The worst kind. The walking kind. You
won’t go back. Will you? Not till someone settles you.”
“No,” Janni said, and the tendrils of something very cold wove their way around
Stilcho, between him and his body. Stilcho opened his mouth to cry out; but he