never wanted to remember the times that he had.
Moria pulled back from him. Her bodice, much torn and retied, fell down from her
shoulders. She did not seem to notice but Stilcho, with death still in his
nostrils and hell itself downstairs in the kitchen, knew beyond all doubt that
he was as alive as he had ever been.
“Moria, help me.” He took her arm again. Haught hadn’t slighted her with his
magic: tear-streaked and disheveled she retained her beauty. 0 gods, he wanted
to go on living.
“You’re … you’re-” She put a hand out to touch the good side of his face.
“A window,” he repeated even after she fell against him, burying her face in a
shirt that had seen better days. “Moria, a window-if we’re going to help him and
save ourselves.”
She pointed at the window beyond her bed and sank back to the floor when he left
her to fight, oh so silently, with its casement.
Stilcho panicked for a second when the salt-rusted window swung wide open. Not
from the noise, because Strat screamed then, but from the wards he could see
shimmering like whorehouse silks flush against the outer walls. He forgot to
breathe until his heart pounded and his vision blurred, but it seemed the wards
were for larger forces and were not affected by the iron-and-glass casement.
The horse was still out there: Strat’s bay horse that Ischade had painstakingly
restored to life. It danced away from the fires burning beyond the wards and the
occasional bravo racing down the street but it had no intention of abandoning
its vigil-not even when Stilcho reached out to it as he had learned to reach for