An hour later, Chel sat at the dining room table, wearing one of Mina’s old linen shirts. Her bandages showed dark through the fabric. She dipped a finger into her water glass, and watched the drop form at her fingertip and fall to splash against the table. “Water in the desert.”
“A glorious gift,” Temoc said.
She lifted the cup two-handed as a Camlaander knight might lift his grail, and drank, eyes closed. When she set the cup down, it was empty. Temoc refilled it.
“Thank you,” she said after the third glass.
“We do what we are called to do,” Temoc said.
“You’re welcome,” said Mina.
“I’ve put you all in danger.”
“Well.” Mina shifted in her chair. “We couldn’t leave you out on the street.”
“You might have.”
She shook her head, though she left it for Temoc to say “No.” When Chel didn’t reply, he continued: “Why are you here? Has Chakal Square fallen?”
She bowed her head. “No.”
He was not sure how to feel about that.
“You escaped, then,” Mina said. “That’s good. We can hide you.”
He poured her another glass. She drank. Caleb watched from the corner of the room. Temoc considered sending him away, and decided against it. The boy deserved to know what shaped his city.
“We’ll scrub down the street outside,” Mina said. “I can take your old clothes, plant them on a taxi or something, give the dogs a good chase. You can sleep in Caleb’s room.”
“No.”
“Or out here if you like.”
“No,” she repeated. “I’m sorry, Ms. Almotil. That’s not what I meant. I don’t plan to stay.”
“I won’t let you die in the street.”
“I’m strong enough to walk.”
“Where?”
“Back,” she said, and there was no question where she meant.
“Back into a war, to face gods know what. No.”
Chel held the glass in her lap, and stared down at the water—at her own reflection, or the ceiling’s, or at her own hands. Mina’d washed them clean.
She had run all this way knowing she might die. She faced the Wardens and their beasts with only conviction to bear her forward. And yet she sat here unable to deliver the message she carried from Chakal Square. Because Mina showed her hospitality? Because she saw why he left?
He spared her the pain. “She wants me to go back with her.”
“What?”
A bird sang in the garden: four high whistles and the last sank low.
“Why the hells would she ask that? She almost died leaving that place. No way she’d—”
“It’s true,” Chel said.
Mina fell silent.
“Have you seen the newspapers?”
“Yes,” Temoc said.
“What do you think? Be honest.”
“You’re in trouble.” “You’re,” he said, not “we’re.” “The Wardens arrest those they can. The fires turned the city against you, even if you didn’t set them. And the hostages were a mistake.” He caught Mina’s warning glance—go easy on the woman. But Chel did not flinch, though she did not look up from her water, either.
“That’s what I told them,” she said. “I kept us from issuing a ransom demand, at least. Couldn’t get them free. The camp’s torn. The Kemals scrounge supplies. The Major fights. Bel’s calling on citizen groups throughout the Skittersill to join us. Everyone’s afraid.”
“Bad,” Temoc said when she stopped to drink. He could not bear to keep quiet, not with that bird crying in the courtyard. Not with his son watching.
“The Wardens attacked before dawn. We’re building our own barricades to keep them out, but we can’t stop them from taking our people. The Major thinks this is his moment, his grand struggle.”
“Craftsmen do not fight wars of attrition,” Temoc said. “They prefer disruptive victories, surgical strikes. If they press you on all sides, they do so only to focus your attention on the periphery so they can strike the center. Beware your skies. Protect vulnerable targets.”
“We need a leader,” she said.
“You have many.”
“The Major will not listen to Kapania Kemal. Bel acknowledges either of them grudgingly at best. I’m one more rip in a torn sheet. We need thread. Like this, we can’t fight. We can’t even surrender. If you went back, you could save us.”
“And doom you. If I go back, the King in Red stops fighting a new rebellion, and starts fighting an old war. People will die.”
“They’re dying anyway, and worse. They’re losing. Your generation got its last stand. This is ours, and we’re falling apart. Ten years from now, we’ll look around and say, remember when we couldn’t fight back?”
“But you will be there to say it.”
“Dying by inches is still dying.”
“Spoken like a woman who has never died before.”
“I thought you would understand.” Those words hurt worse than the not-wolves’ teeth.
“I would love to put the King in Red to flight,” he said. “To wake the gods from slumber and strike against the powers of the Craft. But the world has changed. I thought Chakal Square was a way forward.” Her eyes were bright and wet. “This isn’t your fault. It isn’t the Major’s. It is barely the King in Red’s. The peace is broken.”
“While you wait,” she said. “With your family.”
“Should I give them up? Should I burn my house to the ground, because others suffer?”
“You preach sacrifice. I liked those sermons. I hoped you might live up to them.”
He would not look away.
Chel set the glass on the table, and pushed herself to her feet. Her arms trembled, but she stood.
“You can’t go,” Mina said. “You’re in no shape to fight.”
“Then I won’t fight. But I’ll be where I belong.” She nodded. “Thank you for the bandages. The shirt—”
“Keep it,” Mina said.
“Thank you.”
She limped out into the blinding light where the lone bird cried.
The door took a long time to close.
Mina embraced him. “I know it was hard,” she said. “I know. But you did the right thing.”
“Yes,” he said.