And I am telling you it can’t wait!” Diggelby was shouting at the top of his lungs and bouncing on his toes, clearly hoping his voice would carry over the shoulders of the guards who had stopped him from reaching the People’s Pack. “Jex Toth attacks! The Star’s in danger! We have the biggest news since the Age of Wonders!”
“I told you to shut up,” said the thickest woman in orange, jabbing a finger into Diggelby’s chest. “I’ve been polite, but no more. It’s time to go.”
“To meet the People’s Pack?” asked Sullen, seeing that one of the figures had risen from the table set back there behind the Gate and was heading their way across the square.
“To meet the inside of a cell, you fucking loonies,” said the lead guard. “Hand over that baton, big boy, and come with us.”
Sullen licked his lips, looking to Diggelby for direction … and then lamenting the life choices that had led him to do such an unthinkable thing. It was just as Nemi had warned, but unlike Sullen the witch hadn’t broken from the hooded mob to support Diggelby, so at least one of them would make it to Othean. He felt like he might throw up as he realized what he’d just done—thrown away his one chance to get back to Ji-hyeon and Keun-ju, and for what? To back up Diggelby’s brilliant plan of bum-rushing a giant state-sanctioned ritual on the rim of a Gate.
“Let’s just call it a goof,” Sullen told the guards. “Forget the whole thing. Me and my friend are leaving.”
“Yes, you fucking are, and you’re leaving with us,” said another guard, holding his polearm like he was about to jab Sullen with it. Sullen’s spear felt hot and hungry in his hand, and as if sensing the danger emanating from the rag-sheathed weapon, another of the half dozen guards reached out and said, “I’ll just take that now, all right?”
“This is an outrage!” cried Diggelby as a pair of guards put their hands on his shoulders and began steering him away. A guard had his fist on the haft of Sullen’s spear but Sullen couldn’t bring himself to let go—as soon as he did, any hope of getting back to Othean died. The guard tugged but the spear didn’t budge. Sullen knew from the man’s expression that things were about to get very, very unpleasant but still his fingers refused to release the weapon.
“Diggelby?” An older man in an ostentatiously embroidered black robe with a yellow collar, a bead-brimmed orange hat, and red facepaint had come up behind the guards. “Is that really you?”
“You know these yahoos, Cardinal?” asked the lead guard.
“Unkie Obedear!” Diggelby shook off the hands on his shoulders. “You’re alive! And even better, you can help us! Tell these thugs to let us talk to the People’s Pack, we’ve got news of the utmost urgency.”
“My gracious,” said the old man. “We had better hear it, then. Let my nephew and his friend through, I’m sure he wouldn’t make a scene if it wasn’t something terribly important.”
The guard let go of Sullen’s spear, he and Sullen exchanging thankful smiles. What a fucking relief things had somehow uncomplicated themselves. Diggelby, man—just went to show that even without a devil of his own the fop was still lucky as one.
But then, just as everything had gone right for a change, a dog barked. Everyone turned to look behind Sullen but he didn’t have to, and couldn’t have even if he wanted, seeing as his blood had just frozen solid in his veins. He knew that bark, and picked up on the mocking falseness of it—what came running up behind them might look like a dog and bark like a dog but it wasn’t no dog. It was Zosia’s devil.
“Assassins!”
Sullen didn’t see who shouted it, but as soon as the word rang out in the square it was pandemonium, pure and simple. The guards right on top of him and Diggelby went from relaxed to way past their previous level of pissed, pikes lowered back down and swords clearing sheaths all over again. Diggelby was still in the act of pushing past them toward his uncle, and right then Sullen saw the big angry woman they’d first engaged make the decision to kill the pasha. It was a queer thing; Sullen hadn’t known it showed in the face like that, but there it was, a twitch of the guard’s eye and a setting of the jaw, and then she thrust her polearm at Diggelby’s throat.
By the time her arms were moving, though, so were Sullen’s, and the day some Outlander’s oversized pike was swifter than a Flintlander’s spear had yet to dawn.
Sullen darted in low and swung up, batting the underside of the guard’s weapon so that it popped up in the air, overshooting Diggelby completely. Sullen hadn’t expected to disarm her, but as he struck all the makeshift padding somehow fell off the head of his spear and the naked blade met the middle of her pike, severing the wooden shaft … and most of the hand that held it. He couldn’t fucking believe it, tight as he’d bundled up the spear, and besides that he’d been aiming for a good half foot up the haft from her fingers. But there they went, flying into the air with the broken-off head of her pike.
“Sorry!” he cried, which, as far as battle cries went, left a little something to be desired but was at least sincere … and also insufficient to placate the other guards, who did about what Sullen expected. He danced back from them but bumped into Diggelby, and then doubled over from a spasm in his stomach. Still hunched from the pain, he jabbed a charging guard through the foot and twisted his spear, hoping to just bring him down without hurting him too bad. The man shrieked as Sullen upended him, and other people were yelling, the guards surrounding them, Zosia’s devil barking, and Diggelby was yelling at Sullen, demanding to know what the hells he was doing, as if this were all somehow his fault.
Cringing as he straightened up from the pure fucking torment in his midsection, he saw the actual cause of all this trouble dashing around the far side of the Gate—a silver-haired devil named Cold Zosia. Sullen was supposed to stop her before she could bring hell to Diadem, but that looked to be exactly what she was doing. That they were both here, and in the middle of some shit, confirmed at least part of the prophecy he’d been dealt. Considering how very dead Zosia wasn’t despite all the fresh rumors, though, Sullen wondered just what the Faceless Mistress expected him to do about it. You can’t kill what won’t die, that’s just basic shit. But hey, Diadem wasn’t flooded with fire, so things weren’t as bad as they could be.
Yet.