CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER TWO

Sophia had never been so afraid, but at the same time, she had never felt so alive, or so free. As she ran through the city with her sister, she heard Kate whoop with the excitement of it, and it both set her at ease and terrified her. It made this too real. Their life would never be the same again.

“Quiet,” Sophia insisted. “You’ll bring them down on us.”

“They’re coming anyway,” her sister replied. “We might as well enjoy it.”

As if to emphasize the point, she dodged around a horse, snatched an apple from a cart, and ran across Ashton’s cobbles.

The city was bustling with the market that came to it every Sixthday, and Sophia looked around, startled at all the sights and sounds and smells. If it weren’t for the market, she’d have no idea what day it was. In the House of the Unclaimed, those things didn’t matter, only the endless cycles of prayer and work, punishment and rote learning.

Run faster,

her sister sent.

The sound of whistles and cries somewhere behind them spurred her on to new speed. Sophia led the way down an alley, then struggled to follow as Kate scrambled over a wall. Her sister, for all her impetuosity, was too quick, like a solid, coiled muscle waiting to spring.

Sophia barely managed to clamber over as more whistles sounded, and as she neared the top, Kate’s strong hand was waiting for her, as always. Even in this, she realized, they were so different: Kate’s hand was rough, calloused, muscular, while Sophia’s fingers were long and smooth and delicate.

Two sides of the same coin

, their mother used to say.

“They’ve summoned the watchmen,” Kate called out in disbelief, as if that somehow wasn’t playing fair.

“What did you expect?” Sophia replied. “We’re running away before they can sell us off.”

Kate led the way down narrow cobblestone steps, then toward an open space thronging with people. Sophia forced herself to slow as they approached the city’s market, holding onto Kate’s forearm to keep her from running.

We’ll blend in more if we aren’t running

, Sophia sent, too out of breath to speak.

Kate didn’t look certain, but she still matched Sophia’s pace.

They walked slowly, brushing past people who stepped aside, obviously unwilling to risk contact with anyone as lowborn as them. Perhaps they thought that the two were released for some errand.

Sophia forced herself to look as though she were just browsing while they used the crowd for camouflage. She looked around, to the clock tower above the temple of the Masked Goddess, at the various stalls, and the glass-fronted shops beyond them. There was a group of players in one corner of the square, acting out one of the traditional tales in elaborate costumes while one of the censors looked on from the edge of the surrounding crowd. There was a recruiter for the army standing on a box, trying to recruit troops for the newest war to take hold of this city, a looming battle across the Knife-Water Channel.

Sophia saw her sister eyeing the recruiter, and pulled her back.

No

, Sophia sent.

That’s not for you.

Kate was about to reply when suddenly the shouts began again behind them.

They both took off.

Sophia knew that no one would help them now. This was Ashton, which meant that she and Kate were the ones in the wrong here. No one would try to help two runaways.

In fact, as she looked up, Sophia saw someone start to move into their way, to block them. No one would let two orphans get away from what they owed, from what they were.

Hands grabbed for them, and now they had to fight their way through. Sophia slapped away a hand from her shoulder, while Kate jabbed viciously with her stolen poker.

A gap opened up in front of them, and Sophia saw her sister running for a section of abandoned wooden scaffolding beside a stone wall, where builders must have been trying to straighten a façade.

More climbing?

Sophia sent.

They won’t follow us

, her sister shot back.

Which was probably true, if only because the chasing pack of ordinary people wouldn’t risk their lives like that. Sophia dreaded it, though. Yet she couldn’t think of any better ideas right then.

Her shaking hands closed around the wooden slats of the scaffolding, and she started to climb.

In a matter of moments, her arms started to ache, but by then it was either keep going or fall, and even if there hadn’t been the cobbles below, Sophia didn’t want to fall with most of a mob chasing after her.

Kate was already waiting at the top, still grinning as if the whole thing were some game. Her hand was there again, and she pulled Sophia up, and then they were running again—this time on rooftops.

Kate led the way to a gap leading to another roof, hopping into the thatch as if she didn’t care about the risk of going through. Sophia followed her, biting back the urge to cry out as she nearly slipped, then leaping with her sister onto a low section where a dozen chimneys belched out smoke from a kiln below.

Kate tried to run again, but Sophia, sensing an opportunity, grabbed her and yanked her down into the thatch, hidden amongst the stacks.

Wait

, she sent.

To her amazement, Kate didn’t argue. She looked about as they huddled down in the flat section of roof, ignoring the heat coming up from the fires below, and she must have realized how hidden they were. The smoke blurred most of what was around them, putting them in a fog, further hiding them. It was like a second city up here, with lines of clothes, flags, and pennants providing all the cover they could want. If they stayed still, no one could possibly spot them here. Nor would anyone else be foolish enough to risk treading on the thatch.

Sophia looked about. It was peaceful up here in its own way. There were spots where the houses were close enough that neighbors could reach out to touch one another, and further along, Sophie saw a chamber pot being emptied into the street. She’d never had a chance to see the city from this angle, the towers of the clergy and the shot makers, the clock keepers and the wise men rising up over the rest of it, the palace sitting in its own ring of walls like some shining carbuncle on the skin of the rest.

She hunched down there with her sister, her arms wrapped around Kate, and waited for the sounds of pursuit to pass below.

Maybe, just maybe, they’d find a way out.