“Quiet voice,” Arvid said. His skin prickled; two of the boy’s fingers gave off a rosy glow even as the boy shoved them into a pocket. A mage child; no wonder his father had sent him to hide. “Don’t burn yourself,” Arvid said. “I won’t hurt you.” But why would the boy believe him?
“I can’t stop it,” Cedi said. “I try—”
He needed to get the boy to safety … that light would show almost anywhere in this room. Up the ramp? It might not show in that top room, but could the boy hide there? Get out the little door and over to the other building? At least in daylight, in the back of the building, no one would see his glowing fingers.
“You need to be where it doesn’t show,” Arvid said. “Can you go very, very quietly up the ramp to the top floor? There are wool sacks there to hide between and more light from the windows. Or there’s the door out onto a ledge.
“Da said that door don’t work.”
“It does now,” Arvid said. “If you could wait in that top room … maybe I could free the other children and they could come up—you could let them out, lead them across the roofs to where they can climb down.”
The child blinked. He was younger than Arvid’s son, a head shorter at least. “Da said don’t move, stay hid.”
“Your hand betrays you,” Arvid said. “Even down there behind the hides. If someone comes up here—”
“They did. Didn’t see me.”
“But your hand wasn’t glowing, was it?” This was taking too long; he could feel time passing. What was happening to the other children? What was happening outside? And yet this child was no less valuable … Arvid argued with himself. Of course the child wanted to do what his father said …
“I have a fleece down there—I put my hand under—and then it went out for a while.”
So maybe he would be safe, with the glow hidden. “How old are you?”
“Seven winters.”
Seven winters … for some, old enough to have sense and accomplish a lot … for others, not. Too young, Arvid finally decided, to be expected to go out alone and make his way across the roofs.
“Stay hidden, then. If your hand lights, be sure it’s under the fleece, but don’t start a fire. Now tell me how the rooms are arranged—and what’s behind the wall to the front on this floor.”
The boy was able to do that in a controlled quiet voice. Arvid started down the next ramp, directly under the first, knowing he would emerge in another such room, with a hall extending forward through a wall that cut off the front—that hall opened into the family apartments on either side. He was just starting down the ramp when he heard the slam of a door and voices coming toward the foot of the ramp.
“We can’t go anywhere as long as they’re there,” said one.
“Well, we can’t stay here forever. There’s got to be a back door.”
“There’s not. Back wall’s solid to the city wall.”
“Donag said there was a window up the next floor—so it can’t be solid, really. I’ll show you.”
The sounds of two men walking … shoes, not boots. Were they armed? Where best to meet them? If someone had already been up this ramp, then his own foot marks wouldn’t draw attention.
He chose his place, shielded from immediate view by a stack of wool sacks, readied his materials, and listened to the footsteps coming up. The men continued to talk; Arvid hoped they’d say something he could use.
“You think that red-haired girl is one of ‘em?”
“We’ll find out when Goram tests her. Admit I’m surprised we only found three so far … I thought sure there’d be more of ‘em here in the city.”
“Goram—you see the look on his face when he killed that third one?”
“Bin—you can’t let it bother you. They’re mages. Doesn’t matter how Goram looks—”
“Does to me. There’s killin’ evil and there’s evil killin’—”
“You want to be careful, Bin—that’s soundin’ a bit too much like the old lady.”
The Marshal-General, that must be. The footsteps came on, slower now up the ramp.
“Lighter up there,” said one.
“Windows in the wall got to mean there’s an outside.”
“Did Donag go all the way up?”
“Dunno. Just said windows but no door.”
“Well—I can see those is too high to get out of … and there’d be a drop.”
“We should go all the way up—maybe the top one has a bigger window or something.”