She was covered in blood. Dear Orholam save her. Teia sprinted down the block, slowed to a walk at the corner, entered the main street, and moved toward the first shop. It was a wool carders’ and weavers’ store, broad shutters open, some of their wares displayed on the street. Seeing an old, toothless woman at the counter inside, Teia squatted down between a rack of woven goat wool ghotras and the wall outside. If the woman came out, the opening door would shield Teia from her.
There was only long enough to wonder if she’d made a terrible decision; then the whistles started. Teia heard men running, not ten paces away. The watchmen, blowing their whistles, high and angry. Running toward the murder, though, not away from it. Trying to figure out what had happened, right now, not yet trying to catch who’d done it.
It was agony not to be able to see anything, but Teia kept down, and in a few more seconds, the door squeaked open and not just the old woman but another woman as well walked out of the shop past Teia.
“What you figure they’re on about this time?” the younger woman asked.
Teia vaulted through an open window into the shop and with light, quick steps, darted up the heavy stairs. The large room upstairs was packed to the rafters with raw wool, but the door to the roof was bolted and locked.
“Jofez?” a man’s voice called out, apparently having heard her steps. “You up here?”
Oh, blackest hell!
She heard footsteps on the stairs and moved behind one of the stacks of wool. The man hadn’t brought a lantern with him, but neither had she, and her eyes weren’t accustomed to the darkness. She’d frozen up before and let fear stop her from dilating her pupils consciously. What if she always did that? What if she was destined to fail when it really mattered? What if—
Teia closed her eyes, let out one breath, and opened them again. She felt the stretching as her eyes dilated open, wider, wider to good night vision and into sub-red.
The warm blob of a man standing on the landing at the top of the steps came into the soft focus that was the best you could get from sub-red. Hottest at the face, hot everywhere skin was bare, duller everywhere clothes covered skin, except groin and armpits.
She tried to circle opposite the man, but in staring at him rather than paying attention to the darkness around her, she stubbed her foot against the wooden base beneath a stack of raw wool. It made a dull thunk.
“Jofez?” the man repeated, stepping closer.
Sub-red wasn’t good enough here. With speed she didn’t know she had, Teia relaxed her eyes further and drafted a paryl torch, but the paryl light didn’t cut all the way through the heavy wool. Useless.
Come on! Her desperation lent her will, and the paryl light sharpened and stabbed the way through edges of the wool stacks. It illuminated them only dimly, but it was enough for her to make out the figure stepping forward mere feet away from her. She wended her way through the stacks carefully, able to make out every detail of the ground easily, not making a sound now.
“Melina, if that’s your damned cat again, I’m gonna kill it. Scares the hell out me all the time, doesn’t even catch rats.” He continued grumbling and made his way down the stairs. “What the hell is going on out there?” he asked, finally hearing the whistles.
Then he was gone.
Adrasteia breathed. She was almost out of paryl, so she let the light die out.
She didn’t have much time. This was a dead end, so she had to move. She navigated her way through the stacks until she found washed and bleached wool by smell and touch, and then grabbed some and scrubbed her hands. She had no mirror, and no idea of exactly where she had blood on her, but she’d have to do the best she could quickly. She tucked what she’d used deep into the pile—maybe they’d blame the cat and think it had killed a rat here. Sorry, folks.
Then she stripped off the boys’ clothing she’d stolen and rubbed her face and chest and arms with the clean back of the tunic, hoping she was cleaning off all the blood. She pulled on her dress in the darkness, fumbled with the laces.
Hurry up, Teia. Get moving.
She debated leaving the bloody clothes here, but it might only be minutes before someone came upstairs with a lantern, and if they put things together, the guardsmen would immediately start asking if anyone unusual had been seen leaving the shop. Someone in the neighborhood would say they’d seen a discipula, and the search would be quickly narrowed.
So she was going to have to carry bloody clothes—damnation!—right under their noses. She folded the clothes as tightly as she could, pulled off her hat, stuffed the clothes inside it, and walked downstairs, trying not to give away the riot inside her chest.