Her last thoughts were of Kit, of what she’d had to do to survive, the sacrifices she’d made, the horrors she must have seen. But she found it hard to feel bad for a person so focused on seeing her executed. Anji wouldn’t march a person to their own torture for any sum of money, regardless of what they’d done. The Goat’s mask appeared in her mind like a phantom, followed by the Bear’s—firelight glinting as the old woman cut into her skin. Anji pictured her own father tied to a chair, eyes pleading, a knife poised in her hand. She shuddered at the thought, then rolled over and drifted off.

Chapter 28

28

Anji flicked aside the rough-spun curtains, staring through warped glass at Kiva’s scattered rooftops and empty streets shadowed pink under the new-day sun.

Sleep had come for a few fitful hours before the gnawing at her knuckles had her up and pacing the agony off, until finally she’d dragged the room’s lone chair under the window to watch the sun rise. The inn lay still and quiet as its few stragglers had been herded out—but as morning crept into the street below she’d begun to hear the familiar rumblings of a house coming awake: pots clanking in the kitchen, doors creaking open and clicking closed, an armful of wood tumbling into the fireside grate.

Their room was sparsely furnished. Drafty, but dry. Anji wondered where all the warmth from the night before had gone. She picked at the chair’s grainy armrest and glanced at the closet door, heart aching at the closeness of her only remaining possessions. Kit murmured something in her sleep, her chest rising and falling in rapid, irregular hitches.

Anji still feared the aged bounty hunter, still flinched at those calculating green eyes, the potential in those seasoned hands. Anji had been instructed in combat, yes, but her training had been simple sport compared to Kit’s vast knowledge and experience. How many dozens of hearts had Kit stopped? How often had she felt the gush of warm, sticky blood run out of the hole she’d made in someone’s skin and onto her own? Anji slouched in the chair, legs splayed, and wondered if she’d ever amount to anything like the woman curled in the bed in front of her. Whether, on the slight chance she escaped this mess, she’d amount to anything at all.

Anji dug into her coat and fished out the two vials of Rail.