“Fine,” the Hawk said, wiping at her nose. “Two hours. You sleep out here. Then we go, regardless of your dainty little legs.” She sniffed and tossed the saddle back to the ground, followed by the thin blanket Anji had used the day before, then spun on her heel and trudged back toward the tent. Before crawling inside, she bent and grabbed up the blue sack Anji had forgotten about, slinging it over her shoulder.

“Could I please—”

“Shut up about your gods-damned coin.”

And with that the woman disappeared into the tent, leaving Anji alone in the darkening expanse.

Anji bit at the inside of her cheek. She’d won a small victory, she thought, as she settled to a soft spot on the ground, drawing her knees to her chest. But still, sleeping without her mother’s coin was like losing her all over again every night. She swallowed past the lump in her throat. Tears blurred her vision as she wrapped her coat tight and lay on her side atop the blanket, adjusting around a rock lodged into the hard-packed earth. She wedged her fingers between her thighs and curled against the howling gale.

The pass would afford its own opportunities for her to escape. With every breath she drew, every second she still had her wits and some use of her limbs, constrained as they were, she could fight. She could run.

She lay on the rigid earth, silent tears freezing on her cheeks, and watched the swirling clouds crawl over the sun until darkness took her.

Chapter 10

10

She dreamed in flashes.

The demolished basement door.

Her parents’ bodies lying in a bloody pile, torn newspaper stuffed into their mouths.

Running through a rain-slicked alley, constables yelling, their boots clapping on the cobbles. The reek of coal smoke and molten iron. Heavy, stinking bodies pressed together to watch a hanging. A man in a yellow robe shouting and pointing, his face a snarling mask of rage.

On her knees in a stone-walled chamber, hair lank over her battered face. Sweat and muck and piss sticking her soiled clothes to her skin.

“Not much fuss, really,” a man’s voice said behind her. “Skinny as a pole. Another day on the streets might have done her in.”

“Start her in the stables.”

Sconces flickering, whirring past. A tugging at her arm.

“Come on, girl,” the man said, “I said—”

“Come on, girl.” The guard whirled around. “Up,” came a voice behind a gleaming metal mask.

Anji squeezed her eyes tighter. Where were her parents? Why was the door open? Didn’t they know she’d freeze to death all alone in here?

She reached out.

Moss.

Rocks.

Mossy rocks.

“Wha—”

“I said get up!” Something shook her shoulder.