“Save it. Yora always knew you weren’t in it to help anyone but yourself and find your plaguing Tomb, but I didn’t think you’d just cut and run when the time came.”

“What makes you think I’d have been able to help Yora if I’d been there?” Gyre shot back, pressing one hand against his ruined eye. Pain spiked in his head. “Maybe I’d just be dead with the rest of them.”

“Maybe that would have been better,” Lynnia said, voice cracking.

They stared at one another in silence.

“You need to leave the city,” the alchemist said quietly.

“How long until Kit is fit to travel?”

“You’re not going to abandon her too?” Lynnia snarled. “I suppose you still need her, don’t you?”

Gyre tried to keep his voice steady. “Once she can move, we’ll leave. You won’t see us again.”

“Good,” Lynnia said. She turned away from him, and a measure of professional detachment returned to her tone. “She should wake up anytime. I’d wait until tomorrow evening to get moving.”

“Until tomorrow evening, then.” Gyre hesitated, and Lynnia walked away, bad leg dragging. “Thank you, Lynnia.”

The alchemist snorted and slammed the door behind her.

*

Eventually, with the quickheal doing its work, the pounding in Gyre’s head subsided. He managed to make it to the washroom at the end of the hall, and after a long piss and the chance to scrub the last of the bloodstains from his face, he felt better.

He found his mind already back at work, planning the next step. It all depends on where they took the Core Analytica. From Lynnia’s description, it sounded like there had been considerable chaos at the warehouse, and it was just possible no one had realized its importance. But Maya would have brought my pack back with her, so it’s probably in the Spike by now. That made things harder, but not necessarily impossible—

Halfway down the hall, outside the guest room door, he paused at the sound of sobbing.

The only person who could be in that room was Kit. But the idea of Kit crying—Kitsraea Doomseeker—seemed about as likely as taking a stroll to the moon. She’d barely flinched at the charge of an ancient ghoul-construct, and laughed at the prospect of being caught by Raskos’ Legionaries.

He hesitated, then rapped at the door.

“I’m still not hungry.” It was Kit’s voice.

“It’s me,” Gyre said. “Can I come in?”

There was a long pause. “I suppose.”

He opened the door. Kit was sitting up in the spare bed. She wore nothing but a thin shift and a collection of bandages, one wound around her head, another swathing her broken fingers, and several more covering a variety of cuts. Bruises were blooming across the right side of her body, and her eyes were red and puffy.

“You carried me back here?” she said.