Yenni stopped short and slammed the butt of her spear into the ground, grabbing it with both hands. Her wind runes faced the corridor and she dragged on them, releasing a fierce blast that sent most of the darts scattering, but also sent some of them spinning haphazardly back the way they’d come. As she’d hoped, it took her attacker by surprise. She heard a shout come from the corridor, but over the screaming wind it was difficult to tell if it was male or female.

Yenni pointed her spear forward and dashed up the steps, ready to skewer whomever she found at the top. But when she burst into the corridor she found it empty.

She stood panting and sweating and bloody. The coward had run off, but Yenni doubted this would be their last encounter.

It seemed that someone wanted her dead.

33

Weysh paused with his hands in his hair, blinking through the downpour. He strained to hear over the water spattering against the porcelain of his tub. Was that knocking? Who could be calling this early?

“Source-drawn rain dry up and cease.”

The rain stopped and evaporated from his tub, his body, and his hair, returning to otherspace. His shower disrupted, Weysh grabbed his silk sleep pants from the bathroom floor and pulled them on. The knocking started up again as he jogged down the stairs. It sounded urgent. If only he could smell who it was—no. No, it did no good to keep dwelling like that. He would know who was at the door when he opened it, like so many others.

It seemed to take an eternity to reach his front door, but at last he murmured the spell to unlock it, then yanked it open.

“What—Yenni!”

She threw her arms around him.

She let out some kind of oath in her language. “I would have been here sooner, but I had to redraw my speed runes.”

“Not that I’m not thrilled to see you, but what in the world are you talking about?” Weysh gently removed her arms and stepped back to look at her. “KINDLY WATCHER!” he shouted. “Why are you all cut up?!”

He gripped her and turned her this way and that, examining her injuries—four that he could see. Some of her blood had even smeared onto him.

“I am sorry. I didn’t have time to tend to my wounds.”

“I . . . what . . .” Weysh closed his eyes, tipped his head back, and breathed deeply, fighting his racing heart and the panic that made his skin tingle with cold. Yenni was here, alive, in his arms. That was all that mattered.

“Are any of your cuts more than superficial?” he asked, forcing his voice to be calm and strong.

“I don’t think so,” said Yenni. “They sting, but I don’t feel dizzy, or faint.”