I ground my teeth together. “Why are you so sure they’re looking for me? What do they want?”

“If I knew, I’d tell you. Rhyanon can probably explain, but we don’t have much time to reach her. They’ve already searched the dormitories; it won’t take too long before they start asking around for your friends’ addresses.”

I shivered, my resolve wavering. Osan glanced over his shoulder, like he expected trouble at any moment.

“Okay,” I said in a small voice. “Okay, let’s go.”

The streets were quiet, and a cool breeze swept over the still-hot cobblestones. I felt feverish and weak; my muscles ached right down to the bones. A few people wandered around, stumbling home from the bar or off on some late-night escapade. Osan sized each of them up surreptitiously.

“I’ve got lace,” I muttered.

“Good to know.” He looped his arm through mine. I suppose that we must have looked unremarkable—a couple out for a midnight stroll. “Although we aren’t going too far; there’s a cab waiting four blocks from here. With luck, we’ll make it without any trouble.”

“And Rhyanon is all right? She’s recovering?”

“She’s fine. I heard you went looking for her at the San.”

A sudden wave of dizziness caused me to stumble. Osan prevented me from falling.

“You know, you’re really quite a mess,” he said, but he sounded worried.

“Just sick.”

“That came on pretty quickly if you were running around the city this morning.”

“Heatstroke,” I muttered.

He shifted his grip from my arm to my waist. I leaned on him heavily. My pulse was erratic and my chest burned.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Don’t mention it.”

We cut down the alley behind the district clinic, moving toward the industrial sector of Major West. There were fewer people here. A scrawny rat fled down a drainpipe as we passed, and the lamps guttered low and faint, the panes streaked with years of old soot. Perspiration gathered at my hairline.

“Almost there,” coaxed Osan. He guided me toward another alley. “I wanted to avoid drawing attention to Kamillian’s place. If I had known the state you were in, I would have brought the cab clos—”

He staggered as something hit his back, and we both fell hard against the brick wall of the building. I scraped my arm bloody trying to stop myself from crashing to the ground.

“Osan!” I cried.

He breathed heavily and reached up to touch his shoulder. A slender iron bolt jutted from his skin, and his hand came away red.

“Oh.” He swallowed. “Not good.”

Another bolt hissed through the air and missed his head by inches. His knees buckled, and he slid sideways to the cobbles.

No, no, no. I wove lace around the wound. The head of the bolt had sunk deep into his shoulder, and blood seeped across his shirt. I tried to draw the skin tight, to stop the bleeding. “Osan? Oh Eater, please, Osan—”

“On the roof,” he gasped.