I shoved the thought away. I’d get Cion to safety and then scour the wells looking for Dimic. I would find him. Alive.

“I need to get you to an apothecary.”

“No,” Cion wheezed. His eyes fluttered open, unfocused. He tried to sit up and fell back. “Most of them . . . Rodric’s spies.”

“There has to be someone here who would help you,” I pleaded.

He shook his head. “Can’t risk it. Get back to the hideout. Sew it shut with a cactus spine.”

I didn’t like it, but I nodded. I prayed he’d last that long.

“Thank you,” Cion murmured. His hand shook as it stretched toward my cheek, resting there for a heartbeat before falling away.

That heartbeat was enough. Because the warmth his touch sent through me was nothing like the unrelenting heat of the desert sun. It was gentle and welcoming. And I knew even if his heart belonged to Latia, I couldn’t live in a world where that warmth didn’t exist, even if I never got to feel it again.

I pulled Cion to his feet and propped his arm around my shoulder only to realize we were surrounded by a wide circle of guards and a crowd of people looking for water.

CHAPTER

27

People stood gaping at us over the guards’ shoulders.

The guards ringed us in on all sides, standing about twenty feet from the well to keep people back. But as they slowly turned to face us, they hemmed us in.

And I didn’t have a single weapon on me.

“Cion,” someone whispered.

The name raced through the crowd.

The guards moved their circle in closer around us.

I scanned the faces of the soldiers, looking for one I knew. One I’d fought before. One I knew I could easily rob of his weapon.

I didn’t recognize any of them.

I was about to run back for the water bucket as my only available weapon when the first ration coin flew from the crowd. It smashed into the helmet of the guard directly in front of us.

Then they started coming from all directions.

The people were throwing away their most important possession. For Cion.

Buckets started flying out of the crowd as well.

I heard Cion’s name chanted over and over again.

Soldiers threw up their arms to protect their exposed faces. As soon as one of the soldiers went down, I hauled Cion toward the opening.

The crowd parted for us and closed in behind us, not allowing the soldiers to see our path.

Cion weighed down my body. Each step took more and more effort.

We made it through the crowd and into the streets. I scanned up and down each looking for a landmark I knew. But I’d never spent much time on the streets, and I didn’t even know which well we’d bubbled up in.

I tried to find the sun to navigate by, but I still got lost in the maze, full of the knowledge that every wrong turn could cost us. Could cost Cion.