“I wish I could see them. See how close together they really are.”
“Well, you can’t, but you may see their glow through the clouds when they pass. The brighter the glow, the closer they be. But why bother? Unless you think the princess was lying about what she saw?”
I shook my head. There had been no mistaking the look of alarm on Leah’s face.
“Is it true you come from another world?” Iota asked abruptly. “A magic world? I think it must be so, because I’ve never seen a weapon like the one you wear on your hip.” He paused. “I’ve never seen a one like you, either. I thank the high gods I didn’t have to stand against you in the first round of the Fair One. I wouldn’t be here.”
“You’d have laid me out, Eye.”
“Nah, nah. You’re a prince, all right. I never would have thought it at first, but you are. There’s something in you that’s as hard as old paint.”
And dark, I thought. My own dark well, of which I’d do well to beware.
“Could you find him?” he asked, stroking Radar’s head with one big scarred hand. “We can take care of the rest, I’ve no doubt—with the night soldiers in their daylight weakness and not able to protect them, Elden’s little crew of asslickers will run like the rabbits they are, and we’ll slaughter them like rabbits—but Flight Killer! Can you find him, if he’s gone deep? Do you have, I dunno… some…”
Spidey sense was what I thought, but not what came out of my mouth. “Some princey sense?”
He laughed at that but said yes, he supposed that was what he meant.
“I don’t.”
“What about Pursey? The one who helped us? Could he find his way to the Dark Well?”
I considered the idea, then shook my head. I hoped like hell that Pursey was still alive, but knew the chances were small. Kellin would know we hadn’t escaped on our own. He might give me credit for the lethal trick with the buckets of water, but knowing about the door with the cabinet in front of it? That had to have come from an insider. And even if Pursey had so far escaped death and the torture chamber’s inducements to talk, the chances of him knowing the way to the Dark Well were small.
We were in deep shadow where not even the flickering light of the last dying campfires could reach, so I took another sulphur match from my sock and scratched it on the side of the building. I brushed back my hair and held it in front of my eyes. “What do you see? Still hazel?”
Iota leaned close. “Nah. Blue. Bright blue, my prince.”
I wasn’t surprised. “Call me Charlie,” I said, and shook out the match. “As for the world I came from… I think all worlds are magic. We just get used to it.”
“What now?”
“For me? I’m going to wait. You can wait with me or go back inside and try to sleep.”
“I’ll stay.”
“We will, too,” someone said. I turned and saw the two women, Eris and Jaya. It was Eris who had spoken. “What are we waiting for, my prince?”
“Call him Charlie,” Eye said. “He likes it better. Modest, you know. Like a prince in a story.”
“We’ll see what I’m waiting for, or we won’t. Now be quiet.”
We were quiet. Crickets—presumably not red ones—sang in the weeds and in the rubble of the ruined suburb that sprawled outside the city. We breathed free air. It was good. Time passed. Falada cropped, then merely stood with her head down, presumably dozing. Radar was fast asleep. After awhile Jaya pointed at the sky. Behind the massed clouds, two bright lights were passing, traveling at high speed. The lights weren’t touching—kissing—but even with the cloud cover we could see they were very, very close. They passed behind the triple spires of the palace and were gone. The circle of gas-jets ringing the stadium had gone out. The city was dark, but inside the wall, the remaining night soldiers would be patrolling.
An hour passed, then two. My interior clock was as wrong as Iota’s, but it had to be closing on first light when what I had been expecting—what the dark part of my nature had been hoping for—happened. Princess Leah emerged from the church. With the pants and boots and short sword, it could be no one else. Eye sat up straight and opened his mouth. I put a hand on his chest and raised a finger to my lips. We watched as she untied Falada and led her toward the city gate, keeping her clear of the cobbled surface of the road, where the clop of her hooves might alert some light sleeper. The princess was little more than a darker shape in the darkness when she mounted up.