Nixie's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

From the chapel gable, Nixie watched the heir crouch beside the fallen crimson sword. The crowd pressed close. She hugged her knees and grinned. Then she saw the other guard. He stood apart from the parade, back to the boy, eyes on the rooftops. He was thin and hawk-faced, and he moved his gaze slow, roof by roof, like a man reading a page. His hand rested on his own crimson blade. Nixie stopped grinning. A dropped sword did not fall on its own. He knew it, and he was hunting the reason. His eyes crossed the wine seller's slate. Then the gargoyle's ledge. Then the chapel gable, where Nixie sat in plain sun. She flattened against the tiles. Too late. He had already stopped moving. He tilted his head. He took one step toward the chapel, then another, drawing the crimson blade an inch from its sheath. The red stones in the crossguard caught the light. Nixie's throat went dry. Her legs were too short to outrun a grown man on open street. The raven was gone. The tom was gone. The gargoyle was gone. She had cleared the roof herself, and now she was the only thing on it. She scanned for luck. Every object had some, holding it in its shape. The chapel bell above her hung on a thick rope. The rope was old. She could feel the small bright knot of luck keeping the fibers together. The guard was at the chapel wall now, one hand on the stone, looking up. Nixie reached out and pulled the luck from the rope. The rope split. The bell dropped. It struck the eaves and rang once, huge and flat, and the whole square turned toward the sound. The bell hit the pavement a step from the guard. He staggered back, deaf, both hands up. People screamed. Somebody yelled that the chapel was falling. In the noise, Nixie slid down the far side of the gable and dropped into a narrow gap between the chapel and the next wall. Her ankle folded under her. She bit her tongue and kept quiet. When she looked out, the parade was broken. Guards ran to the bell. Guards ran to the sword. The hawk-faced one shouted orders and pointed at the roof she had just left. Nobody pointed at the gap. The heir stood alone in the middle of the street. His clean face was turned toward the chapel, mouth open. No one was holding his hand. No one was watching him. Nixie wiped blood off her chin and started to crawl toward him along the wall. Her perch was burned. Her ankle was bad. But the boy was, for the first time, unguarded, and she was close enough now to touch.