Rebecka Evertrue's Arc

Chapter 60 of 66

Rebecka lay flat on the warehouse roof and counted the problem. The strike would give her twelve star-forged arrows. It would also give her a shop full of dead men, a broker screaming from a rooftop, and every watcher in the salt town running for the drainpipe. Twelve arrows would not fit in her quiver. They would not fit under her coat. If she came down the pipe with a bundle in her arms, she would be caught before the second alley. She needed a way out. A hidden one. Something waiting. She crawled to the roof's rear edge and looked down at the loading yard. A salt-hauler's wagon sat empty by the wall. Too slow. Too seen. The face on her would fade in half an hour and she would be Rebecka Evertrue again, listed and known. She touched the talisman at her wrist and spoke his name once, low. "Storm." The eye dipped near her ear. "He hears." She waited. A minute. Two. Then a shadow moved along the wall of the salt shed below, and a man stepped out of it in soft leather, wrist wrapped in bone and hide. Storm Nightwolf did not look up. He did not need to. He knew where she was. She dropped a pebble. He caught it without turning his head. "Rebecka," the eye said. "He asks what you need." "A door out. Twelve arrows. No chase." The eye carried it. A moment later it came back. "He says the crystal crawler is two streets east, cloaked in an ash lot. He drove it in last night. It will hold one hour of hidden run." She pressed her forehead to the roof. Marcus had sent it. Marcus had sent Storm with it and told neither of them to tell her, because she would have said no. "Tell him thank you." "He says do not thank him yet. Tell him where to bring it." She worked the map in her head. The broker's back panel opened on a narrow lane. Thunder would come out that way with the arrows if the front went bad. She would come off the drainpipe on the far side. "The lane behind the shop," she said. "Nose pointed east. Door open. He waits inside. He does not fight unless I fall." The eye carried it. Storm was already walking. He turned the corner without a nod. Rebecka rolled onto her back and breathed. The problem had a shape now. Twelve arrows, one lane, one cloaked run, one hour. Thunder was climbing the stair below her at last. Aiyana was in her place across the street. She drew her bow across her knees and waited for noon. The way home was parked two streets east with its door open, and no one in the salt town knew it was there.