No one ever expected much out of Flick.
Except Arthie and Jin and the rest of the crew.She wasn’t the same girl that was apprehended in the Linden estate and taken away like a common criminal.
That was Felicity Linden. This was Flick.
She staggered away as the men shouted, and turned a frantic circle around the room, searching for another way out. The waiter locked eyes with her and must have seen something in her gaze, for he yelped and hurried into the kitchens. She fought against the panic slowly crowding her senses.Smell. She inhaled that bitter, sorry excuse for tea.Feel. She felt hot.Taste. She tasted the sweat trickling from her brow.Hear. She heard the roar of her pulse pounding in her ears.
See. She saw the seven men assessing her like she was a cornered animal.
Two of them lurched toward her and she dropped to the ground, unsure of what to do next. The others surrounded her, leaving the pairwith the basket by the doors.Stop thinking, love. Jin’s voice in her head was a welcome distraction, and not exactly new—she would be lying if she said she hadn’t had a few conversations with him that way.They’re strong, but you’re small.
She crawled beneath their grasp, shot to her feet, and squeezed between them, dashing toward the pair of men carrying Opal, ducking when one of them lunged. She went straight for the basket in the other man’s arms, but his grip was steely and Flick felt silly for thinking she could snatch it from him. He threw the basket to the other man. Opal’s cry went straight through Flick’s resolve before she heard another, more terrifying sound: the hiss of a blade being pulled out of its sheath.
“We’re meant to bring her in alive!” one of the men shouted.
The man in front of her dipped his chin, his voice a rasp. “Alive doesn’t mean we can’t scratch her up.”
He swung his knife. Flick jumped back, bumping into another one of the men who made to grab her, but she ducked again, digging into her bag for anything she could use against them. It was mostly stationery, pens and paper pads, along with a box of razor blades that she used to sharpen her pencils. And the ledger, of course. She pulled out a bottle of water and threw it at the man nearest her. It crashed against his nose and fell, shattering when it hit the floor. Water and glass sprayed the floorboards. He slipped and fell, tripping another one of the men in the process.
Flick quieted her triumph. She wasn’t delusional—she couldn’t fight them. She needed to run. She leaped for the man holding Opal’s basket. She didn’t bother trying to wrench it free; this time, she tore off the lid.
Opal hopped out with a low-pitched yowl, ears flat against her head. The glint of a knife came arcing toward Flick, and she threw up the rattan lid at the last second. The blade ripped through and caughtthe inside of her arm, tearing past her sleeve and straight down her skin. Blood spilled free, drenching the fabric.
Flick screamed. A few of the tea shop’s staff were screaming too.
As the men looked to their leader for direction, Flick stumbled toward the door and yanked it open, ears ringing as the sweep caught the broken glass with a high-pitched screech.
Opal darted out into the street, and Flick followed her into the cold Ettenian winter, arm pinned to her stomach. People stopped what they were doing and rushed out of her way. Nearby members of the Horned Guard leaped to attention, shouting at her to halt. Flick ducked past them, heart pounding. Arthie wasn’t here to save her. Jin wasn’t either.
In front of a florist, one of the Horned Guards caught her, his arm slinging around her middle. “Stop!”
Flick screamed and sank her teeth into his flesh, tasting the salt of his sweat, watching Opal get farther away. He released her with a howl, and Flick didn’t pause—she kept running, shoes pounding on the cobblestones. She could barely think past the pain, past the blood staining her clothes, making everything that much worse.
She kept running, eventually reaching the side of White Roaring where the cobblestones were crumbling, the buildings just the same. The midday sun tucked behind gauzy clouds and smokestack exhales. The mobs echoed in the distance, trying to storm the Athereum walls. She glanced back; the men were still on her heels.
She’d seen what they’d done to the reporters in the Athereum meeting hall. She’d seen what they’d done to Raze and his foundry. On her mother’s orders.My mother is a monster.
And that was when she smelled it: fish.
It assaulted her like a brick, strong and almost putrid. Flick gagged, but Opal perked up, darting straight for an alleyway between two dilapidated apartment buildings faster than Flick could keep up. She didn’tthink it was any safer than the men chasing them out in the open, but she couldn’t bear to lose Opal either. She ran after her, hissing when one of her shirt buttons poked at the wound.
It didn’t take much to find Opal. She was a pristine white ball of fur in the middle of the shadowed passage, and she was biting into a fish, eyes narrowing when she straightened to chew on her catch.
Od d.
White Roaring was a city by the sea, yes, but Flick didn’t think that warranted a fresh, whole fish in the middle of a dark alley several streets from the docks. No, this was too out of place. Almost… almost as if it had been placed there deliberately.
A trap, Flick realized a moment too late.
The fish moved, as if dragged on an invisible string. Flick squinted into the shadows—not invisible. Itwasbeing dragged away, and Opal, the wretched babe, was following it with a playful warble.
“Opal, no,” Flick whispered as loudly as she could, her heart sinking as the kitten kept going.
Her arm was throbbing and bleeding, sweat pooling down her back and her brow despite the chill.
She raced after the cat, aware of the men approaching from behind. If this alleyway was a dead end, Flick would soon be too. The fish bounced along the ground, Opal bounding to keep up, until it slammed against a wooden door.
The door opened a smidge and the fish disappeared.
