Lyra backed away until pine bark bit between her shoulder blades. The man let her. In the brighter light she saw his eyes properly: dark beneath the heavy brow, but not black. It annoyed her as she searched for a way past him. Something monstrous would have suited the smoke behind her. This man had a tired mouth and waited.
“Name,” she said.
“Kael.”
“I meant yours.”
His gaze went to the blade in her left hand. “Schattenklinge. You can still lower your arm.”
There was too little space between his armour plates for a reliable throw. Lyra kept the right-hand dagger. She stepped onto the damp edge of the path, let her shoulder dip as though she were looking for an escape that way, and thrust at his unprotected hand. He drew back. One step away from the pine; there was room between trunk and cloak. Lyra twisted through.
Two steps. The rope snapped taut in front of her ankles; she saw it, but jumped too late. The impact drove the air out of her chest. Her left hand folded beneath her. White light, then pine needles close before her face. When she could breathe again, Kael's boot was on her right wrist. She pulled against it. His weight followed, just far enough to make her keep still.
“Let go of the blade.”
A seam above the boot shaft had been mended with yellow thread. Lyra stared at it. Someone had picked up this boot, looked for matching thread and finally settled for yellow. Now it was pressing her arm into the mud. She opened her fingers. The dagger fell among the needles, and Kael did not lift his foot until she showed him her empty hand.
He collected both daggers and stepped back. Lyra drew her right arm in, moved her fingers and sat up. Blood seeped through the bandage on her left hand. Kael waited until she could straighten her wrist again. Then he pointed down the path. A mule stood there. A man lay across two rolled blankets on its back without raising his head.
“Who's that?”
“A messenger.”
“I can't tell that from the back of his head.”
“He found me before dawn. Then others followed him.”
Now the messenger moved his head. A human, a thin beard, eyes bright with fever. A slipped bandage sat around his thigh; a leather courier bag was wedged between the blankets. His gaze caught on Lyra's bloody hand and moved to her daggers at Kael's belt. When she looked at him, he lowered his eyes. His fingers searched for the bag's strap.
Kael tied her wrists together in front of her. Lyra held out her left hand so the cord lay above the wound; she flinched all the same when he tightened it. He checked the knot without looking at her. She bit back the answer on her tongue. Then he took the mule's rein and gestured her ahead of him along the path. For the first few steps she held her hands away from her body so the bloody linen would not stick to her tunic.
At the third bend stood a split rock. At the fifth, a game trail branched north. Lyra remembered both. The cord gave her room to walk, but was too short for a proper blow. Kael's steps crunched behind her right shoulder. To reach him she would have had to turn across her injured side. She glanced back only briefly and kept walking.
The messenger groaned at every step of the mule. Kael stopped, tightened the knot on the courier bag and slid a hand beneath the slipped dressing. His right fingers closed one at a time, too slowly. He brought his left hand to help. Lyra looked at the dressing, then at his fingers again. Kael withdrew the hand.
“He needs a bandage that stays put,” she said.
“I tied it.”
“Then he needs another.”
The messenger gave a laugh and pressed his lips together when the pain struck. Kael fetched water and a piece of clean cloth. He held the bowl ready in his left hand; he left Lyra's bonds where they were. She looked from the water to his face. It would have made a good throw. Then the man on the blankets whispered a name, probably his wife's, and reached his fingers towards her. Lyra set the bowl down, bent over him and began loosening the wet knot.
Merten. That was his name; he had been travelling for two days. His eyes closed at every further question. Lyra spread the pressure more evenly and tucked fresh cloth beneath the stuck edge. When she had finished, Kael drove her on, but kept the mule on a shorter rein so it walked more slowly. She held the used rag in her right fist. Only after a while did she notice Merten's warm blood seeping between her fingers.
The warehouse at the Salzstufe lay long and low above a small landing. On the uphill side, the tool shed leaned crookedly against it, as though the two buildings were keeping each other upright. A boat knocked against the piles. Beyond it, grey sea as far as Lyra could see. The dyer and the others must be somewhere along this coast. She searched between the rocks for people, for a cloth, for anything at all. In front of the warehouse there were only three horses and a cart with a closed chest.
A stocky man came out of the gate. Lyra saw the pale band on his upper arm first. She stopped so abruptly that the cord tightened at her wrists. Kael said her name quietly. She kept watching the man and heard the mule snort behind her. If Kael wanted to warn him, he did not need her name for it.
“Eschenwacht burned,” she said.
The man inspected her sooty cloak. “A lot's burning today.”
Kael moved between them. “She's unharmed enough for the journey. The messenger is wounded. I need the small room and water.”
“You need the receipt. The rest is my business.”
Kael waited. His hand stayed clear of his sword. A gust tugged at the other man's sleeve; he caught the armband, glanced behind him and finally moved aside. Lyra breathed out before she could stop herself. She would rather have walked past both of them. Instead she had to follow the back of the man carrying her daggers.
The storeroom smelled of damp wood. A window beneath the ceiling, two shelves and an iron ring bolt in the wall; the floorboards had warped upwards. Kael walked past the bolt. He took Lyra's belt, set her bag on the upper shelf and felt along the seams of her cloak. She stood rigid, hands before her. When his fingers approached the cord at her neck, she drew her head back.
“That's mine.”
She had pulled the wooden pendant over her collar. Behind it the ring showed only as a narrow black edge. Kael's hand stopped. Lyra closed her fingers more tightly around the wood; he touched neither pendant nor ring and withdrew his fingers. “No blade?”
“Shall I show you how blunt wood can be?”
He looked at her long enough for her to lift her chin. Then he cut the cord. Lyra immediately made a fist with her right hand; in the left, the blood prickled right to her fingertips. Kael opened the door. “If you get out of here, there are three men outside being paid for a different outcome.”
“And you're paid for this one.”
“Yes.”
He set down water and locked the door. Lyra stood before it for a while with her fist still raised. His footsteps receded outside. Only when she could hear nothing but the boat knocking against the piles did she lower her arm and tuck the pendant cord beneath her collar again.
She drank first. Then she knelt by the bowl and washed her left hand. Slowly, as though she had all day. The earth from Maerin's stones was still beneath her nails. She loosened the dirt around the wound; as soon as she spread her fingers, the cut gaped. She had drawn the grey cloak over Maerin's face; now she bent each of her own fingers in turn and checked that it obeyed. They all moved. She adjusted the cleaned bandage again.
She could get no purchase on the simple door lock without tools. She pressed on the floorboards one by one; damp, but sound. Three iron bars guarded the window. One gave at the top, almost imperceptibly. Lyra moved the water bowl into a corner so she would not step into it at night, dragged the shelving beneath the opening and put a boot on the lower shelf. The wood groaned but held.
A nail's breadth. She could pull the bar no farther out of its socket. She wound the dry edge of her bandage around it, gripped and let her weight sink backwards. Pain shot almost to her elbow. Her chest struck the shelving; she caught it with her right hand and hung there. Forehead against the plank, breathe. When the nausea eased, she set her boot securely again.
Men were arguing in the passage. They had to leave before the next tide, said the one with the armband. The other cut in: the chest was not going back onto the water. Fallback site in the woods. Lyra let go of the bar. She wiped her hand on her trousers, climbed down and pressed her ear to the wall. A name, she thought. Just say a name.
“Seven strokes, missing point,” the second man said. “Not the tool chest. If you have the wrong one loaded, you can explain it yourself.”
The footsteps receded. Someone began hammering. Lyra climbed up again and pressed her face close to the bars. Between the roof edge and the pile-supported jetty she could still see part of the cart. Its chest had metal bands and seven roughly incised strokes on one side. She compared it with the cart-bed planks, estimating length and height. Two men could carry it. One on his own would have a hard time. She went over its corners in her mind until she could see them with her eyes shut.
Soup came late that afternoon. The warehouse worker who brought it was old enough to be her father. He placed his feet carefully between the crooked planks. His right hand shook; Lyra saw how he waited until the bowl rested fully on the shelf before letting go. Kael stood in the doorway. She took the spoon and held it still for a moment until the worker looked at her.
“Is this part of the travel rations?” she asked. “Or the only meal where I get to keep a hand free?”
The worker looked at her unbound hands and said nothing. Kael said, “Eat.”
Barley and a piece of onion. She burned her tongue and went on eating anyway. By the time she put the spoon down, Kael was gone. The worker was still waiting for the bowl. Behind him Merten lay on a bench at the end of the passage. His lips moved, but not a word came through the open door. Lyra slowly scraped the spoon across the bottom of the empty bowl.
“Do you know the road to Eschenwacht?” she asked.
“I don't know any roads that pay any more.” The worker reached for the bowl. “Six weeks' wages owing. That's what I'm here for.”
“Not for the fire?”
He looked up, straight into her face now. His grey eyes were inflamed, something yellowish stuck beneath one lid. “I don't know what you've lost. I never carried a torch.” Then he took the bowl and left. Lyra heard the key. She had thought of another answer; it stayed in her mouth while she stared at the place where his shaking hand had rested.
She had only meant to lean her back against the door. In sleep the ring became a piece of coal that Maerin tried to take from her hand and could not prise loose. Lyra woke with a start. The dyer was still screaming for a lever. She clapped a hand over her mouth; her tongue hurt where she had bitten it. The ring hung beneath her tunic. She listened into the darkness until the dream's scream faded and the rushing behind it became the sea again.
Night. Kael was speaking to Merten in the passage. Lyra lay on her stomach and edged towards the gap beneath the door. Between floor and wood she could see boots, a bench leg, the corner of the courier bag. Kael had set it down beside him. The dark stain inside it now reached the seam. Lyra rested her chin on her right hand and tried to distinguish every breath outside from a word.
“Who sent you?” Kael asked.
“You can read.” Merten's voice scraped. “I didn't know they'd shoot. I was only supposed to deliver it.”
“Who opened the second envelope?”
Merten did not answer. The bench scraped. Lyra pulled back and was sitting upright again when the key turned. Kael brought a blanket, fresh bandage cloth and her bag. She looked at his belt first. Both daggers still hung there.
“Your hand.”
She kept it hidden. “Your orders.”
He laid the things on the floor. “Alive. You know that already.”
“And the dead in my village? Did they get a line of their own?”
His mouth thinned. “The fire wasn't my assignment.”
Lyra waited. Say you weren't there. Say you don't know any of them. He merely bent to lay the blanket nearer her. She remained standing. Water dripped from his cloak onto the planks; the silence between them grew longer with every drop.
“Then tell me who paid for it.”
“I have no proof of what you want to know.”
“You have a name.”
He said nothing. Lyra kicked the water bowl. It jumped against the shelving and tipped over. The clatter barely lasted a breath. Lyra still stood with her foot thrust out and would have liked to kick again. Kael crouched, righted the bowl and dragged an old scrap of sailcloth over the wet boards. His left hand guided the rag. He kept the right tucked close.
As he stood, his right sleeve slipped back. Dark lines ran beneath his skin from the wrist upwards, finely branching like the veins of a leaf. Lyra looked until he pulled the cloth over them. Then she raised her eyes to his face. She wanted him to know.
“Did somebody pay for that too?”
“Yes.”
“You're sparing with long answers.”
“You wouldn't like any.”
“You seem to enjoy deciding that for me.”
He took the empty bowl and left. At the threshold he paused, his hand already on the wood. Lyra pulled the blanket towards her without giving him another word. The door closed slowly. As the key turned, she wrapped herself up and felt with her heel for a dry patch of boards.
On the morning of the second day, the sea sounded quieter. The wind was coming off the land now, brushing through the high window over Lyra's hair. She divided the last apple in her bag into halves and pushed one through the gap beneath the door. “Merten.” For a long time, nothing came. Then something scraped across the boards. The half disappeared. Later the stalk lay outside in the passage.
Lyra looked at it for a while, drew it towards her and pushed it back out. Merten immediately scratched three times against the door. She answered twice and waited. No further signal. They were both still there, then. Lyra rested her forehead briefly against the wood, then stood to try the window again.
She wedged two short splinters into the loose bar's upper socket. The first snapped under the pressure. The second held until she had to raise her arm, then slipped away. She watched it fall. Three body lengths below, it came to rest on the narrow jetty. Beneath it, water gleamed between the stones. Lyra released the bar and measured the way again with her eyes. She would need a rope even if she got the bars out.
The blanket would tear into strips. Lyra ran a finger along the selvedge and held the cloth up to the light. Many short pieces, many knots; someone would hear it tearing. She took the edge in both hands without pulling. The floor had been cold at night even through the fabric. At last she folded the blanket and set it aside. The bars first. She could work through the rest again once she had a way out.
The worker brought fresh water. No heavy steps behind him, no Kael in the doorway. Lyra asked about the carts. He pretended not to hear. Only when she mentioned his wages did he set down the bucket. The steward had ridden off before supper yesterday, he said, and from there talked himself deeper and deeper into his annoyance. Lyra had to raise a hand when footsteps approached outside. He stopped in mid-sentence and picked up the bucket again.
She held him back a moment longer. “What's your name?”
“Pell.”
“If I get out of here, Pell, you won't be the first person I come looking for.”
He looked from her blanket to the shifted shelving. “Put that back. Or they'll tie you up as well.” Lyra followed his gaze to the ring bolt in the wall. After Pell had gone, she pushed the shelving back into its old place. It left two pale scrape marks on the boards; she rubbed dust across them with her boot.
Around midday the chest rolled away. Two men argued over the direction, then the wheels creaked into motion beneath its weight. Lyra stood at the window until she could no longer see the cart bed. The boat still lay below her, knocking against the piles. A gull landed on a post and cried. Lyra watched it, that brazen creature with its open beak, and stayed there longer than she had meant to.
Merten had a fever again. He no longer called his wife's name, but something about a well. Lyra could only make out the end of the sentence, then he began again. She edged to the door and called for water for him. The bench creaked; nothing else came. At her second call someone stamped towards her. The blow from the man with the armband made the wood shudder against her back.
“Quiet. We're moving soon.”
She stayed sitting against the door and slipped two fingers beneath her collar. The knot held. Behind it, wood and ring lay against her skin, still and heavy. She saw Maerin's last hand movement: the fingers that had failed to reach her cheek. Lyra laid her own hand against it and shut her eyes. Maerin had sent her away from the village. She could not stay here.
Kael returned. His steps stopped outside the door where the man with the armband was still standing. A seal broke. Paper rustled, then fell silent. Water dripped from Merten's bowl onto the floor. Lyra opened her eyes and heard the individual drops, one after another, until someone outside spoke again.
“The messenger isn't travelling,” the other man said at last. “Witnesses only cost money. Do it before we load up.”
Lyra stood. She looked at the shelving back against the wall, at the loose bar high above her head. Too far. She raised her left hand and tried to close it. The bandage pulled tight. No blade, nothing within reach she could stab through the door. She turned back towards the wood.
Behind the door, Kael said, “No.”