Chapter 13: Witness in the Rain

They fled Rainmoth House through the roof because the street had filled with guards. Rook’s people had drawn away the first patrols, but Vespera’s machine corrected itself quickly. Court whistles pierced the rain, sharp and urgent. Lanterns swung below, their light slicing through the downpour. Men shouted descriptions of a dead heiress, a black-coated exile, and a servant girl with blue sleeves. Nessa leaned hard on Maren as they crossed the slick tiles. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and her fingers dug into Maren’s arm. “I can run.” “You can barely stand.” “I said run, not dance.” Maren almost smiled. Then the ledger pulsed against her ribs. Pain flared through her oath-mark and drove her to one knee. The leather binding felt alive, thrumming with a heat that had nothing to do with the rain. Nessa’s weight shifted, and Maren caught herself on the wet clay before they both fell. Cael turned. “Maren?” The Thorn Crown was reaching. It did not feel like thought. It felt like a hook behind her breastbone, tugging toward the Glass Court. Not enough to drag her. Enough to remind her that Vespera had found a way to make distance irrelevant. The crown-root in her blood recognized the call, and it wanted to answer. Maren pressed a fist to her chest. “The rite.” Nessa’s face went pale. “It has started?” “Not fully,” Cael said, but his voice had gone hard. “The crown is tasting for the true bloodline. Testing the air for her signature.” “Can we stop it from here?” “No.” Below, a guard spotted movement on the roof. “There!” Bolts hissed upward. Cael shoved both women behind a chimney as black glass points shattered against brick. Shadows rose around him, but one bolt punched through the dark and struck his shoulder. He staggered. Maren caught his arm. “Cael.” “Glass-iron,” he said through his teeth. The wound smoked. Not blood. Shadow, leaking like ink, dark and viscous against the rain. Nessa stared in horror. “Is that bad?” “I have had worse.” Cael tried to lift his blade and failed. His hand trembled, and the sword clattered against the tiles. The shadow wound pulsed, spreading thin veins of darkness across his neck. Maren made a decision before fear could argue. She took the black-glass knife from his belt and cut her palm. “No,” he said. “The oath shares danger.” “Not like that.” She pressed her bleeding hand over his wound. Pain hit so hard the roof vanished. For one breath she was back in the coffin. No air, no light, cedar above her, roses rotting sweetly. The weight of earth pressed against her chest, and she tasted dirt and blood. Then Cael’s hand locked around her wrist, grounding her. The glass-iron shard pushed free of his shoulder and clattered onto the tiles. Maren gasped. Cael’s wound closed enough for him to stand. His face had gone frighteningly pale, and the shadows around him flickered like dying candles. “Do not do that again.” “Say thank you.” “Thank you. Do not do that again.” Nessa grabbed Maren’s other arm. “Argue later. They are climbing.” They ran. The rooftops ended at a gap too wide for Nessa to jump. On the far side, an old laundry bridge hung between buildings, half collapsed, ropes slick with rain. The wooden planks swayed in the wind, and the canal below churned with dark water. Cael looked down. “We go through the upper window.” The window exploded outward. Three masked hunters climbed through, crossbows ready. The lead hunter carried a chain threaded with glass-iron hooks. Their masks were bone-white, featureless except for the slits where eyes gleamed. “Alive if possible,” he called. “The duchess wants the bloodline breathing.” Maren lifted Cael’s knife. Her hand shook, but the blade did not. The rain ran down her arm, mixing with the blood from her palm. The hunter laughed. “You can barely hold that.” Nessa, still leaning on Maren, reached into her torn sleeve and threw a handful of kitchen ash into his eyes. He screamed. Cael moved. Wounded or not, he became a dark line across the roof, blade flashing. The first hunter fell. The second fired. Maren shoved Nessa aside, and the bolt grazed her arm instead of Nessa’s throat. Blood ran hot down her sleeve, and the pain was sharp and immediate. The Thorn Crown pulled again. This time, the blood answered. A root burst through the roof tiles and wrapped around the second hunter’s ankle. Maren felt its hunger, felt how easily it would pull him through the roof and crush him between floors. The root was alive, eager, and it wanted to feed. She stopped it. Not mercy. Choice. “Drop the bow,” she said. The hunter dropped it. Cael glanced at her, something unreadable in his face. The third hunter swung the glass-iron chain at him. It caught his wrist and burned. Cael’s blade fell. Before Maren could move, Rook appeared from the rain and drove a bone spear through the hunter’s shoulder. “You owe me,” Rook said. Cael ripped the chain free with a sound that was almost a growl. “I do not recall asking.” “No. The girl did.” Maren helped Nessa toward the laundry bridge. “Then put it on my account.” Rook’s grin flashed. “Careful. I collect.” They crossed the bridge one at a time. Below, guards flooded the alley. Above, court bells rang faster. At the far side, Nessa stumbled. Maren caught her, but the ledger slipped from her cloak and skidded toward the edge. Maren lunged. A crossbow bolt struck the bridge rope. The bridge dropped. For a breath, Maren hung over open air with one hand on the ledger and the other gripping a wet board. Nessa screamed her name. Cael reached from above, too far. The Thorn Crown’s pull surged through her blood. *Come*, it seemed to whisper. *Come and be emptied.* Maren looked down at the canal stones waiting below, then up at Cael’s outstretched hand. She chose the living hand. With a cry, she swung the ledger upward. Cael caught the book first, then her wrist. Rook grabbed his coat, Nessa grabbed Rook, and somehow all of them crashed onto the roof in a tangle of rain, blood, and furious breathing. Maren laughed because death had missed again. Then Nessa said, “Maren, your arm.” The graze from the bolt had turned black around the edges. Glass-iron poison spread beneath her skin in thin veins, crawling toward her shoulder like dark roots. Cael’s face went cold. Below, Aldric’s voice rang from the street. “I know you can hear me, Maren. Bring me the ledger, and I will let the maid live.” Nessa clutched Maren’s sleeve. Aldric looked up through the rain and smiled. “Refuse, and I will tell the city your witness died screaming in your escape.” Maren held the ledger against her chest while poison, truth, danger, and choice tightened around her all at once.