“Well, you probably shouldn’t have killed him, then.” I leveled my stare at her like a blade. “You could have made this easy, Cassa. You know why I came here.”
Cassa stared me down from the banister. She took in the scope of the scarred woman before her: skin kissed by fire, body trembling with ragged breath, eyes three nights sleepless and locked on her.
“I heard you were unkillable,” she said. “But here, you look barely able to stand. Was that just one more lie?” She snorted. “The stories say that Sal the Cacophony comes to kill, she comes to destroy, she—”
“She comes looking for someone less chatty and better smelling than you.”
I glanced over my shoulder toward the remainder of her outlaws—some had managed to crawl away, a few more were stirring back to consciousness, but there was no helping the dead ones.
“Your boys and girls got in my way, but I’ve got no interest in killing them,” I said, looking back to her. “So we can do this quick or slow. We do this quick, we talk like mages—face-to-face, no tricks or threats. We do this slow, I find out what I want to know from you or from them.”
I pulled my scarf down from my face. I gave her a good, long look at the scar running down my right eye.
“And no one walks out of here.”
The Lady Merchant’s song went soft. The light left Cassa’s eyes even as the flames sputtered down to a low smolder across her skin. As the fire abated, I could see the woman a little better. That solid physique couldn’t hold up her sagging shoulders, and her furrowed brow couldn’t hide the dark circles under her eyes.
Her old Imperial uniform hung loosely on her now. It had been torn and shredded in places, enough that I could see the twisting tattoos of flames coiling around her collarbone. Fresh ink, not worn and faded like the storm clouds running the length of my arms.
Back when she’d served as an Imperial mage, Cassanara yu Althama had a reputation for rationality. Despite her destructive powers, she’d always been reluctant to fight as a first resort. Her value for the soldiers she commanded had made her a favorite among the Imperium’s forces.
Everyone wondered why she’d gone Vagrant.
But that proud Imperial mage was gone. Cassa the Sorrow—the Vagrant, the outlaw, the fugitive—was a tired, ragged, broken-down woman dealing with people she didn’t like, doing work she didn’t care for in a world she didn’t understand.
Maybe that’s what made me think I could walk out of here without having to fight her.
Or maybe I was just kind of stupid. I was tired; it was hard to tell.
Regardless, she didn’t make another move. “Speak.”
I made a show of holding up my hand and easing it slowly into my scarf. From a hidden pocket inside, I produced a thin scrap of paper, folded up delicately and wrinkled with time and weather.
“You’ve heard stories about me,” I said. “You know what this is?”
Cassa nodded slowly. “There are thirty-three names on that list. Vagrants. All of whom wronged you… or so you say.”
At her words, I felt a pang of agony lance through my chest, running the length of the scar that wound from my collarbone to my belly. I hid my wince behind my scarf as I slid the list back into its folds.
“Twenty-four names,” I replied. “Nine of them are crossed out. But you’re not on this list. And neither are any of your people here. If you’re willing to answer me one question, we can leave it at that.”
Cassa regarded me down the length of her nose.
“Ask.”
I stared up at her. And the scent of ashes filled my nose. And my scar itched in that way it does when things are about to go terribly wrong.
“Where,” I asked, “is Darrish the Flint?”
And that’s when she really started trying to kill me.
The Lady’s song rose in my ears, swallowed by the sound of fires crackling to life, which was in turn swallowed by the furious shriek that came red-hot from Cassa’s throat. Flames erupted from her hands, racing up her arms, her shoulders, her neck until she wore a lion’s mane of fire.
She thrust her hands toward me. Waves of flame cascaded from her fingertips, washing down the banister toward me.
“Lively now, darling.”
The Cacophony leapt into my hand. I aimed him upward. I pulled the trigger.
The Hoarfrost shell burst from his mouth, exploding in an eruption of cold. A mouth of blue-and-white ice opened wide in a crackling, freezing hiss to swallow the flames. They tore through each other, smothering and searing one another until frost became water and water became steam. Curtains of white mist flooded the living room, blinding me.
I heard her scream cut through the steam. I felt her through the floorboards when she fell from the balcony and landed with a crash. I saw her, a distant light in the fog.
And then I felt her heat.
I tried to bring my gun up, but her fire came faster than I could shoot. Hands ablaze came lashing out, sending embers scattering from her fingertips. Those few that found my skin burned, filling my nostrils with the reek of my own cooking skin. I hissed, leapt backward, tried to get room. But she knew me and my gun and she wouldn’t give either of us the space we needed.
The steam continued to roil around us, rising up to mask us. I could see her, of course, but as I was not currently radiating fire, I doubt she could see me. All I had to do was get far enough away to lose her in the steam. All I had to do was keep backing up until I could get an opening to escape.
It would have been a great plan had I not bumped into one of her boys just then.
He acted quicker than I did—possibly because he wasn’t distracted by a ragingly furious Embermage—and lashed out, wrapping an arm around my neck and holding me tight with a snarl. I don’t know if he thought through his plan, as she’d incinerate us both.
Fuck if I had time to explain it, though.
I didn’t have time to do anything, in fact, but dig my heels in and push back as much as I could. He was bigger than me, but not by much, and he didn’t have the fear of being burned alive driving him.
Cassa came lunging out of the steam, shrieking, rushing, raking fiery hands as she reached for me. I pushed back against my captor, shoving as much as I could against him, but he was finding his footing and held me fast as she closed in. I saw the fire in her hands erupt into a glorious blaze that lit up the steam like a lighthouse in the fog.
If it wasn’t about to kill me, I’d have called it beautiful.
As it was, I had to think fast. And since this battle was already turning messy, the first thing I thought of was just as bad.
Promise you won’t judge me.
I brought the Cacophony up, then swung him down, past my leg and between my attacker’s. I’m not sure if the gun’s hilt smashed into what I was aiming for, but from the cracking sound and ensuing scream, I assumed I was close enough.
His footing lost—among other things—I seized him by the hands and swung him around, wearing him like a cloak of flesh and leather, just as the Lady’s song reached a crescendo in my ears. The fire stoked itself to a roaring blaze.
Flames washed over him, drowning out the sound of his screams. I pulled free of him as his grip suddenly was concerned with trying to futilely smother the flames engulfing him. I fled into the curtains of steam and didn’t stop until I felt the heat ebb to something merely painful instead of agonizing.