Chapter 005

Law 3 is not cowardice. It is wisdom.

Harker ran.

“After him!”

He wasn’t sure who was shouting, but it didn’t matter. If any of them caught Harker, it would be the end.

He scrambled down the street, hugging tight to the wall of Garon’s shop. The moment he felt the second dip in the masonry he jerked left, sliding between the buildings along a narrow cleft he knew to be there. It was almost too narrow—he’d grown some since he’d last attempted this path—but Harker slipped by the chimney stack jutting across his way just in time to feel his skin tighten in warning. He threw himself forward, skinning his palms against cobbles just as an iron dart hit the bricks by his head. Jagged chunks rained down on him.

“Depths! Missed him!” Jeren snarled. “We can’t fit! Go around!”

Stumbling into the adjoining street, Harker ignored the blood welling from a cut across the back of his scalp. Shallow laceration. Profuse bleeding. Low chance of concussion.

He crossed the street on wobbly legs, into another darkened alley between homes. He knew it was a dead-end, where the row of homes ran up against the tiered retaining walls leading up the valley. Yet there was always a way out.

He just had to find it.

There. A drainpipe stretched up the side of one home. It was more than enough for him. He hauled himself up, his muscles immediately burning from his efforts as a litany of treatment rattled through his mind.

Clean with sterilized water. Mix yarrow root into a paste with fennel. Apply to the scalp with a spinweave bandage for ideal treatment.

Hand over hand he ascended as fast as he could—yet Harker was nothing if not cursed. His pursuers might cling to the Surface of the Sea, same as him, but they could actually draw their Water.

He wasn’t fast enough.

“He’s climbing!”

A whistling impact tore into the building beside him, missing again by the barest of margins. Harker didn’t slow, but he did look back. Down at the mouth of the alley, Kaz and Mert stood, barely panting as if they hadn’t just sprinted around half a block. At their head was Jeren, red in the face as he lowered his hand.

“My Mari is gonna die because of you! Face me like a man, Knack!”

“I’d rather not!” Harker pulled himself higher. One. For all the Vinell’s strength, their Earthfist couldn’t do anything to him at a distance. It was Jeren’s Accuracy Talent that was the real threat, even if it took time to manifest.

Two.

Harker never stopped climbing, though his arms ached and his head was swimming. Jeren just had to collect Water into his hand and pick up another rock.

Three.

He was so close to the roof, but the idiots weren’t moving. Jeren whipped his hand up.

Fou—

Harker released his grip. A second shot sliced into the drainpipe, splitting the thick metal with a brief shower of sparks. Harker seized the pipe again, groaning as the strain tore at his shoulders.

Bastard’s Current is faster than I remember!

Harker dug his new boots into the wall and just about lunged up the final few feet. He swung over the lip of the roof well before Jeren could muster another shot.

He collapsed onto the roof, surrounded by the fluttering linens someone had forgotten to take down from the line.

“Get back here, Harker!”

Harker stayed there on the tiles, trying to master his breathing. “I’ll…get right on that.”

“You! Follow him up there!”

“I can’t climb that!” Kaz protested.

“Do it anyway!”

Time to move. Harker’s left side was bruised, but he shoved through it, ignoring the splotch of red he left behind on the tiles.

Fully broken ribs. Alternate cold and warm compresses. Recommend bed rest and supplement with willow bark tea.

The drainpipe shook, creaking ominously as Kaz started climbing. Harker staggered to his feet, his mind racing. He needed a path out, but he wasn’t fast enough to get away from them on flat ground. His legs were no match for Water-infused muscles.

What Harker needed was a distraction.

Just over the rooftops, another block over, he saw Goody Molluc leaning out of her window with a candle. No doubt inspecting—

The inn.

Harker took off.

Pain lanced at him, but he shoved it back as best he could. Hope gave him energy enough to ignore his flagging limbs and labored breathing, and Harker leaped across the rooftop tiles as the evening finally darkened into night.

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“Stop runnin’!” Kaz shouted as he crested the drainpipe. “It’ll just make it worse when we catch ya!”

“That,” Harker panted, struggling over the peak of the roof four houses down. “Is not a good incentive for stopping!”

He scrabbled across rooftops, peak after peak, while behind him Kaz thundered in pursuit. The man was strong and fast, but he was graceless; each stop cracked roofing tiles, sending them sliding off the eaves and fouling the idiot’s footing.

Ahead, the street bent back toward the river, with Whitlock’s inn no more than three buildings down. The only problem was he was on the wrong side of the street. He’d have to get down and cross—unless he did something stupid.

Harker hopped across a bank of chimneys, landing with a pained grunt. He pulled a small knife from his belt, the blade no longer than the palm of his hand, and ducked beneath a lengthy clothes line. He slashed at one end and wrapped his arm around it.

He jumped.

The rope burned against his palm and wrist, and Harker couldn’t breathe as he swung down the side of the house. The line dipped low, its far end snapping taut against the wooden pole that secured it, but it held. He swung fast, feet tucked, as he arced across the narrow street—right toward the inn.