Balls
Cherkiss was labeled a town rather than a city only because it lived in Bashan’s shadow. In truth, it was a county seat—which meant the train station bustled with people who had little interest in or connection to a delayed train from Sounalla.
They had one chance to disappear before the knights closed in—and the station crowd was their best cover.
Captain Nuhzar shouted again, and once more Math feigned ignorance, calmly collecting his things as if the man couldn’t possibly be addressing him. The absence of panic left the crowd confused—people glanced around uncertainly, but no one edged away from him and Kai.
That would change within moments, as people did the only sensible thing when faced with an armored knight wielding an obviously magical weapon—they’d get out of the way.
Kai’s focus hit him like a blade drawn bright and honed. She turned, pulled a ring off her finger—Math barely had time to blink—then murmured a few words and hurled it.
Some people ducked, although it was unlikely they understood exactly what they were ducking. Nuhzar’s expression was contemptuous as the ring flew right past him and pinged against the front wall of the carriage.
Then: chaos.
People shouted in dismay and confusion. Some grabbed on to benches but most were flung down the length of the carriage to slam into the knights.
Nuhzar and his people fell back into the far wall as though hit by an invisible tidal surge.
A hurricane had blown through the carriage, but without any wind, just motion.
“What did you do?” Math demanded.
“I changed the definition of ‘down,’” Kai said. “Don’t stop. It will not last. Gravity does not like being told what to do.”
Math ushered them through the back door of the carriage and over the narrow bridge to the next.
“Can you do that trick again?”
“I only possess two more, so we best ensure they count. Might we be able to slip out the back?”
“Maybe,” Math hedged. “If we exit through the standing-room-only carriage, maybe we can lose ourselves in the crowd trying to board.”
They didn’t slow, dodging passengers entering or exiting in a chaotic dance.
Outside the windows, Math glimpsed flashes of Idallik tabards as knights circled the train. Reinforcements, no doubt. At any moment, those knights might burst into their current carriage, and matters would grow more complicated.
They passed several water closets, but Math dismissed them. Hiding in a bathroom was a perfect way to be cornered and captured in the most unpleasant possible surroundings.
By the time they reached the first of the standing carriages, most of the crowd had already disembarked. Their only stroke of luck was that a lot of soldiers and knights were too busy running toward the front of the train to pay any attention to who was leaving.
“The spell hasn’t faded yet,” Kai said, a little surprised. The flicker of satisfaction she felt echoed down the thread of their bond. “How unexpectedly delightful.”
Math grabbed her hand. “Then let’s go. We won’t get a better chance.”
They stepped onto the station platform.
The hardest part was not running. Math forced himself to walk slowly, to smile at Kai, to look tired and eager to be home. Her effort to project calm brushed against his skin, paper-thin and straining.
They passed a knight on the way out. Nuhzar had seen Kaiataris back at the maze, but he had no reason to suspect they were traveling together—or that they were disguised. For now, the knights were looking for one man, not a couple.
They hadn’t taken more than five steps beyond the station before Math heard Nuhzar shout.
Math pulled Kai into an alley, where they crouched down behind a stack of delivery crates. Armor jangled as the knights ran past down the street.
Kai started to rise, but Math pulled her back down. He held up a finger, signaling silence. Another set of footsteps followed—slower, more deliberate, followed by the scrape of metal and a long pause.
Math didn’t need to look. He knew it was Nuhzar, scanning the area one last time.
“I really hate that man,” Math chuntered.
He would be back. As soon as Nuhzar realized he’d lost them, he’d circle back and search every gutter.
“Follow me,” Math whispered.
They crept deeper into the alley. It twisted and bent, narrowing their line of sight—but also hiding them from pursuit.
“How did they find us?” Kai asked softly. “How did they get ahead of us?”
Math paused. These were not rhetorical questions. Her unease buzzed against his ribs like a trapped insect. If they didn’t find the answers, they’d risk repeating this disaster.
“How they got ahead is the easy part,” he said. “Idallik Knights can move incredibly fast when needed—sort of like your gravity trick. If they know their destination, a journey that should take days can be done in minutes.” He ran his tongue across his teeth. “As for tracking…”
He rifled through his coat and pouches. He hadn’t been foolish enough to keep Captain Qin’s scrying token—that was the standard focus for such spells.
The clothes he wore had been stolen after fleeing the cenobium.
His boots were his own, but far too generic to serve as a scrying anchor.
The cenobium paper was distinctive, yes, but with thousands of identical samples in circulation, it made for a poor target.
He had some money, a water canteen—but nothing quite distinctive enough.
“What are you looking for?” Kai asked.
“We use objects as scry—tokens. Something unique. If someone slipped one into my things…” He shook his head. “But I don’t see anything that would work.”
Kai didn’t respond right away. Then she tilted her head, studying him. A surge of realization snapped straight through the bond like a cord pulled taut.
“What is the range for this scrying?” she asked. “And how many of those Kaliri weapons do you think might exist?”
He looked down at the weapon in his hand. His stomach sank. The bond echoed with her mirrored dread.
He had no idea how many of these things had been built by the Kaliri, but given that it took a mage to use them, he didn’t think so many of them could exist inside Rokasmaa borders.
They’d left a mess at the ambush site. It was entirely possible someone had counted the dead, counted the weapons, and realized one was missing.
And that missing weapon was with him.
That would be more than unique enough.
Math pressed his thumb to his temple, exhaled slowly, then tossed the Kaliri long arm into a nearby garbage bin. It rattled loudly before settling. Kai’s quiet relief fluttered across the bond.
“You’re right,” he said. “That’s how they tracked me.”
A sound echoed from the mouth of the alley. They both startled, then hurried to keep moving. Math kept his eye open for an exit, any door they might use to leave the alley and lose their pursuers.
They were lucky in that the alley was not a straight line, but twisted and turned, making it difficult to see who else might walk ahead or behind. Still, they heard noises.
More specifically, the sound of their pursuers.
“I don’t suppose we could take them,” Kai murmured.
“Who? The knights?” Math let out a grim chuckle. “Absolutely not. Not like this. And definitely not Nuhzar.”
“He seems utterly delightful,” she said dryly. “An old friend?”
“If childhood bully counts, then sure.”
They rounded another corner and saw a cluster of produce carts. Workers hauled boxes into a tall building through a side door. The people in question looked like cooks, or at least some kind of helpers at a restaurant.
Kai gestured for him to strip off his soldier’s coat, sash, and scarf, and stuffed them into a trash bin. Her urgency scraped raw along their connection. Once he looked less immediately recognizable as a soldier, Kai grabbed his arm and walked straight through the door.
When someone called after her, she waved them off and said, “I know! But you can’t expect me to walk all the way around to the front, can you?” as if that was a sufficient excuse.
Except, apparently, it was.
No one tried to stop them. Everyone was too busy with their own jobs to pay attention to a group acting like they were supposed to be there.
The rear of the building contained some sort of kitchen, attached to a full restaurant. The hallways bustled with cooks, assistants, clattering pans, the aroma of food.
Kai seemed temporarily distracted by that, taking a moment to stop in the middle of a hallway and inhale.
“We have to keep going,” Math reminded her.
She raised her hand. “Just one moment.”
She seemed to be counting something, listening for a pattern in the chaos. Maybe she heard something he didn’t.
Kai pointed down a hallway. “This way.”
He followed. She clearly had a plan. He didn’t. That feeling was only emphasized when she opened a small, narrow door into a large room filled with metal basins, washboards, and clothes pinned to lines.
It was a laundry.
She quickly plucked several sets of clothes from a line and tossed them in Math’s direction. “Quickly. Before anyone notices.”
They both ducked into a closet to change. It said something about the seriousness of the situation that Math was too busy worrying about their pursuers to be distracted by the beautiful woman undressing behind his back.
He swapped out everything he could, moved essentials into the new clothes, and hoped no one noticed his mismatched boots.
They emerged in black uniforms that looked like those worn by domestic staff. Kai’s fit perfectly while his was decidedly a bit snug. Still, it would do.
Kai pointed. “Back this way, if I’m not mistaken.”
Before Math could reply, a sharp voice cut through the hallway. “What have I told you people about lazing around? Those appetizers won’t serve themselves!”
A tall, stern woman appeared, gray hair bound in a gold-and-black scarf. She wore the same severe black uniform that they did, but she wore hers with a difference.
She was pointing at them.
Math ducked his head. “Yes, ma’am.”
They’d wandered into a side hall off a larger corridor—and the woman had caught sight of them.
Behind the woman, other servants bustled past carrying trays. Marble tiled the larger hallway, which was further covered with an elaborate silk carpet runner of green and blue. Orchestral music drifted in from farther down the hallway.
The woman clapped. “Well? Go!”
They went.
The woman directed them to a staging area just off the main corridor. Within seconds someone shoved trays into their hands and pushed them through a set of double doors.
Math no longer had any idea where they were.
He’d thought it was a restaurant. Then a hotel. But now?
Stepping through those doors, he revised his guess again. If this was a hotel, it was the fanciest he’d ever seen.
The room was massive, lit by crystal chandeliers and gas-lamp wall sconces.
Mirrors lined the walls, interrupted only by doorways and enormous masterpiece paintings.
The ceiling soared overhead, at least forty feet above.
A double set of stairs swept from the main floor to a balcony mezzanine and another set of double doors.
A small orchestra played music, servers circulated through the crowd with food and drink, and several hundred sumptuously dressed men and women laughed and danced beneath lights that glittered almost as brightly as Kai’s amusement.
“Don’t say it,” Math warned.
Kai bit her lip, eyes sparkling, and the swell of barely contained laughter buzzed through the bond like champagne fizz.
“But—” She gave him a pleading look.
“Fine,” Math grumbled. “Go ahead.”
She cleared her throat, straightened her borrowed uniform, and asked sweetly, “Are all your balls this large?”