Abbee woke up coughing. Her whole body hurt. She tried to open her eyes but couldn’t. Fire. The river. Murder Guild. Someone was touching her. Hands on her body. Grabbing. Old memories rose, and terror took over. No. Not again. Abbee fought and kicked and pushed away.
A man swore. Dren. “She’s awake.”
“Hold her down,” another ordered. Ramaro.
Abbee felt hands on her shoulders, pressing her down. “How is she even still alive?” Dren asked. “She looks like someone pressed her onto a big stove.”
Abbee flailed. She couldn’t see.
“Hey, look at this,” Ramaro said. “She’s got gems on her.”
Abbee couldn’t believe it. Ramaro had given her up to the Murder Guild, and he was robbing her. Touching her. All at once she was back in Graywall, crouched on a dirt floor in the shadows, surrounded by strange men. Surrounded by laughter and promises of evil things. Fury and fear clamored to the surface. Abbee was afraid of herself when she let her emotions run rampant, afraid of who she became. Afraid of the frightened, angry, panicked animal who’d appeared over and over again in her nightmare. The monster that night in the pit. But she needed that person now. She needed her greed.
Abbee focused on her rage and fear.
Fed it.
Fed it with her pain and dread and resentment.
Fed it with Ramaro’s betrayal, with her father’s disgust, with her mother’s sadness.
Fed it with her nightmare—the basement and the sightless man.
Fed it with the beast she’d become in Graywall.
Fed it with Ipsu’s desertion.
Abbee snapped.
She snarled as sharp tingles pricked her all over her body. Her hair stood on end, and mote tickled her wrists. A jolt of energy coursed through her bones. Both Ramaro and Dren grunted and groaned. Their hands left her.
Abbee didn’t lose herself to the rage and panic this time. She’d learned a little control since the sightless man and his parade of victims. Since the pit. Abbee surfed on the wave of fury. Rode it, like that first night in Graywall. She felt an irresistible desire to take from Ramaro and Dren. Take from them like the inmates had intended to take from her. She became the monster. Self-loathing seeped into Abbee’s fury. The wave of tingles trembled. She was losing her advantage. It was now or never. Abbee pointed her arm toward the sound of Ramaro’s groans.
“Wait,” Ramaro croaked. “What’s—”
Abbee imagined shooting him. Clack-clack-clack. Ramaro’s question ended in a gurgle. Dren swore again. Abbee turned toward the sound. Clack-clack-clack. Fresh pain ripped through Abbee’s left hand, and she screamed.
Nobody was touching her anymore. She couldn’t hear anything except her gasps in her own ears. Abbee remembered falling into the river. Ramaro and Dren must have pulled her out. She listened for sounds of them, or anyone, but all she heard was the river and the boat bumping against the pier.
Abbee put her hands down to sit up. Something scraped and tugged at her left hand. More pain lanced from her palm. Still blind, Abbee touched her hand and felt something—a stick with a sharp end. A bolt. She’d shot herself. The bolt had pierced the meaty part of her palm and had crunched through the bones at the base of her fingers. Moving hurt. Thinking about it hurt. Abbee had to get the bolt out. She couldn’t heal with that thing stuck through her.
She felt at the end poking out past her fingers. Enough to grab. She seized the end with her free hand, ignored how the point dug into her, and yanked on the bolt. Pain collapsed from a general whole-body fire to a single white-hot point. Abbee screamed, pulled, cried, and pulled. She felt the bolt slide through her flesh and scrape across bone and sinew. She felt everything.
The bolt came free. Abbee dropped it and collapsed onto her side. The hot pain vanished and was replaced by hurt. Everywhere.
Abbee lay there for several moments, gasping for air and clutching her ruined hand. She felt mote wisp from her wrists. In a few minutes, she’d be able to move her fingers again. She wished, an ever-present wish her whole life, that her gift deadened the pain of its healing. She wished it made the hurt go away. It never did. What was the point of healing from any injury if she had to feel the agony of her body stitching itself back together?
Abbee touched her own face. Her fingers stuck to her skin, and fresh pain licked at her hands and face. Fire. The torch. She’d been burned. She tried opening her eyes. One of them pried itself open. It stuck, like whenever she had a bad cold. Abbee blinked, and the other one popped open. Her vision was cloudy, and she could barely see.
She wanted to know how badly she’d been burned, but sort of not. It was a morbid curiosity. In a few minutes, she’d have new skin. Abbee felt at her head with her good hand. Felt her familiar short scruff. Her hair had somehow escaped the flames. At least she wouldn’t be walking around half-bald while her hair grew back. Her gift never touched her hair. My eyebrows. Abbee tried touching her face again and was rewarded with the sticky horror of burnt skin. She was sure her eyebrows were gone.
Abbee’s vision slowly returned to normal, and she surveyed the damage. Her trousers were ruined. She saw the new pink skin of her thighs and shins through several big holes. Her jerkin was scorched in places. It had several holes through the chest where she’d been shot with darts. The jerkin had fared much better than her trousers and had protected her upper body from the flames. Miraculously, her jobs case was still intact.
Abbee looked around. Five bodies lay still. Each had bolts sticking out of it, like a sparsely quilled porcupine. Abbee wondered why the repeating bolt throwers shot three bolts. Always three. She spotted a few bright red and blue stones lying on the pier. The loose gems Ramaro had stolen from her money pouch. Abbee climbed to her feet, her muscles screeching in protest. She picked up the gems and tried to slip them back into her pouch, only to find that it was gone. She looked and saw it lying on the pier next to Ramaro’s purple-clad body. She walked over and snatched up the pouch. Ramaro had cut the pouch’s strings. The leather was scorched but otherwise intact.
The thumb light and the silver ring were still inside. Her bills were soaked through. Abbee pulled them out and inspected the sodden paper. The ink had run, and she couldn’t tell which one was which. Abbee discarded the useless money. She shoved the pouch into her right front pocket and discovered the pocket was gone. Burned clean away. Her scorched smallclothes peeked through the hole. Her left pocket was still there, and she squeezed the money pouch into it. She worried about the stitches holding, but it would have to do for now.
Abbee had lost her left bracer at some point. It didn’t matter. She knew she’d never take off the repeating bolt thrower. It had saved her life here, and she’d need the extra edge to deal with all the people chasing her: constables, wizard hunters, and now the Murder Guild. She still had a hard time understanding why Ramaro had called them. Why not the constables? Why the guild?
Abbee rotated and flexed her left hand. No pain. She had a small pucker from where the bolt had pierced her palm, but that was fading too. If Abbee was going to wear the bolt thrower, she had to figure out a way to keep from shooting herself with it. She loosened the straps and repositioned it on the top of her forearm. Rotated her hand around and realized the change in position hadn’t helped. She’d shoot herself in the top of her hand as easily as the bottom. Maybe … Abbee pushed the bolt thrower to the outside of her arm. Its stiff leather arm guard felt more comfortable there. She had to push her hand over as far as it would go for it to cross in front of the bolt hole. Abbee wondered if this was the proper way to wear the thing to minimize self-injury. Satisfied with the bolt thrower’s position, she tightened the straps on her arm.
Abbee felt at her face again. Her eyebrows were gone.
She searched the guilders first. Capturing people wasn’t something guilders usually did, and from their chatter earlier, not normal for this squad. She didn’t find any notes or instructions. No indication as to why they’d tried to take her alive. Ramaro was dead, so Abbee couldn’t ask him either.
The mover’s coat looked like it would fit Abbee, and it didn’t have any holes in it. She pulled it off and tried it on. It fit. And a bonus—it didn’t have any blood on it either. The coat even had two pockets sewn on the inside, up high, so anything she put in them wouldn’t swing. Abbee moved her damaged money pouch and felt better about its new position. The coat’s sleeve was big enough to cover the repeating bolt thrower. The hood had the guilder’s mask sewn into it in a clever way that allowed the wearer to unbutton the top and expose their face. Abbee tried the mask. The mesh around the eyes was thin, but Abbee still didn’t like how it obscured her vision, so she left the mask off.
Abbee eyeballed the woman’s build. She looked about Abbee’s size. A few moments later, Abbee had on a new pair of trousers. Given how much material she’d stuffed into her boots, she’d need to hem them at some point. But they hardly had any holes and had somehow escaped the mover’s blood.
Searching the bodies on the pier produced twelve knives, three short swords, and three quivers of crossbow bolts. Each quiver had compartments, and Abbee identified several different types of bolts. Some bladed, some simple points. Some bolts had dark paste on the heads. Poison, most likely. A few bolts had holes cut into the shafts so they’d whistle when released. A signal, perhaps, or maybe for a distraction. The crossbow was a versatile tool for the Murder Guild.
Abbee left the weapons and took all their money. She didn’t have enough room for it all in her pouch. She took a second pouch and tied it to her belt. Found another and replaced her damaged money pouch. Once she had everything settled, she bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. Good. I don’t jingle.
The door cracked open. Abbee was in the middle of the pier, and the door was opening faster than she could jump into the river. She tensed and brought her arm up. They weren’t taking her alive. They weren’t taking her at all. The door opened partway and stopped. Abbee couldn’t see who it was from her angle.
“Ramaro?” Mims asked. “You there?”
“He isn’t,” Abbee said. “Come out slow, with your hands in the clear. You alone?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Come out now, Mims,” Abbee ordered.
“Okay, okay. I only came down because Ramaro didn’t come back upstairs.” The door opened all the way, and Mims stepped out onto the pier. She was alone. She had her hands out. Her eyes widened as she took in the scene. Abbee standing with five bodies arrayed around her. One of them didn’t have any trousers on. Mims’s face turned pale. “What—”
“Did you know?” Abbee demanded.
Mims spotted Ramaro. “Is that … did you … is he dead?”
Abbee glanced at the purple-robed body with three bolts sticking out of its chest. “Very dead.”
“I think I’m gonna be—” Mims turned and vomited.
Abbee wished she hadn’t shot Ramaro. Well, she was happy she had shot him—he’d robbed her, after all. But she wished he hadn’t died. Abbee wanted to know why he’d called the guild and not the constables on her. The guild’s involvement was troubling. That they’d tried to capture her was even more disturbing. Abbee wanted to know who’d opened a capture contract with the guild. She hadn’t been aware that it was a service they even offered.
“Did you know?” Abbee repeated.
Mims looked up. “Did I …? Oh, there’s a lot of blood—” She retched again.
“Focus, Mims,” Abbee said. “When you were talking me up down here, did you know they were coming?”
Mims wiped her mouth. “I didn’t. Ramaro didn’t say anything, I swear. He just said to make sure you had everything you needed. I stayed because I was curious about you.” She looked at the other bodies. Grabbed her stomach and looked away. “I didn’t even see these three come in.” Glanced back. “Those masks … Wait, did you kill guilders? Three of them?” She stared at Abbee. “You don’t have a scratch on you.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Abbee didn’t tell Mims about the injuries she’d sustained. Half the stories about her came from people like Mims, who showed up after Abbee was done healing. When word spread that she’d killed assassins from the Murder Guild without sustaining a single cut, others would keep a wide berth. It wouldn’t help with the constables, or the Murder Guild, but those lower on the totem pole might avoid tangling with her. Abbee had a reputation for surviving fights unscathed. She preferred to avoid them altogether.
“We’re taking the boat out,” Abbee said. “I’m not waiting for dark.”
Mims looked at the river and back at Abbee. “If I do that, you’ll kill me.”
“I won’t. Get in the boat.”
“We’ll get outside the city, and you’ll kill me.”
“Three guilders,” Abbee said. She gestured at the bodies. “That one was a mover. This one here was a torch. I’m standing and they’re not. You want to find out if a spout will fare any better? Look, I promise nothing bad will happen to you. You take me down the river and drop me off outside the city. I’ll leave, and if you’re lucky, you’ll never see me again. Who knows, Mims? Maybe you can come back here and take over the den. Run it how you want.”
Mims looked at Ramaro. Her lip curled when she glanced at Dren. Her gaze swept over the bodies and back to Abbee. Her face was still pale, but her expression turned calculating. “What guarantees do I have that you’ll let me go?”
“None,” Abbee said. “But I’ve got a reputation, right? You telling people I beat three guilders is good for me. Makes me sound dangerous.”
“You don’t need my help with that,” Mims said. “You’re the Butcher. Everybody knows that you’re dangerous.”
“Yet here you are, arguing with me.”
Mims eyed the door. “I have to tell Bobo. If he comes down here, he might panic.”
“No,” Abbee said. “You can tell him when you come back. We leave now. You want a guarantee? I guarantee you can’t run a draat den if there are six bodies on this pier instead of five. Get in the boat, Mims.”
Mims got in the boat. Abbee untied the lines and pushed off the pier, hopping over the rail and onto the deck. Mims strapped herself into the aft chair. The chair faced port, so she could see where they were going but keep her left arm dangling off the back. Mims put her hand in the water. Abbee couldn’t see from her position, but she knew Mims was pushing water from her palm into the river. Her hand both generated thrust and acted like a rudder. The boat moved away from the pier. Abbee raised her hood as they emerged from the tunnel into daylight. It was warm, and the sun was hot on her coat, but the breeze coming off the river kept her from sweating.
Mims kept them out of the shipping lanes and other water traffic. They passed under the first bridge. Abbee spotted a constable on the next one, recognizing the dark blue and the distinctive cap. She walked to the opposite side of the boat and looked across the river, both to face away from the constable and to keep an eye on Mims. She didn’t need her pilot alerting the constable. Mims looked up as they approached the bridge. She smiled and waved.
Abbee tensed. “What are you doing?”
“Relax,” Mims said. “That’s Clara. The constable cousin I told you about? That’s her. She’s good. Doesn’t give me any hassle for working in a draat den, and honestly, she’d be excited to meet you. Look, she’d be suspicious if I didn’t wave.”
They passed beneath the bridge. Abbee glanced up when the boat came out the other side. She didn’t see any constables.
Mims looked up when the sun hit her face. “See? Nothing to worry about.”
“You’re not the one with people chasing you,” Abbee said.
“Speaking of which,” Mims said, “what am I supposed to tell the guild when they come looking for the ones they sent? They’ll know I helped you.”
“Tell them the truth,” Abbee said. “I didn’t give you a choice. They won’t hold that against you. The guild tends to be pragmatic about leverage.”
Mims frowned. “How do you know?”
“Fear is a tool, and the guild knows how it works.”
Abbee looked out across the water. They were even with Glass Island, where the city’s glassblowers lived and worked. A half-dozen buildings perched on the rocky top. Black smoke chugged out of three chimneys in the middle. The structures beneath the chimneys looked recent. The glassblowers routinely burned down their own forges. They used to burn down themselves and everyone around them until the wizards had gotten fed up with it and made them an island. It had been decades since anyone had seen a wizard in Akken. While it was easy to forget that they’d been dangerous, one look at the rock pile in the middle of the Charrin reminded Abbee of their power. They’d made an island.
Glass Island slipped behind them. One more bridge, a long, winding stretch of river, and they’d be at the city wall. Fewer boats on this part of the river. Shipping via river into Akken wasn’t a viable enterprise. Violent rapids south of the city and the established continental train routes made river barges irrelevant. Boats on the river were pleasure craft or small cargo boats supplying Glass Island.
The boat slowed. Abbee saw that Mims had pulled her hand out of the water. “Hey.”
“I’m taking a break,” Mims said. “Sustained thrust is tiring.”
“Take a break when I’m off the boat,” Abbee said.
Mims shook her head. “If someone tries to intercept us, you’ll be sorry if I don’t have the energy to get away because you didn’t let me take a break. Relax. We’re still moving south.”
Abbee looked around. “It’s clear now. Let’s go.”
Mims pointed with her chin at a building poking out into the river, a couple of hundred meters downstream on the North Bend side. A plain stone structure, three stories tall, with a flat roof. “That’s a satellite precinct. Just went up last week. They’ve not been advertising it, but we noticed. There’s a pier tucked in off the side. If they put in the water, you’re going to want me rested. They’ll have spouts too.”
Abbee kept abreast of what the constables were doing, and she’d had no idea about the satellite precinct. She thought about the prospect of tangling with a boatload of constables out on the water. “You’re telling me this now?”
“They’ve not been interested in any river traffic so far. We’ve seen them at the water grates over the past couple months, but not during the day. I think the constables are patrolling at night. Either way, they’re not there for us, so I think we’re okay.” Mims stretched. “But you’re gonna want me ready just in case.”
Abbee couldn’t argue with Mims’s logic, but she still didn’t like it. The current was slow here, and she could barely tell that they were even moving. Abbee wanted to be moving. “How long do you need?”
“Not long. Gimme a few minutes, and we’ll be underway again.” Mims reached into a leather bag hanging from a hook next to her chair.
Abbee tensed until Mims came up with a cloth-wrapped loaf of dark bread. Abbee’s stomach growled, reminding her of all the work her gift had done keeping her alive back on the basement pier. “You got another one of those?”
“No, but I’m not eating this entire thing.” Mims tore the loaf apart and handed one half to Abbee. She peered into the satchel. “Looks like I got some cheese in here, but I can’t remember when … Yeah, this is from last week, and it’s got mold on it.” She tossed it overboard.
“The bread is fine, thank you.”
It was dry, and Abbee remembered the cask of water under the prow. The bread went down better with a cup of water. She turned around to see Mims with one finger in her mouth. Abbee realized the other woman was drinking.
Mims noticed Abbee staring and grinned around her finger. She finished. “I usually do this by myself. We do it all the time, though. Spouts, I mean.”
“It’s not something I see often,” Abbee said. “I guess you never have to worry about running out of water.”
“Only in a desert.”
“Really? I thought spouts found water even in the driest desert.”
“Sure, if there’s an underground aquifer or river or something.” Mims stretched and put her hand back in the water. The boat lurched forward. “I’m not creating water out of nothing when I do this, you know. I’m pulling it from all around. The river, of course, but the air too. In a desert, though, there’s hardly any moisture in the air, and none in the ground.”
“I had no idea,” Abbee admitted.
“Most people have no idea how it works,” Mims said.
They passed under the last bridge. Abbee watched the railings. Less traffic on this bridge than on the others, and no curious onlookers. Abbee felt a surge of relief when they reached open air again. They’d passed the satellite precinct too. No constables on skiffs had come out to pursue them, but their pier had been in shadow. Abbee couldn’t tell if the skiffs were docked or not. She kept an eye on the river traffic ahead. She noticed several docks on the River District side, poking out into the river like stubby fingers. A few small boats bobbed at their tethers. At the end of one of the docks sat an old man with scraggly white hair and a fishing rod. His head drooped and lolled as he unsuccessfully fought off a nap. Abbee wished her life were quiet enough to sit on a dock and pretend to fish. Nap in the morning sun.
She smiled and turned away, looking south. The outer wall reared up behind a collection of buildings crammed up against the riverbank. Abbee couldn’t see the grates from here, where the river used to have two golems standing in it like twin figureheads on a ship’s prow. Abbee remembered the two alcoves that used to be there. The bottom half of each had had a big grate impeding the passage of everything but the river. Both golems had kept their posts during Towerfall. Other golems had stopped in the river, but these two had already been standing in it. The golems and their alcoves were removed during reconstruction. The big grates remained.
What also remained was the impressions in the riverbed from the golem feet. Someone had noticed the river golems standing a couple of meters shorter than their siblings and had gone down to investigate. The river had eroded gaps under the wall grates behind the golems. Before Towerfall, the gaps had been less than a meter between the grate and the golem’s ankles. Today, without golems blocking the way, the gaps were as big as barn doors.
Moving things under the gaps was a niche operation. Akken was open during the day without inspections, with only nightfall having constables on gate duty and tighter observation. Nobody checked the massive amount of goods flowing in and out via the train yards. Abbee’s problem was being seen. Getting to the train yards required crossing three districts. Covered carriages were an option, but constables stopped and checked them when looking for people. Hiding among a wagon’s cargo carried the same risk. The gates had a constable presence. They might not stop everybody, but they were there, watching, and if they were telepaths, there was no hiding from them.
If you were an inert good, the gates or the train yards were easier and cheaper. Smuggling weapons under foodstuffs was a time-honored tradition. If you were a person of interest to anyone of means in Akken, however, the river grates were an option. If you could hold your breath and didn’t mind getting wet. Abbee wondered if she might make it out of the city without further problems. She didn’t get her hopes up. Akken had a habit of kicking people when they were down.
“Uh-oh,” Mims said. She grimaced and pulled her hand out of the water again. “We got trouble.”
Abbee looked. They’d turned the last bend, and she had a clear view. About a hundred meters away, in front of the water grates that separated Abbee from open ground outside the walls, were two skiffs. Four constables on one, two on the other. They’d dropped anchor in front of the water grates. Most of the constables faced the grates, but one fellow faced upstream. His badge glittered in the midday sun.
Abbee lit off a string of curses. This city. Kicking people when they’re down. “Put us to shore on the River District side.”
“They must be filling in the gaps under the grates,” Mims said. “I bet they’ve got a rockbreaker with them. A strong mover would work, but doesn’t look like they’ve got a barge of dirt with them.”
They were still drifting toward the constables. Abbee turned and shouted, “Mims! River District, now!”
Mims put her hand back in the water. Their boat turned toward the left bank. Abbee watched the one constable watching them. She was too far away to recognize him, but close enough to see his head track Ramaro’s boat. The constable said something over his shoulder. Now two constables were looking at her. No, three. Four.
“Hurry, Mims.”
“If I go any faster, it’ll look like we’re running. Wave at them.”
“What?”
“Wave. Everybody waves on the river. It’s the neighborly thing to do.”
Abbee snorted. “I’m not waving at a bunch of constables.”
Mims waved with her free hand. The constables didn’t wave back. Abbee watched the four-constable boat have a conversation with the two-constable boat. She didn’t like where this was going.
“I hope you can climb sheer walls,” Mims said.
“What?”
Mims gestured with her free hand at the eastern riverbank. Abbee looked. The River District was built several meters higher than the river. A thick stone wall served as the riverbank, where houses lined the river instead of commercial buildings. Abbee counted two small boats tied to piers on this side, and the piers were all down near the constables.
“I’m a good climber,” Abbee said, “but not that good. Turn around.”
“It’s going to look like we’re running,” Mims said.
Abbee glanced back at the constables. The boat with four turned around to face upriver. A big spray of water shot up behind them. Their bow leaped out of the water.
“Run, Mims!” Abbee shouted.
“Brace yourself!”
The boat lurched under Abbee’s feet, and their bow rose so high she thought they would flip over backward. She tipped aft and fell into one of the bag chairs. The water cask dropped off its cabinet in the prow and landed in the bag chair next to her with a heavy thump. Abbee had a split second to feel lucky that it hadn’t hit her, before she was pelted by all the cups.
Their bow dropped back into the water. Abbee squinted against the sudden wind in her face. She saw a thick churn of white water ripple backward from their boat. Mims was holding on to her chair so hard the knuckles on her right hand were white. Her left arm looked like it was trying to push its way up out of its socket.
“This hurts without a harness,” Mims complained. “The thrill of a fast boat is wasted on draat smokers.”
Abbee picked cups off her lap. She spied the constables’ boat behind them. “Go faster. I think they’re gaining on us.”
Mims shook her head. “If I go any faster, I’ll break my arm. Besides, their skiffs turn better than this scow. They’ll catch us in the second bend in the river, before Glass Island. I’m sorry, but we’re not going to make it back to the den before they catch us.”
Abbee spotted the docks on the River District side. The old fisherman was gone. She pointed. “Drop me there.”
The bow shifted in that direction. Abbee thought about where they were and started formulating routes away from the dock. She hadn’t been on this side of the city often and couldn’t picture all the little side streets and alleys. The Geometric Gardens were over here somewhere. Two streets over? Three? Abbee couldn’t remember. She’d find out when she got there.
Mims aimed straight at the dock. She wasn’t slowing down. Abbee watched the dock get closer at an alarming rate. “Hey! What are you—”
Mims whipped the bow around at the last moment. All the bag chairs and the cask and Abbee slid across the deck and hit the railing. Their wake rolled into them, and the boat bumped up against the dock.
Mims let out a small whoop. “Hey, I still got it.” She looked down at Abbee lying on her back. “We’re here. I’d get out if I were you.”
Abbee scrambled to her feet. The constables were fifty meters away and closing. But slowing down. They didn’t look like they were going to replicate Mims’s braking maneuver. Abbee hopped over the railing onto the dock. It wasn’t anchored to the riverbed and wobbled.
“When they catch you,” Abbee said, “tell them I threatened you.”
Mims snorted. “You did. I was going to say that already.”
“Good luck with the den.”
“Don’t act like you did me any favors. We’re even now. You didn’t kill me, and I helped you escape. All even,” Mims said. “And don’t come back. Whatever deal you had with Ramaro, it ended with him.”
“Oh, so you don’t want to know what happened with Ramaro and the goats?”
Mims’s eyes widened. “Wait, you know about that? What—”
“You stop right there!” a constable shouted across the water. They were close enough for Abbee to make out their faces. Close enough for a mover to grab her, but none did. She recognized Clint Barrow in the bow, who’d arrested Abbee a few months back for no good reason other than he was trying to get promoted to sergeant. From the look of things, he was still a corporal and getting undesirable jobs, like filling in riverbeds.
Abbee made a rude gesture in his direction. She grinned at Mims. “Maybe I’ll tell you about the goats next time I see you, but I gotta run.”