32. Scarlet ribbons in mud

Ada's shout pitched across the cobblestones, rolling over and over Min's wheeling feet as she sprinted down the alleyway. The Hound's boots quickened too, his eyes widening as the girl disappeared, leaving only Ada by the steps.

He ground out something else, but the Hound's words were minced by the metal mask bound across his mouth. His clothes looked long and heavy on his narrow frame, and while Ada doubted she would stand even the slightest chance of overpowering him, she thought she might be able to outrun him.

She could still hear Min's feet pattering down the alley, but the Hound's strides were closing the distance faster than Min's could sweep her to safety. If he spared a moment to turn his head at the intersection of pathways, he would spot the girl easily.

Ada's heart was a drumbeat against her ribcage. She felt her chest rise and fall in time, heavy velvet hindering her breaths and a sharp point digging into her waist. A light flickered on the shores of her mind, and with trembling fingers, she pulled her hood low over her face. At the same time, she loosened the cord at her collar and let the cloak fall open.

The Hound's eyes centred on the calendula jutting out from Ada's inside pocket, and he let out another guttural shout. It was all she needed. As Ada whirled around and started taking the steps in great leaps, the Hound's footfalls broke into a charge.

Ada crested the stone steps and stared down an alleyway that looked identical to the two she had left behind. Apart from an overhead box of petunias, nothing about the pale brick walls nor worn-down cobbles marked her position in the city's stone labyrinth.

The Hound had reached the stairs, and with each step, it sounded as though the rock was cracking beneath him. Ada took off once again, though her feet faltered as the alley began to branch out into tapering passages. There didn't seem to be any sense in the pathways, as though the streets had been knitted together in a mismatch of mayhem.

As the thought crossed Ada's mind, a strand of pink spliced her vision on the opposite wall. It was so pale that Ada was not certain she had truly seen it, but as she hurried closer she found a sticky line was painted onto the stonework. It wound back the way she had come, while also threading further down an alley to her right.

The sunlight shifted between the clouds overhead and illuminated the line with a dulled shimmer. With a pound of her heart and a jolt of her feet, Ada realised it was the trail of currant juice that Min had smeared along the walls, though it had faded in the sunlight to a ghost of its former shade. It now looked like no more than a path left by a snail; sunk into mortar and soon to be washed away by the rain.

Ada was certain Min hadn't chosen the disappearing juice accidentally. Praises for the child's sharp mind began to ricochet around her head as she entered another passage, so tight that the hem of Ada's cloak whipped against the houses on either side of her as she ran.

When she turned out from a blind alleyway, she caught sight of the compass' pavilion rising up ahead, and each fall of her feet felt lighter than air. Ada was no longer looking out for Min's trail as she raced down the final stretch towards the underground tunnel and dove into the darkness with the wings of a swallow and the heartbeat of a hummingbird.

Ada's feet only slid to a stop when she reached the muddy bank and took in the scene before her. Most of the women had left, though Solen and Diane remained close beneath the pier. Bands of shadow cut across their faces as Diane handed over a coin of gold.

The women startled away from one another at Ada's entrance, Solen's hand fisting around the coin and thrusting it under her bandolier. They both settled at the sight of her, though a bonfire began to build within Solen's eyes that was so unlike the smouldering flame that usually slumbered within them.

"Stars above, Ada!" she cried. "Where the hell did you go? Do you have any idea what Raeph would have done to me if you'd just vanished?"

Ada's absence had been noted, then, and she felt the hot licks of guilt begin to brandish her skin as Solen stormed on about the dangers that lurked within the city's barbarous backstreets. Ada hardly needed the warnings, and she could almost hear the Hound's chains chime closer as she rushed towards the women.

"I'm sorry, I really am, but listen," Ada cut off, "there's a man following me. A Hound. I don't think that I lost him, he might still be coming."

Solen instantly paled, the blood retreating from her face as Diane's hand shot out to grasp her forearm. Whether it was to steady herself or Solen, Ada couldn't tell.

After a shuddering breath, Solen said, "Then we need to leave here. Right now."

The air was suddenly lined with tulle as Diane swirled around, gathering up her belongings and then prowling towards the tunnel entrance. She peered around the edge, careful to keep her skirts bundled into one hand and her hair trapped by the other.

She fell back to Solen and Ada as softly as a petal on a breeze and murmured, "There's a figure by the compass. Not moving, maybe waiting."

Solen only nodded, pointing at the algae-glazed wall that lined the embankment. It climbed far higher than the bandit's vegetable partition, looming up to the pier with scarcely any footholds. Solen didn't seem phased though, cupping her hands together so that she could boost Diane up by her boots. With the extra height, Diane easily grasped onto the top of the wall and tugged herself up with such grace that Ada didn't spot a single thread snag from her gown.

Next, Solen turned to Ada, offering a thatch of fingers and reassuring her, "Don't worry. I'll be right behind you."

As if to argue against her, the chiming of chains came echoing down the tunnel, and the sound cut through Ada's senses before being rushed away by the canal. Balancing her left boot in Solen's palm, Ada hefted herself up, fingernails scrabbling against rock but coming up short.

Two hands caught her own, with skin so silken it seemed their fingers might slip from Ada's grasp. But then her body was being pulled up, lifted from Solen into the hold of Diane. Ada struggled onto the pier, though splinters snatched at her arms and the air smelt musty with wood rot.

Diane was already peering over the edge and calling down to Solen, but only a curse floated up in reply. There was the muffled sound of mud sucking at boot soles before Solen hissed up, "I only picked up one of my knives, I can't let him have the other."

"Damn the knife. Get up here," Diane replied.

"You need to leave, Diane. You can't be found by them. Not here, not with me," Solen whispered back, her voice now no more than a murmur as she stole back towards the canal.

Diane's fingers had turned lace-white as they gripped the pier's slats, as though she were wearing a dainty pair of crocheted gloves spotted with mud. Ada placed a hand upon her shoulder, trying to keep her voice steady as she said, "You go. I'll stay for Solen." Diane's eyes were haunted when she turned to stare at her, pink lips thin as Ada added, "I promise."

Diane held their gaze for a moment longer, then, with a whirlwind of flaxen hair, she was up and sprinting into the city. After Diane was gone, Ada waited, completely silent apart from the surging of blood through her ears. The sun slanted down across the pier, and from the corner of her eye, she saw a glimmer, like the catching of light upon metal.

"Solen," she hissed, waiting for a reply before repeating it again.

There was a beat of silence, then another.

"I'm here," Solen whispered from below.

There was a clatter, a huff, then a jostling of limbs as Solen propelled herself up the stone wall. The toes of her boots seemed to find holes that didn't exist, and her hands had almost cleared the wall, reaching and clutching.

But then a leather glove clamped down on the base of her vest and dragged Solen's body back into the mud. Her bare arms scraped across the stone, and cries of pain bounced up the wall as Solen's skin was ripped open through her muddle of scars.

"Run!" Solen shouted up, but Ada had heard that same cry from her own mouth once already today, and wasn't about to leave another friend on their own.

"No." Ada thrust her torso over the pier and stretched her hands down as far as she could manage.

She caught sight of the ruffled form of Solen, crouched at the wall's base with a hand fisted into her short hair. The Hound towered over her, and when his gaze met Ada's he growled through his metal mask, "You—"

But he didn't get to finish his sentence, because at the moment his attention shifted, Solen twisted her body and pistoned her boot up and into his face. She hit him squarely in the metal mesh, and its rim sliced into his flesh while blood began to gush from his nose.

Solen threw her body at the wall, scrabbling up with desperate hands crusted red. Her fingers didn't reach the top, falling short by a few inches, but it didn't matter as Ada grasped her wrists and heaved the woman up with every flicker of strength she could ignite within her. They fell back onto the pier, panting past their breathless lungs as the seconds ticked by.

Solen hissed when she straightened and saw the gashes running down her forearms. She flexed her fingers slowly as she crawled to the wall, and then stiffened. Ada inched to her side, staring down at the embankment as a gasp billowed past her lips.

The Hound was gone, and all that remained was a streak of blood, splattered through the mud like a lacing of scarlet ribbon.