Accidental saint? The phrase ricocheted around Ravi's skull. He had been called many things in his life—lazy, disappointing, pathetic—but saint was a new, terrifying addition to the list. A saint was a target, a symbol. Saints were expected to perform miracles on command.
He needed to shut this down. Now.
He pushed himself to his feet, deliberately stumbling for effect, and held up his hands in a posture of frantic denial. "I don't know what you're talking about," he stammered, his voice laced with the genuine panic he was feeling. "I tripped! I was running, I tripped, that's all. It was an accident."
The girl—Lyssara, if the guards were to be believed—took another step closer. Her fierce eyes weren't buying it. They were sharp, analytical, like a predator sizing up strange new prey. "An accident?" she repeated, her voice low and steady. "One man breaks his arm against you. Another crumples his own helmet with his skull. You call that an accident? I call that causality bending to keep you safe."
Ravi flinched at her words. Causality bending. It was frighteningly close to the truth, just dressed up in the language of this world.
He shook his head, forcing a wild, terrified look into his eyes. "Look, I don't know about causality or saints or jinxes! Those guards were going to kill you, and then me! We have to go, now!" He looked around wildly, cementing his performance as a man at the end of his rope. "They have more men. They'll be here any second."
This, at least, seemed to snap her out of her analytical trance. The sound of a distant whistle confirmed his warning. The other guards were organizing, searching. Her expression hardened with a grudging pragmatism.
"This way," she commanded, her voice all business. She turned and slipped into a narrow fissure between two collapsed buildings, moving with a silent, practiced grace. "Stay close. And try not to 'trip' on anyone else. I'm not sure the city can take it."
Ravi scrambled after her, the dry wit in her parting shot unnerving him more than any open accusation. This girl was smart. Dangerously so. She might not know what he was, but she knew he was something.
She led him through a disorienting maze of back alleys and shattered courtyards, a path that was invisible until they were on it. She moved with purpose, her head on a constant swivel, her ears attuned to the slightest sound. Ravi just focused on putting one foot in front of the other, his body still humming with the phantom impacts it had so effortlessly negated. He was a weapon that didn't know how to aim, piloted by a coward who didn't want to fire. Lyssara, it seemed, was the navigator.
They finally stopped in the cellar of what might have been a grand house. The air was cool and smelled of damp earth and old wine. A single shaft of dusty light pierced the gloom from a crack in the ceiling high above.
"We'll be safe here for a little while," Lyssara said, her breathing only slightly elevated. She leaned against a stone wall, her gaze never leaving him. "The Watch patrols have a pattern. We have until the next shift change."
Ravi slid down the opposite wall, pulling his knees to his chest. Safety was a foreign concept. He felt like an actor on a strange stage, waiting for his next cue.
"You're not from here," Lyssara stated. It wasn't a question.
"Is it that obvious?" he replied, trying for a bitter, sarcastic tone.
"You look lost in your own skin," she said, her voice softening slightly. "And your clothes… they have no maker's mark I recognize. You just… appeared. In the executioner's circle. Right before the lightning, with no thunder."
Ravi said nothing. Denial was pointless.
She watched him for a long, calculating moment. He felt like a puzzle she was methodically trying to solve. Finally, she seemed to reach a conclusion.
"It doesn't matter where you're from," she decided, pushing herself off the wall. "You saved me. Intentionally or not, you did. I owe you a debt." She untied the small leather pouch from her belt. "And by saving me, you've put yourself in the Warden's crosshairs."
She worked the knot with deft fingers and opened the pouch, carefully sliding out a small, rolled-up piece of vellum. It was old, the edges worn smooth, and it was covered in intricate, swirling silver script that seemed to shift in the dim light. It hummed with a faint energy that made the hairs on Ravi's arm stand on end.
"They weren't just after me for being a Scribe's daughter," she explained, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "They were after this."
She held it out for him to see. "Most people think this is a deed to a ruined family estate. Worthless. The Warden knows the truth."
Ravi looked from the strange, shimmering script to her intense, waiting eyes. "What is the truth?"
A flicker of something—a grim satisfaction, a desperate hope—danced in her gaze.
"This isn't a deed," Lyssara said, her voice barely audible. "It's a key. A map. To the one place in this gods-forsaken city the Warden and his masters haven't been able to crack open."
She rolled the vellum back up, the silver script winking out of existence.
"It's the only way into the Nethervault."