I climb out of our room hours later, all too aware this might be the last time I see it. That Gaxna won’t see it again, if I fail. That I might lose the person I love most in the world.

  I’d rather die—but I’m not going to let either one happen.

  The sun is just an orange line on the horizon, slightly bumpy with the hills of Bamani across the strait. The Blackwater is quiet at this hour, but I take the rooftops anyway. At this point, the climbing and sliding and balancing rooftop dance is more familiar than walking the streets. And there are still the overseers out to kill me.

  I see none of them below, but I do notice a few faces turning to watch me as I look down, which is odd. People usually ignore the rooftops.

  Then they start climbing.

  Not fast, not well, but ordinary people in the street start climbing the buildings toward the roof I’m on. I leap to the next, using my staff for an extra push, and they all climb down, moving to the next building.

  Ice slides down my spine: bloodborn.

  It can’t be coincidence that I just left the Theracant’s Guild, that I just struck a deal with the most powerful women there. Word has surely spread. Is one of the witches upset about that? Or is Regiana angry that I left without permission and is sending bloodborn to bring me back?

  I balance along a steepled roof, one bloodborn who actually made the top running after me. He loses his balance without a cry, and I wince at the crash when he hits the street.

  “I’m coming back!” I yell to the bloodborn beginning to climb below me, in case Regiana is doing it.

  “Calm down, I just had to check on some things! I’m not going to break our deal!” I don’t know if the theracant can hear me or not, but it’s worth trying.

  They keep climbing.

  I curse and keep running. The ones climbing behind me aren’t much of a threat—they don’t have a thief’s climbing skills, nor does the woman controlling them likely have any knowledge of the rooftops, whereas I know all the best routes by now.

  Still, they start to appear on the roofs ahead of me, their controller guessing where I am heading next. I curse, ducking around the awkward grab of a middle-aged woman who is waiting, wide-eyed, at the end of a long dockhouse.

  “What do you want?” I shout at her, hoping her controller will hear. “To drag me in? I’m coming already! Lay off!”

  They don’t. If anything, the bloodborn get thicker, crawling up walls on all sides, until I’m facing them no matter which route I take, and I have to start rerouting around buildings where they cluster. I don’t want to hurt these people, don’t want to attack them, but I swear they’re trying to stop me from getting to the theracant palace, not bring me there.

  Who would want that? Miyara? Estrija?

  Or whoever controls Arayim?

  I run harder, risk longer jumps, take a zagging route up the city slope rather than across it, trying to shake them off.

  They only come on stronger. It’s either a senior theracant who’s doing this, to be able to control so many, or a whole team of them working together, so it can’t be Arayim’s controller. Unless Regiana managed to hide her knowledge of him when I read her. Nerimes could do that. Maybe Regiana is one of the enemies my dad mentioned in his letter, who have powers they shouldn’t.

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  I ice the fear that comes up. I am not in true danger here. It doesn’t matter how many they throw against me, I will be able to outrun them.

  Then a shaved head pushes through the line of bloodborn ahead. Flowing robes. Oakwood staff.

  An overseer. With the wide eyes of a bloodborn.

  An overseer? How did they get an overseer’s blood?

  No time to wonder. I spin, taking an opposite route. I have no illusions I can defeat him like I did the overseer in the warehouse. There is no water here, and my skill is no match for his strength. I leap a wide alley, then run downhill along a wide, shingled roof.

  The man follows, eyes wide but steps as sure as any thief. Gaxna said a bloodborn is only as skilled as its host body, but the theracant can push it to do things it would never choose on its own. That’s a dangerous combination in an overseer.

  I slide down a steep tiled roof, use the momentum at the bottom to leapfrog across a precarious line of shanty poles, and roll to the other roof panting.

  I look back and curse. The overseer follows just as quickly, actually pulling out his staff as he leaps the poles. Uje. Guess there is no question what his controller intends now. They don’t just want to stop me from getting to the guild palace. They want to stop me, period.

  Which makes my decisions a lot easier. Whatever they don’t want, I do. I wait till the overseer is midair, then leap low toward the poles again, grabbing the nearest one and sliding down to a lower roof. I beeline for Old Serei, for the theracants’ palace. See if they’ll walk a bloodborn overseer into their own guildhall.

  The overseer follows, of course, and there are regular bloodborn to deal with, but I start using my staff, knocking people and weapons aside, taking the fastest route I can think of toward the old part of town. The overseer gains on me, and I remember one thing I have that he doesn’t: Gaxna’s rope.

  I unspool it as I run, grateful it still has the climbing hook from the warehouse job, and start swinging. A few bloodborn get in the way, but I manage a long throw onto the roof of the Cobblers’ Guildhouse. The hook catches and I climb like mad, pulling the rope up behind me. The overseer gets to the bottom and leaps at me, but I’m already too high, and he can’t climb the polished wall. The overseer stares blankly with those wide eyes for a second and I grin, imagining his controller cursing. I give them the rudest gesture I know. The overseer sprints away.

  This is better. There are three paths off this roof, and they cannot guess which one I will take.

  The overseer is nearly to the top of the leftmost one when I scale the guildhouse, so I take the rightmost, regular bloodborn completely left behind. This becomes our dance for the rest of the city—the overseer closing on me with speed and strength, me staying ahead with skill and thief’s rope.

  Until we get to Old Serei. The roofs are too wide and irregular here to keep using them. I stretch it out as long as I can, running the narrow width of a stone wall around some merchant’s teakwood mansion, then drop to the street and sprint.

  The overseer is after me three breaths later, and it’s an all-out race to the guildhouse. I pour on the speed, throwing whatever clothes and tools I can strip from my body backwards to slow the man, but it will make little difference. All is the running now.

  The palace appears around a curve in the road, rose-gold beehive rising from the latticework walls, cupolas catching the first rays of morning. The breath roars in my lungs. I never thought I’d be so glad to see anything, let alone the Theracant’s Guild. Another five hundred paces—three hundred—

  Stars flash and I fall, momentum tumbling me across the marble flagstones. I spin, raising my staff in time to block a blow that would have cracked my skull. The force of it drives me back to the stones. My head spins, but I kick at his legs and lurch up, mounting a desperate defense.

  He’s so strong. And fast. And there’s no water here to read him, or to push my thoughts into him like I did with the last one. I’m done. I know it even before the overseer slams me into a granite wall, thick hand closing like a noose around my neck, wide blank eyes staring through me. I kick at him, claw, try Feather Shifts the River Course, but it makes no difference.

  In desperation I seek his thoughts, but they are as blank as his eyes. I scream in frustration and fear, but it comes out a mewl, my throat crushing, my lungs hitching. How ironic, I think as the world dims. To be killed by one of the men I was trying to protect.