Free The Smoke-Scented Girl by Melissa McShane Page A

faster than the others. She was in such a hurry that she
pushed the others aside and proceeded at a near run across the
street, not waiting for the sweeper.
    It was her.
    Evon broke into a faster pace himself, no
longer afraid of Odelia’s unseen, possibly non-existent watchers.
The woman was moving so quickly that he feared losing her in the
crowd. Though she was frequently obscured by other, taller
pedestrians, her dingy white kerchief stood out and gave him
something to follow. He had to do a little shoving himself to keep
her in sight, but soon he found a pace that matched hers and was
able to stay about fifteen feet behind her, a comfortable distance.
His heart was pounding. Where was she going in such a hurry?
Suppose she’d found a new victim? Would he be able to stop her?
Would he want to stop her?
    The woman didn’t notice him following her,
didn’t seem concerned that anyone might be following her, just kept
walking rapidly without looking to left or right, out of the
central district. They passed stores with barred windows, tall
houses narrower than Evon’s own, mansions that made Evon nervous,
aware of his scruffiness and afraid the local constabulary might
roust him for a vagrant. He continued to follow her through the
wealthier parts of Inveros and into less prosperous but still
attractive neighborhoods, all the while heading toward the
outskirts of town. The farther they went, the thinner the crowds
became, until Evon was certain she would notice him simply because
they were the only two people on the street. He slowed his pace,
but she still didn’t seem aware of his presence. They passed
through neighborhoods that became plainer and more worn until they
reached a place where wooden houses blasted gray by the airborne
sand and salt leaned against one another, some so visibly canted
that Evon expected to see them tip over at the next gust of wind.
They were close enough to hear the ocean but not see it, and the
air tasted briny and smelled of seagull. The street, which
terminated in scrub grass and sand dunes, was empty except for the
two of them.
    The woman dropped her bag in the street and
began to run toward one of the houses near the end of the row.
Without thinking, Evon ran after her. She was almost certainly
going to kill whoever was in that house, and now that the moment
had come, Evon realized that he couldn’t allow someone, even
someone evil, to die in that inferno. “Wait!” he shouted, again
without thinking, and the woman slowed her steps and turned to face
him. Her face was unexpectedly lovely, even twisted with rage as it
was now.
    “Go back!” she shouted. “You’re not the one
I’m here for!” She had the slightly broad vowels of a northerner
and sounded as if she were pleading with him rather than commanding
him.
    “I can’t let you do this,” Evon said,
stopping some ten feet away. Maybe there was still hope. She’d
stopped to talk; maybe she was willing to listen.
    Her face contorted with a choking, mirthless
laugh. “You can’t stop me,” she said, mocking. “Get out now. Stay
away. You don’t deserve to die.” She threw her cloak on the ground
and kicked off her shoes, then whipped the kerchief from her head
and dropped it on the pile. Her blonde hair came loose from where
she’d wrapped it around her head and fell heavily around her
shoulders. She stood facing him in a thin country dress with a
straight skirt, her shoulders heaving as she drew in great, sobbing
breaths.
    “Whoever that person is doesn’t deserve to
die either,” Evon said, pointing at the house, wondering if it was
true.
    She laughed again. “You think I don’t know
that?” She turned and sprinted toward the house. She moved so
quickly that Evon was caught off guard. “ Desini cucurri !” he
shouted, flicking both his hands up and out like a conductor
raising his baton, wincing against the jaw-numbing chill of the
spell, like biting a chunk of ice, but she was inside the house
before the