Free Return of the Guardian-King by Karen Hancock

saw what he meant, what he thought she did when she wasn’t serving tables. Renewed outrage swept through her, and she glimpsed the beginnings of his smile as she whirled and stalked for the door, mortified, furious, and half afraid he’d call her back or order his men to stop her.
    “I like a woman with fire,” he commented to one of his companions. “We’ll have to come back here.”
    By then she was stepping into the servants’ hall, free of the closeness of that stifling room and finally able to breathe again. Fear nipped at her heels, and she passed through the main room heedless of the barge captain, still going strong. She halted only long enough to glance up to where Trap sat in his upper-level booth. His gaze focused on her instinctively, though he was deep in conversation with his tablemate, Admiral Hamilton, who had arrived in her absence. She gave a thought to telling him she meant to leave, but memory of the Sorite’s words roused another wave of mortified indignation and she hurried on toward the kitchen. He thinks I am a whore! He tried to buy my child!
    Several people spoke to her as she passed, but she had no idea what they said. She found her cloak, told Hulet she had to go home right now and that she didn’t know if she’d be back tomorrow or not.
    She was out the door before he could answer. His shouted protest followed her into the yard, only to be snatched away by the wind as she hurried up the alley to River Street. Images of the Sorite gentleman sniffing her wrist assailed her. “I can smell it,” he’d said. It made her flesh crawl. So did the gilding on his cheekbones and the golden claws on his nails. He thought I was a whore! Her emotions ran from mortification to chagrin to outrage as the wind blew ever more strongly, seeming to oppose her every step.
    Finally, when an especially strong gust caught her cloak like a sail and nearly dragged her off her feet, she stopped. And realized she had no idea where she was.
    The empty street gleamed beneath the kelistar streetlamps, deserted save for several humps she thought were sleeping drunks and a pack of dogs nosing some refuse up near the corner about a stone’s throw away. She turned slowly, gazing at closed and boarded-up storefronts, at darkened windows she did not recognize. From this vantage she couldn’t even see the palace, the shops’ peaked roofs blocking her view. Dried weeds and bits of rope tumbled down the street, driven by a wind that was growing sharp with the scent of rain. Scraps of fabric and leather scurried along; a tin cup clacked along the cobbles, rolled over and over by the wind.
    She faced back the way she had come, her wind-driven cloak now enfolding her in great obstructing billows. Nothing looked familiar, and several of the lanterns stood dark up the way, their glass shades broken by the wind, the kelistars in them put out. Nor was there any sign of Trap. He must not have realized I was leaving, she thought with dismay. And rightly so, since her shift wouldn’t be over for two more hours.
    Two new dogs emerged from an alley not far down the street from her and peed on the brick walls at its entrance. These two were large and brown, while the others were smaller and pale. The bigger of the pair sniffed a clump of weeds, then looked up at her, its eyes reflecting the lantern light in eerie copper disks. Then its gaze shifted to the dogs up the street behind her. Its companion’s head came up likewise. She turned to look at them again herself, pulling strands of hair from across her face as the cloak now pulled and jerked at her shoulders. A tendril of fear crawled through her.
    How could I have been so mindless?
    There were six dogs in the first pack up at the bend in the street, three medium sized, two of them larger than she liked, and the sixth she thought was a jackal. As if it felt her eyes upon it, the jackal looked up and froze, staring at her intently. A moment later, one of the larger curs saw her,