Free Of the Abyss by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes Page B

doing it, and I couldn’t fight it, and they . . . everyone was dying. And I ran. And it came after me. I don’t know why I’m not dead.”
    The woman clucked her tongue. “Well, neither do I. You’re sure you’re not a mancer?”
    â€œI think I’d know,” Hansa said sharply. “And even if I didn’t, my second lieutenant has the sight. We’ve known each other since we were kids. He would—­” He broke off as his throat closed up. Jenkins had been Hansa’s second. Before . . .
    Hansa raised a hand, wanting to rub blood from his face even though he knew it was already gone. If they even suspected he was involved in sorcery, they would have searched him and washed away the blood. Blood could be a tool for them.
    Apparently deciding he was either honest or harmless, Rose said, “For your sake, I wish you would clear your name and get out of here, but you and I both know that is impossible. One-­Twenty-­Six gives them the right to hold you here as long as they like. With evidence against you from members of the Order of the Napthol, and multiple dead bodies to account for, they won’t need to give you a trial.”
    â€œI know,” Hansa said. “Damn it all, I know. Is this why it helped me? So it could then watch me rot?” he wondered aloud.
    â€œ ‘It?’ ” Rose asked. “So that part’s true, about you being helped by one of them?”
    He nodded, miserably. “I was dying, I think. There was someone—­something, I guess—­there, watching. I asked for help. He said . . .” He tried to remember exactly what the creature had said. “He said it was a boon, and he was only doing it because the taint from the Abyssi could make me dangerous if I lived.”
    Rose sat forward, her voice going soft and excited. “A boon, really?” she asked.
    What did it matter? Hansa nodded, looking around the gray cell and wondering if this was to be the place where he would die.
    He understood how damning the evidence against him was. He had come to much the same conclusion when he had realized that the man they found in the warehouse in the wharf was covered in claw marks that gaped without blood. He was grateful to be alive, but short of sorcery, it was hard to explain how he was.
    â€œDid you ask its name?” Rose asked.
    â€œUmber.” He was amazed he even remembered.
    â€œHansa, you may have a way out of this yet,” she whispered, keeping her voice pitched low. “That wasn’t an Abyssi who helped you. I don’t know what made the Abyssi leave you alone, but the person who helped you wasn’t a demon, and he wasn’t a mancer.”
    â€œThank you; I now have the faith of a fellow prisoner. What are you in here for this time, anyway?” Hansa asked. “Must be terrible, for you to get stuck in a cell with a man who is accused of slaughtering his friends.”
    â€œJust be quiet and listen to me.”
    â€œLike you said, I don’t get a trial,” he said. “Even if he was just some foreign witch—­not that that would be appreciated, but at least it’s better than a mancer—­it won’t matter, because he’ll never speak to—­”
    â€œShut your self-­indulgent mouth, you idiot!” Rose interrupted. “For your information, I’m in here for collecting and studying every text I’ve ever been able to find on mancers and Others—­and on the spawn.”
    Was she making any kind of sense? It was hard to tell, past the spinning sensation left by the crumbling of Hansa’s entire world. “The what?”
    â€œIt takes a fool of a sorcerer to tear the veil and invite one of the Others into this realm,” Rose explained. “It takes an incredible amount of power to control them, and Abyssi especially can be vicious if the summoner loses control. But as