Free The Healing Wars: Book II: Blue Fire by Janice Hardy Page B

one of the people trying to kill me.
    I stopped, staring at her like she stared at me, each of us terrified of the other. She couldn’t be a soldier—she was far too scared. She was also afraid of the uniforms, even though they were clearly hers.
    “I’m not one of the Undying,” I said softly.
    “You’re like them though.”
    “Only a little. I can heal.”
    “You can do more than that.” She glanced into the shadows where Iesta had gone. “I’m glad, but, well. Yeah.” She laughed nervously and tried unsuccessfully to stand. Maybe she’d never been healed before. I’d seen folks disoriented from it the first time.
    Her fear returned. “What did you do to me?”
    “Nothing. I just healed you. You were badly hurt, so give your body time to get over the shock. You’ll be fine in a minute.”
    She rubbed her leg. “Promise?”
    “Promise.”
    She calmed a little, enough to start stuffing uniforms into her bag. I picked one up and handed it to her.
    “Thanks,” she said, voice trembling. “And thanks for helping me and healing me. I know better than to be out past dark, but I had to—” She glanced down at the uniforms, then shook her head.
    “It’s okay. I don’t think they’ll be back tonight.” I walked over to the bushes where more uniforms had fallen. I picked them up and paused, glancing at the girl. I slipped a uniform under the branches and brought the rest to her. “I think this is the last of them.”
    She tucked them away in her bag. “You shouldn’t be out here either, even if you are—” She stopped.
    “Dangerous?”
    She hesitated, then grinned. “How about ‘different’? It’s past curfew and it’s not safe.”
    “I noticed.” I helped her to her feet, and she stayed on them this time. “I don’t have much choice though,” I said. “I’m trying to find my friends. A tracker caught them.”
    She gasped and covered her mouth with her hand. “Don’t try to find them. They’re gone.”
    “I can’t do that.”
    “But…” She took a breath and stared at the stars for a moment, then sniffled and looked back. “No one gets away from trackers.”
    “I did.”
    She didn’t say anything at first, but I could tell she was impressed. She slung the bag across her shoulder. “Maybe you could get them out, then. But I wouldn’t try if I were you. Especially if I were you.”
    She had a point. It didn’t matter though.
    “I still have to try,” I said. “Do you know where the prisoners are kept?”
    “There’s a jail on Keldert Street, but if they’ve been processed, they won’t be there anymore.”
    “Where would they be then?”
    “He’d have them.” She looked behind me and pointed to a building I hadn’t noticed before, settled on a hill in the distance. Tall, solid, with spires and fences and walls.
    The Duke’s Palace. Getting in there wouldn’t be so easy, but the jail I could do.
    “I have to go,” she said. “Thank you again, and good luck, though I really do think you should find a place to hide and forget about your friends.”
    Never. “Which way is Keldert Street?”
    “That way. Five blocks down, turn right at theplaza with the Duke’s statue. Follow that street until you see the Broken Nose Taproom on your right. That’s Keldert. Then it’s just a few blocks to the jail.”
    “Thank you. Any gates in the way?”
    “No. North Quarter gate is past the jail. I really have to go.” She grinned an apology and fled, vanishing into the night.
    I walked over to the bushes and picked up the uniform. Getting inside the jail was not going to be a problem at all.
     
    I made one wrong turn and had to retrace a few steps, but I found the jail without too much wandering. Unlike the buildings in the rest of the city, this one sat alone in a square of trampled grass, a flat brick building that looked a lot like the ovens the potters used to harden their clay. Tether posts stuck out of the ground on one side, but there were no horses or carriages