Free The Shattered City by Tansy Rayner Roberts Page A

know you were covered in it in a skybattle a few market-nines ago,’ she said firmly. ‘I know — saints, Poet, that muck can be lethal. If even a pin prick of it remains on your skin …’
    â€˜Not a prick,’ he said without a hint of irony. ‘Warlord and our precious precious Power and Majesty saw to that. If I had been any more thoroughly cleansed, Iwould have drowned three times over at the foot of this lake.’
    Couldn’t happen to a nicer cove, Hel thought to herself. ‘If you were cleansed so thoroughly, why are you here now? Not getting paranoid in your old age, are you, Poet?’
    â€˜Nostalgic, perhaps,’ he said with a wicked look at her. ‘I feel calm here. It’s a good place.’
    Heliora shuddered. ‘The lake smells of death.’
    â€˜That’s what I like about it.’ Poet smiled sadly. ‘Some of my favourite people in all the world are dead, you know.’ He pulled out a pocket watch with a long chain, toying with it between his fingers. It was familiar, though Heliora could not have said why. Clockwork was a rare sight in this city. ‘Do you miss the old days, Hel?’
    â€˜Which old days?’ she asked sharply. ‘When the world was young and we were innocent? Those days never existed.’ Her first memory of Poet was as a child, nestled into that fucked-up family Tasha had gathered around her. Tagging along behind Ashiol and Garnet and the others. Too young, too knowing, too broken. Just like the rest of them. ‘I don’t think about the past at all,’ she lied.
    Poet gave her a smug look. She hated the way he always seemed to know what she was thinking. She spent enough time inside her own head, keeping the voices and the futures at bay. The last thing she needed was anyone else poking around in there.
    â€˜Keep your feet wet,’ she said, standing up to return to the Basilica. Where else did she have to go? ‘You never know when the sky is going to throw something grotesque at you again. Anyone would think you deserved it.’
    Poet gave her an aimless wave, and tucked his pocket watch away as she walked off. ‘Stay as sweet as you are, Hel.’
    Heliora had reached the Forum when she realised where she had seen that watch before. It had belonged to Garnet.
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    I never won my swords. I still burn about that. Sentinels don’t get measured for swords until their seventeenth birthday; man’s or woman’s robe aside, you don’t count as a grown-up sentinel until they’re sure you’ve stopped growing.
    A ridiculous system. I never gained another inch after my fifteenth birthday, and I know for a fact that Tobin grew three inches between getting his swords and the day he died; his reach was always a little off because of that. I wanted my swords more than anything, but the saints and devils who watch over the Creature Court had a different path for me.
    I was a damned good sentinel. Cap and the others trained me well, gave me a purpose. Our job was to protect the Kings, to add to their power and glory. We had Ortheus, the Power and Majesty, and Argentin, the second King, his loyal friend. There were twelve of us sentinels, standing at their back, keeping them strong against the sky and against the Creature Court who was supposed to be just as loyal.
    Meanwhile, I never stopped fancying Ashiol. They all knew it. A running joke — the little street brat who wanted the shiny courteso for her own. Even his Lord, Tasha, found it amusing, and she was never one to share her toys. I don’t know if it was that I was too young or if Ashiol just didn’t want me, but he put up a merry fight against my attempts at feminine wiles.
    Oh, aye, I was a demme now. Cap insisted upon that. The Lords, Court and retinue could all see exactly who Iwas. Hiding anything about myself was an insult to them. I could shave my head and spin knives and still let my boobs stick out the