Free The Pale Waters (#1 Reclaimed Souls) by Della Roth Page B

wakes, will do everything in
his power to make my life hell.
    As I return my attention to Roland, in a low
voice I say, “I’m not trying to kill you. When I do, you won’t see
it coming.”
    He grunts, his eyes turn cold, and his
nostrils flare. Then he tries to get up.
    “Don’t be stupid, feller,” Dorni says to
Roland. I pull away as she hurries to his side, inspects the spikes
that pierced his brown fabriskin robe, pants, and into the side of
his calf muscle. He groans as her hands pull away with blood on it.
“Not too bad,” she mutters, “but only if there ain’t poison on ta
points. Wouldn’t put it past Gryan ta do somethin’ like dat.”
    “Poison?” Roland asks.
    Dorni shifts her intelligent eyes on me. Her
threadbare, wrinkled eyebrows arch. The old woman wants to know how
I feel about this. It’s complicated cannot even begin to
explain things. She nods at me, understanding me, I suppose.
    “I told you not to touch anything,” I tell
him admonishingly, louder, in case others are listening in.
    He shakes his head in disbelief. “Seriously?
You must have been looking elsewhere. It touched me after you threw me aside.”
    In the distance, the city’s bell tower clock
strikes the hour. Three hours until showtime. Or Else. We
need to get back to the Palace Skyscraper. Plus, I don’t want to be
here when Gryan wakes up.
    “Needin’ yer help for dis part, Rahda,”
Dorni says matter-of-fact like, almost as if she were asking me to
help set a dining room table. Her hands are poised under Roland’s
leg. “Pull da rod straight up, now, or he be missin’ sum of da leg
otherwise.”
    “Uh,” Roland says, his face green. “Let’s
think about this, first. Dorni, perhaps you should pull up.
You seem like you know your way around something like this.”
    “Rather it be Rahda’s fault if it be goin’
wrong,” Dorni replies.
    “She’s right,” I say and Roland looks at me
sharply. “Besides, we need to get back. It’s a waste of time
arguing about it.”
    I move to his feet and position my hands in
between the visible spikes and hooks and wait for Dorni’s
command.
    “Now.”
    I lift the rod up. I try not to think about
how soon this will become a new set of scars for Roland, or how it
will bind his memory to me for as long as he lives, and how it’s
entirely my fault. His hooded face winces and fresh blood gushes
from his calf.
    I toss the metal rod aside—it’s heavier than
I imagined—and it clangs against the alleyway rocks. The sound
scares the children, and they scuttle away. We are now alone in the
alley, save Gryan on the ground, though I am not fooled by
appearances. No doubt there are dozens of eyes watching us right
now. Sometimes, a few well-placed words to the right person will
earn them a few coins. It’s how it’s done in these parts.
    I shake the old, familiar thoughts from my
head and focus on the scene before me.
    To gain better access to his leg, Dorni
tears the bottom of his soaked trousers up to his knee. She reaches
deep into her robe’s pockets, pulls out a waxy, folded packet, and
sprinkles dark powder all over his leg and the blood, and then her
gnarly fingers rub the rest of it into five round, bedallion-sized
gashes.
    “Dear Goddess, woman,” Roland hisses, his
body tense, every muscle rigid. His hard eyes bore into me.
    I admire his bravery in withstanding the
pain, but I know I’ll pay for this later. Maybe not today or
tomorrow, but someday soon.
    “Da bleedin’ be stopp’d now, an’ da leg
numb.” She puts the waxy packet away. “Best ye be gettin’ gone from
here. Take dis.” She places my ruined fabriskin robe in my hands,
and I feel around for The Pale Waters vial as well as the jarred
Charm. It’s still there. I calculate how much time I have to
produce a working prototype and I feel confident that it will work
as I planned. I’m so lost in my concentration that I nearly forget
about Roland.
    He refuses to look at me as I help him to
his