The Shadow at the Gate by Christopher Bunn Page B

beating fast, as fast as the heartbeat of a sparrow he had picked up once. The silly thing had broken its wing and had been flopping about the cobblestones. He had picked it up and felt the tiny hammer of its life knock faster and faster until it was gone and there was only a bundle of feathers and bones in his hands. The heartbeat had been so fast. At that moment, his heart felt the same. Demm had been so close. Almost close enough to touch.
    “You tell me, cully!” she said furiously.
    “Not here, Lena.”
    He grabbed her hand and pulled her along. There were too many people, too many twists and turns, too many carts jammed into hodgepodge lines and angles, too many canopies blocking out the sky. He felt as if he could not breathe. He needed empty spaces and silence. Too many hands that might reach for him, too many faces, and too many eyes. Surely they were all watching him. Too much noise and babble hiding the gossip surely being whispered behind hands and stalls and hanging drapes.
    They hurried through a fading fringe of people and scattered carts, right on the edge of the square, and dove into the alley skirting the university ruins. The wall loomed up next to them and shrouded the alley with afternoon shadow.
    “Jute!” said Lena, “You’re hurting me.”
    “Sorry.”
    She perched on a pile of rubble and glared at him.
    “Now where you been? And this better be good. Better than being dead, for that’s what the fat old Juggler was allus telling us. I cried, and he just smiled all over his fat, greasy face.”
    Jute laughed, for the little girl had twisted up her own face into an approximation of the Juggler’s leer.
    “Don’t,” Lena said crossly.
    “Sorry.” He sat down next to her. She laid a hand on his arm.
    “Are you going to have that?”
    “No,” he said. He handed her the remaining biscuit. He wasn’t hungry anymore. Besides, the thing had long gone cold.
    “So then?”
    Jute was half of a mind to tell her the whole story. After all, he had known Lena for years, ever since she had shown up at the back door of the Goose and Gold, a tiny, frightened girl. The innkeeper had put her to work in the scullery, scrubbing the endless grease of pots and pans. The deftness of her hands had caught the Juggler’s eye, and it wasn’t long before he had her. She had learned under the tutelage of the older children. Jute had taught her a fair bit himself.
    He winced at the memory, looking down at the burn scar blooming on the side of her face. It covered one cheek and reached up into the scalp. Luckily, her hair had grown back.
    “I got caught.” He shrugged. “There’s not much to the story. The job went bad and got me nicked.”
    “As if you’d get nicked.” she said, spraying crumbs. “That’d be the day.”
    He shook his head, secretly pleased at her praise. “Plenty of things out there that shouldn’t be tried for. You know that. No matter how quick you get, there’s always a bit that’s gonna be quicker. And those are the bits you have to leave be—only I tried for one of ‘em.”
    She scowled, but he saw her touch her face, fingers drifting unconsciously across the burn scar.
    “It were for the Knife, weren’t it?” she said.
    “Aye.” And he saw the man’s face again, floating pale and ghostly above the chimney’s mouth. Nothing personal, boy. His hands clenched. Stone and shadow. He hadn’t thought of the man for several days now.
    She licked her fingers clean of honey and then wiped them on her shirt.
    “Ain’t no reason to worry about the Knife,” she said.
    “What do you mean?” he said, startled.
    “Oh, nothing,” she said, smiling in triumph. “Just that, me ‘n the other—we jumped the Knife behind the Goose ‘n Gold.”
    “What?”
    She told him, waving her hands about for emphasis and grinning.
    “You could’ve been killed,” said Jute, angry and jealous and amazed all at the same time.
    “Well, I weren’t. What’s more, I heard the Knife ain’t