I wanted to dig my fingers back into my wrist, but I had to keep the Abb steady.
‘I believe that we’re alone,’ Split said quietly, his cheeks trembling. ‘That no one is watching. I believe that everyone consumes this World Crier crap all the time, and they drop down on their knees to get their doses, and they say “give me more, please, let me have the truth”. But you know why everything around us, the whole damned world, is all still sand and shit? You know why when people say Great Drought I say my great pale ass? There was no ‘chosen’, no ‘unworthy’. It’s all Sun-damned coincidence. There’s no such thing as the World Crier, or if there was, then he died long ago and left us on our own. You know what I believe?’ He paused, looking into the steaming waters in the bucket. ‘I believe we’re alone as can be.’
I let the gold bead fall.
The bucket creaked and screamed at the rapid change from water to Ice, the seams splitting loose and cracking in half. The scorching water completely changed in the blink of an eye, pushing hard enough to break the metal entirely apart. This wasn’t just a few Drafts in the bottom of a barrel, or a Shiver in the wind. This was a complete and utter shift in reality. This was snuffing out the Sun. This was taking the Vicaress’s fiery blade and turning it around so she could be Cleansed.
This was sanctuary.
The solid block of Ice was both shield and weapon. I had a feeling I could stick it in the heart of Paphos and it would never yield, even after being gnawed on by the Sun, hacked at by taskmasters, stabbed by the Vicaress, and prayed away by the Priests.
Split’s face went slack, his eyes processing the impossible. His fingers had stopped scratching at his leg, and were now sweeping through the air in front of his face, as if he were trying to swat away the devastation of a mirage.
I picked up a piece of the metal scrap that had exploded from the bucket, which still lingered with the touch of Ice, and pressed the flat of it against my injured wrist. The pain and throbbing ceased immediately against the impossible Cold.
‘Meshua,’ Split whispered, and then stumbled backwards, smacking into his counter, his body jerking stiff. ‘Meshua.’
I gave up the scrap, the residual Cold quickly becoming too much. A gorgeous mist drifted from the top of the Ice, white and lovely. The Inventor in me wanted to grab an empty bottle from the healing box and see if I could bottle the stuff, thinking it might be useful in its own right.
Split’s face had gone so pale I could almost see the bones underneath. His eyes were flashing with something that looked unsettlingly like worry. ‘Damn it to dust and rot. After all these Sun-damned years.’ His expression grew murderous and sorrowful at the same time, his hands clenching into fists so tight I thought his knuckles might dissolve to powder. ‘It can’t be Meshua.’ He clenched his teeth and his face trembled, as if he were about to hiss. His breathing quickly grew stunted, his breath shallow and infrequent. His hand went over his chest, pain registering in his face.
I hoped the lingering Droughtweed wasn’t reacting with the shock in some unforeseen way. Abb had taught me some rudimentary healing techniques, but nothing extensive, and I wouldn’t know how to deal with a failing heart.
‘It’s not possible,’ the Pedlar said between his teeth. ‘Can’t be real. Not now. Not after all this time.’
‘Split,’ I said, staying behind the Ice. ‘It’s okay. It’s safe.’
‘Man or woman?’ he said, pallid face somehow seething red.
‘Sorry?’ I asked carefully.
‘Is Meshua a man or a woman, you little brat?’ he barked, far removed from any semblance of patience. His eyes kept flicking to the Droughtweed pit in the floor. ‘You must know, since they gave you the Ice.’
Mist from the Ice rode up the front of my shirt and it took everything in me not to swoon from the spectacular sensation. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
Split sucked in a breath, his clenched hand rubbing the spot over his heart, as if he were attempting to loosen his lungs up for air. His movements were frantic, and the muscles in his shoulders strained.
Shilah walked over to Split and reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. ‘It’s okay. We all felt the same way the first time—’
He swatted her away, not meeting her eyes. ‘Don’t touch me. Back up, girl!’
‘Whoa,’ Cam said, holding up his hands. ‘Take it easy, Pedlar. She’s only trying to help.’
‘Dammit! Meshua! Man’ – Split’s breath had constricted to a wheezing now – ‘or woman?’
‘What is Me-sh-ua?’ I asked, enunciating each syllable. I recognized it from the sacred words Abb had sung to me, but he had never revealed what the prayer actually meant.
Split pointed at the Ice, his finger shaking. ‘The Crier’s child. Meshua. The one who made that.’
I paused, not following. ‘I made that.’
‘Yeah, Spout made that,’ Cam affirmed, snapping his fingers at Split. ‘Weren’t you watching?’
Shilah crossed her arms over her chest and gave Cam a dark look.
Split kept rubbing his heart, his knuckles frantic now.
‘Yes, I know that, Tavor moron,’ Split chided. ‘But the Jadan who shed that golden tear. The Crier’s child. Meshua. Simple question. Man. Or woman? The Book of the March isn’t clear.’
Cam stepped closer, holding his palms up innocently. ‘I think you’re mistaken, my friend.’
Split grabbed his crossbow from the ground, and all three of us stiffened. Before Shilah could extract her knife, an arrow was once again threatening my face. Split’s hands were shaking so badly I had no idea if the arrow would end up in my eye or chin, but he kept looking at the Droughtweed pit, so I knew his aim would not be true.
‘Are you with the Vicaress?’ Split seethed. ‘Or did you steal the golden tear?’
Cam went to step in front of me, but I kept him at an arm’s distance. As long as the arrow wasn’t pointed at my friends, I felt perfectly calm.
‘I didn’t steal anything,’ I said. ‘I found the secret that’s going to set us all free. All of us. Jadans and Nobles alike.’
‘You found it?’ Split asked, aghast.
I nodded, looking at Shilah. ‘With help, of course.’
‘Did they—’ Split nearly choked on the words. ‘Was it— Did they put it in the ground?’
I wasn’t shocked to hear the suggestion about ‘putting it in the ground’, but I was most certainly intrigued. There had always been Old Man Gum’s endless prattles about ‘they put it in the ground’ when I was young and living in the barracks. And then the Crier had said something similar in my vision when I’d been put under the Thoth’s wool hat. Leroi had only agreed to let me stay in the tinkershop after hearing the phrase. It must mean something. I pointed to the Coldmaker bag, to the chiselled bronze Eye peeking out from the canvas. ‘No. It was put in my mind. And my heart. And my hands.’
Split’s face broke, and he turned the crossbow around, holding the tip of the arrow against his own throat. The metal pressed into the soft flesh and scratched against grey stubble. The Pedlar’s hands were no longer shaking, which somehow seemed worse.
No one moved.
‘I was loyal,’ Split sobbed, a tear racing down his cheek. ‘I risked everything, and this is how I get repaid! I believed for so