Inevitably, people would be hurt. And this thought brought her round back to the Mason of High House Death. Tattersail's heart thudded heavy in her chest. She blinked sweat from her eyes and managed a few deep breaths.
“Blood,” she murmured, “ever flows downward.” The Mason's shaping a barrow-after all, he is Death's servant-and he will touch me directly.
That barrow: is it mine? Do I back out? Abandon the Bridgeburners to their fate, flee from Tayschrenn, from the Empire?
An ancient memory flooded her thoughts, which she had repressed for almost two centuries. The image shook her. Once again she walked the muddy streets of the village where she had been born, a child bearing the Talent, a child who had seen the horsemen of war sweeping down into their sheltered lives. A child who had run away from the knowledge, telling no one, and the night came, a night of screams and death.
Guilt rose within her, its spectre visage hauntingly familiar. After all these years its face still held the power to shatter her world, making hollow those things she needed solid, rattling her illusion of security with a shame almost two hundred years old.
The image sank once again into its viscid pool, but it left her changed.
There would be no running away this time. Her eyes returned one last time to the Hound. The beast's eyes seemed to burn with yellow fire, boring into her as if seeking to brand her soul.
She stiffened in her chair as a cold presence washed over her from behind. Slowly, Tattersail. turned.
“Sorry for not giving you warning,” Quick Ben said, emerging from the swirling cloud of his Warren. It held a strange, spicy scent. “Company's coming,” he said, seeming distracted. “I've called Hairlock. He comes by Warren.”
Tattersail shivered as a wave of premonition brushed her spine. She faced the Deck again and began to collect the cards.
“The situation's just become a lot more complicated,” the wizard said behind her.
The sorceress paused, giving herself a small, tight smile. “Really?” she murmured.
The wind flung rain against Whiskeyjack's face. Faintly through the dark night the fourth bell clanged. The sergeant pulled his raincape tighter and wearily shifted his stance. The view from the rooftop of the palace's east turret was mostly obscured by sheets of rain. “You've been chewing on something for days,” he said, to the man beside him. “Let's hear it soldier.”