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The designs of the ht for a moment A breath later, the man’s eyes went dead Not closed, not dazed I am a son of Enefa; I know death when I see it

Yet the busker got to his feet and looked around, pausing as his white-masked face oriented on the top of the Salon steps I expected hied toward the steps, running faster than anyaside -- far aside -- anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way

I also did not expect the cobblestones that edged the Salon steps to suddenly flare white, revealing theray to h this translucent layer of paint, I could see the darker, starker lines of an etched sigil, the characters on each stone together coin and addressed to any living thing that tried to cross it A shield, of sorts, and it should have workerelsigil,d The Arameri on the steps had no fear of knives or arrows; their blood sigils could deflect such things easily All they needed to fear were the ic could soils Keep them out of reach and the Arameri would be safe -- so the scrivener corps had reasoned

The busker staggered, then stopped as he reached the ring of stones The ation, and not with any ravel lizards do the sa back and forth over a carcass

Too late I reic Any living thing, the stones commanded But even if the busker’s heart still beat and his limbs still moved, that alone did not qualify as life The ness

The busker stopped swaying, the rounded eyeholes fixed on a target I followed its gaze and saw Shahar frozen at the top of the steps, her eyes wide and her expression still

"Oh, deroaned, and ran for the steps as fast as I could

The busker stepped closer to the sigil-stones

"There!" cried Glee, pointing

She could not have been talking tobeca, Kitr appeared at the foot of the steps, just in front of the Ara red knives appeared in the air before her, hovering and ready I had seen her fling those knives through ar fallen mortals like scythed wheat She could have done that here, risking the crowd to get her target, but like s of the city, she would not They had all taken an oath to respecther a clear shot

I saw the danger before she did, for she had ignored the Ara and a mad mortal, they reacted to both Half of them fired crossbows at the masked man; the other half fired at Kitr This could not do her any lasting harm, but it did throw her off balance as her body jerked with the i at them in fury -- and as she did so, the masked ly to butter Slowed, but not stopped

I thought Kitr would miss her chance, distracted by thefor just an instant In her place curled an enormous red-brown snake, its cobralike hood flared Then she was a woain, and the knives streaked at theinto his body with such force that he should have been flung halfway to the city li back on his heels That was the first evidence that the liainst his skin, underneath What was it doing? Strengthening his flesh, certainly, or Kitr’s knives would’ve torn it apart Displacing the force of the blows Before I could fatho slower because of the knives in his thighs But running

And in that instant, a second er and heavier, raced out of the crowd and plowed into the guards from the side

Two of them Two of the too sloe fought our way through the panicked crowd She grabbed h the ether Startled, I materialized atop the Salon steps, in front of an equally stunned cluster of Arameri and soon-to-be-Arameri eyes

"Sieh," said Shahar She stared at me, oblivious to the chaos twenty steps away, and I knew in that instant that she still loved me