"I am not actually tired, but numb and heavy, and can't find the right words. All I can say is: Stay with me, don't leave me."

— Franz Kafka  

The mirror didn't pulse with power as it had before, it just stood there as vacant as a wall if it weren't for the reflections. Shabina watched Zeke and the others through it. He'd been at her side for years, never wavering, always smiling.

He was still smiling now. He grinned and slapped one of the guards on the shoulder, ushering him along.

Zeke caught her eye in the reflection and beamed even brighter. He hopped over a roll of blankets and bounced to her side. He leaned against the mirror's frame and gave it a brief glance before turning the full intensity of his grey eyes to her. "What's popping?"

She rubbed her forehead. "Still nothing."

"Have you tried turning it off and back on again?"

She glared at him. His smile dimmed for a beat before he scratched his chin. A shadow of stubble covered his cheeks and chin, making him look tired. He scanned the mirror. "You'll figure it out."

"I don't think I will," she said. Something caved in her chest as she did. She closed her eyes. "Nobody's coming for us. They won't even know we're in trouble for weeks yet--let alone be able to get to us."

Lin might have come. She'd promised to bring Hadrian back once Mara was dead. Except Lin herself was probably gone. It was hard to imagine the huntress being dead, taking her wickedly intelligent gaze and barbed tongue with her.

Shabina opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder, spotting Cortez with ease. The young man was easy enough to find -- his dark skin and broad shoulder practically a landmark among her guards. He sat in the corner, staring at his hands.

If what he'd said was true, then they were well and truly fucked.

Shabina swallowed and turned to the mirror. "I'm so sorry."

"Hm?" Zeke raised his eyebrows.

"I can't fix this." She could hardly hear her own voice. "I -- I don't think we can make it out of here."

Her chin wobbled, face getting hot. Zeke sighed and wrapped an arm around her shoulders, letting her lean against him. "We'll be fine. Always are, aren't we?"

"So far," Shabina said. 

Zeke clucked and put his hands on both her shoulders, moving so they were face-to-face. Shabina slouched slightly so he didn't make her feel even more ridiculous by going on his tippy-toes. His grey eyes glittered. "Come on, your majesty. Mind over matter, you start crying and we're all gonna lose hope."

She chuckled wetly. He let her go and  slapped her shoulders, turning back to his men. Shabina grabbed his arm before he could go. "Wait."

He swung his head back. 

"Where's Cortez?" she asked. The young man wasn't in the room anymore. She hadn't even heard him leave, and by Zeke's reaction, he hadn't either. Zeke scanned the room.

"I'll send someone to look for him."

"No," she said. "I'll go. You're busy."

She gathered a handful of her skirt and walked out of the room. The gold dust was stirred from the guards moving boxes of rations up and down, but one set split off from the rest to go in another direction. She kept her skirt high so it didn't drag in the dust as she followed the trail. 

She didn't have to go far. Cortez stood at a window, staring out at the sea. 

Shabina almost didn't want to pull him away. He was leaned casually against the wall, his front obscured by the sunlight. She cleared her throat.

He jumped.

"Sorry, it's just that it's..." she trailed off. He shoved something in his pocket, light glinting from it. A mirror. She furrowed her brow and took a step closer, leaning to the side to look out the window. 

A ship was headed straight for them.

Emotions warred within her; relief, confusion, fear, as the pieces flung themselves together in her head. Cortez shook his head slowly. He took a step towards her.

"Zeke!" she yelled. 

Cortez lunged for her, fingers scraping the fabric of her dress as she turned and bolted back the way she came. She made it maybe five steps before Cortez's arm wrapped around her throat, stopping her cold.

"Stop," he hissed. "This isn't what you think."

"Who are they?" she asked. Her voice wasn't as strong as she wanted it to be -- it never was when it really counted -- and her hands shivered weakly. She did her best to grip his forearm and keep him from strangling her. Luckily, his grip was light and he didn't seem to want her dead yet. "Who are they?!"

"Shabina!" Fear struck her heart when Zeke arrived and she struggled to remember if Cortez had any weapons. 

Zeke's smile was nowhere to be found, replaced with a panicked rage. His hands were empty.

Cortez whipped out a knife and pressed it to Shabina's throat, a terrified whine leaving her lips. She could feel his racing heartbeat at her back. Or maybe it was hers. "You stay right there."

He sounded calm. He sounded like he knew what he was doing. 

"Zeke," Shabina wheezed. "There's a ship coming."

Cortez swallowed and renewed his grip, shaking Shabina. He backed up so he was closer to the window and she got a sudden fear that he'd throw himself off the building with her in his arms. "Stay right there, Zeke."

Zeke put his hands up, showing his palms. His eyes flicked between her and her captor. Two other guards arrived behind him and he hissed a them to get back. Shabina caught glimpses of their wide eyes around Zeke's frame. She cursed herself for making Zeke stay with her. Not only for today, but also in the weeks before. When he could have been training with the other guards, he was stuck babysitting her. Would be be able to take Cortez in a fight if it came to it? He was older and more experienced, but Cortez had a knife to her throat. Would he be able to fight if she was on the floor bleeding out?

From the anxious way he shifted his feet every half-second, she didn't think so. 

"Tell your boys not to fight and they won't get hurt." Was it just her or did his voice deepen?

She swallowed, cringing at the sensation of a blade on her skin. "They won't be able to invade the Citadel by ship."

"Just tell them."

"No, the shallows go too far, they'd have to use a small boat and risk falling -- "

Cortez shook her, silencing her. Zeke lurched forward and just barely held himself back at Shabina's glare. 

She steadied herself. Looked up at Zeke and nodded. He shook his head. She blinked back tears. "Go tell the others not to fight. Not for me."

Zeke's eyes were wide when he turned to one of the guards behind him and nodded. They backed away for a few steps before breaking into a run. That left Zeke and Shabina alone with Cortez. Shabina's hands still shook.

"You too," Cortez said.

"I'm not leaving her," came Zeke's immediate reply. Shabina cursed his loyalty. 

Cortez stepped forward, nudging Shabina along in front of him. Zeke backed up. They kept going like that, neither man letting their guard down and Shabina trapped in the middle as they went back to the mirror room. Shabina's breath caught when she saw one of the guards had his gun raised. Zeke held his arm out behind him and looked away from Cortez briefly to get them to put their weapons down.

"All of you, across the hall, get in that room." The room across the hall was mostly used for storage, notable only in that it had a single point of entry that locked from the outside. Cortez seemed to have thought this through. There wasn't a moment of hesitation.

Zeke herded his men into the room, each of them brimming with violence. Shabina tried not to look afraid as she closed the door.

His knife still on her neck, Cortez reached around her and locked it. Let her go for a moment and pulled one of the crates up against it. By the time she thought to fight back in that window, he'd already grabbed her again and pulled her toward the stairs. She dug her heels in and stopped. He didn't yank her or try to force her, just gave her a distinctly exhausted look.

"Don't worry, we need you alive."

"I don't take comfort in that," she hissed.

He rolled his eyes. "You can walk or I can carry you. Makes no difference to me."

She ground her teeth together and glanced at his knife. He held it lax at his side without the need to threaten her anymore. She straightened up and jerked her arm away from him, fisting her skirts just to have something to hold on to and walking down the stairs. He followed a half-pace behind her.

"Why are you doing this?" Shabina asked.

He let out a short breath through his nose, not quite a snort. "You won't understand yet. You'll have to see it for yourself."

His flippant response only served to irritate her. Her grip tightened on her skirt, sweat dampening it. Her heart slammed against her ribcage with every step.

He didn't want her dead. She latched on to that. Raina would stop at nothing to rescue her. Shabina kept her chin high and let her and her captor lapse into silence.

He stopped her at one of the lower floors, not quite reaching the waterlogged base level. The ship he'd been signaling loomed in the distance like a black specter. A trio of men stood just outside the window. She jumped as they shattered the window. One of them hopped inside while his compatriots cleared the glass, Cortez left her side to help them. They all wore black, with the exposed skin showing silver tattoos.

Hunters.

Her throat closed up. What did Greymark want with her? Or was this one of the kings trying to take her out? She stuttered to a stop, legs going numb. None of them had any reason to want her alive. Dead, sure, but not alive.

The hunter who'd come inside noticed her hesitation and walked up to her. He was barely more than a boy, maybe seventeen and wiry, all joints and tendons. He grabbed her upper arm.

A gunshot broke the air. She yelped and covered her ears, dropping down to her knees. The hunter stumbled away from her with a curse, blood dripping from his shoulder. The other men looked up and immediately recoiled in terror.

Shabina spun around and her heart soared.

Lin stood on the steps, hunting rifle still raised and her shoulders heaving. Sweat glistened on her brow and collarbones, and her hands were covered in blood. The skin on her knuckles was shredded and Shabina thought she saw bone. Her gun shook.

She fired again, making Shabina drop flat to the ground. One hunter's head snapped back and red chunks sprayed the wall behind him.

The first hunter Lin shot tackled her before she could kill anyone else. She hit the ground with a yell. A knife was in his hand and he brought it down, aiming for her eye. Lin barely evaded it and let the strike hit the floor next to her head. The blade shattered and Lin yelped.

She was struggling. Shabina couldn't believe it. Lin was struggling against this little weasel of a hunter.

Shabina swallowed and scrambled on her hands and knees to Lin's side. She grabbed the rifle – a beast of a thing that weighed twice more than she thought it would -- and levelled it at the hunter. She pulled the trigger.

The gun jumped back, bruising her shoulder. She dropped it with a curse and looked up.

The hunter's left side was entirely blown out into a mass of gore. Lin rolled out from beneath him and grabbed Shabina on her way. They took the stairs two at a time and stopped at the top of the staircase, where Lin dropped to her knees and reached into a duffle bag and pulled another gun.

A couple floors above them, something crashed. The thundering footsteps of Shabina's guards was the best thing she'd ever heard.

The hunters didn't follow them up the stairs, but Lin's wild eyes never moved from the staircase. Shabina looked her up and down. The flesh on her hands hadn't healed. Her arms were exposed by a tank top, but she couldn't see a single speck of silver on her skin. Shabina put down her gun and stepped closer.

Lin flinched as Shabina put her hand on her arm. Her pupils were blown to near-black.

"Shabina!" Zeke's voice sounded far away. He slowed as he approached her.

"I'm fine – they're downstairs, they're hunters, be careful!" she shouted at his back. He and the rest of the guards bolted down at her instruction, this time bearing their weapons.

She turned her attention back to Lin. A cut marred the top of her cheekbone and nicked her nose. The broken knife. She was breathing hard and her eyes were bloodshot. Lin gulped. "Are you okay?"

Shabina nodded. "I'm fine," she said again. "What happened to you?"

Lin gave a hoarse laugh that sounded a bit like a cough. She shook her head. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine." Shabina had already forgotten about their argument. "I am so happy you're alive."

Her hands brushed Lin's upper arm and Lin flinched again, not as intense this time. She was pale and drawn, even more obvious against the dark of Shabina's skin and the splatter of blood. Her hair looked damp and sticky with blood. She still held the gun in her trembling hand.

"That's good." Lin's voice regained some of its stability. She smiled, but it wasn't happy. "That's good. Be a shame if I gave up my sigils for nothing, right?"

Shabina teared up at that. She reached out and gently wrapped her arms around Lin's shoulders. She was shaking slightly. After a beat, Lin hugged her back. The metal of her gun dug into Shabina's back.

"I'm sorry," Lin said again, her voice muffled by Shabina's shoulder. "That wasn't very heroic of me, was it?"

Shabina snorted and hugged her harder. "Thank you anyway."

Stomping footsteps pulled them from the moment and Lin pointed her gun at the stairs again. Zeke stopped and put his hands up.

The smile was back.

Shaky, but back.

"They ran. Probably scared shitless when they saw you," he nodded to Lin. Lin looked like she just swallowed her own vomit and moved away. Remembering their last conversation, Shabina got closer and maintained contact, one hand on her arm.

"Invitation's still open," she said softly. "No matter what you are, you have a place with me."

Lin just looked at her with those impossibly dark eyes and hugged her again. 

--

"Les assiégés" (French, "the besieged")