Page 81 of The Book That Held Her Heart

“Stop this…” Evar could feel himself weakening.

“Stop me,” Starval replied. A hint of helplessness ran through the words, faint but there for Evar to hear.

Suddenly he was angry. Angry with everything: Mayland, Starval, himself as well. “I’ve better things to do, godsdammit.” Evar strode to the nearest wall, reached up, and with a snarl of effort ripped down one of the shutters. “I’ve got better things to do than fight my stupid brother in a dirty hole over some war I don’t even care about.” And with a roar he charged, holding the shutter before him like a shield.

Starval’s acrobatics had no match among his family. Wherever Evar leapt, Starval would no longer be there. He would sidestep, and he would stab.

Evar threw himself at his brother anyway, both feet leaving the ground.He could see his target through the slats of the shutter, already moving now that Evar had placed himself in the hands of gravity and momentum, slave to both. The assassin had made his calculation, as inflexible as his contract, and as deadly.

The fight ended here.

It would have ended with a knife thrust, but for the fact that Evar’s blood moved to his will, outside his veins, and inside them too. By force of will he steered his whole body through the air on an impossible, unexpected curve. The shutter caught Starval’s knife thrust. It caught Starval too, slamming him into the wall. Evar’s weight followed. Then his fists. And in a flurry of angry blows, he set his brother senseless on the ground.

Groaning and limping, Evar hobbled away to recover the discarded knife and the much-needed blood around it.

“I know you’reawake.”

“Only because I got bored and let you know.” Starval’s voice sounded thicker, a painful rasp.

“What happens now?” Evar asked. “Does the mission carry on until one of us is dead? Or now I’ve beaten you can I buy out the contract?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never failed before.”

Evar shook out the contents of the purse he’d taken from Starval. “This looks like enough.” He flicked two of the coins at his brother, who lay propped against the wall of the alley Evar had dragged him to.

“Paying me with my own money?” Starval shook his head. “That’s low.”

“Lower than stabbing your brother in the back?” Evar shifted his stance and winced. “Besides, it’s not your money. You stole it in Oldo’s pub.”

“I can’t pick it up unless you untie me.” Starval flexed his shoulders as if to prove it. His hands remained behind his back.

“You don’t expect me to believe you’re still tied up?”

Starval rolled his eyes and reached out for the coins.

Evar pinned his wrist to the ground with one foot. “This better be over. I need to find Livira. And I’m going to have to go through anyone who gets in my way.” He hoped he sounded convincing. He felt convinced.

“Understood,” Starval answered through gritted teeth.

“I’ve no idea if you’re lying. Still.” Evar released the hand. “None at all.”

Starval took the coins. “I’m not sure either.”

Evar helped him up. The wound in his back hurt, but it no longer bled. It seemed that all Evar had to do in order to stop bleeding was to will himself to stop bleeding. Whether he would bleed to death when he next slept remained to be seen.

“What now?” Starval asked, still unsteady from the beating that had taken him down.

“Sneezes,” Evar said.

“Sneezes?”

“You said this was a maybe place. I said that it has to matter as much as where we came from. Everything matters, or nothing does. And we’ve seen where nothing mattering gets us.” Evar still couldn’t believe that Starval had stabbed him, or that they were standing together now almost as if it hadn’t happened. “The barrel being loaded into Oldo’s pub sneezed. I want to know why. It seems to me that there’s no more reason to find Livira over there”—he pointed in a random direction—“than in Oldo’s cellars. So, let’s look there and satisfy my curiosity. After all, the Exchange spat us out there. And the Exchange has always put me somewhere significant.”

“It put us in that bookshop to be specific.”

“I’m checking out this damn barrel. Are you in or out?”

“In.”

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