“Stop! Release her at once.” Teela pushed at his chest with a fist that was soldered to the handle of her—up until now hidden—knife, but the man didn’t seem capable of perceiving anything but his sole object of focus in that moment. His skin was patchy and red, and covered in a syrup-thick layer of sweat. His face held no expression whatsoever, and his sky-blue eyes were red-rimmed and sickly, wholly vacant of emotion.

  Yilenn’s were much the same. She didn’t move as he pressed against her and started emotionlessly undoing garments in the way of their union.

  “Where did this ’rrow-stinking goatfucker come from?” one of the men standing expectantly behind them said.

  “Drop that, you dog. Get back to your sty before we deliver you to your master early,” another put in.

  “Who does he think he is, touching her like that?”

  “Drop it!” one of them ordered, and Teela heard a couple of snickers in response.

  She saw then, quite clearly, what she needed to do, the solution to their predicament suddenly exactly as in reach as their pursuers—if only she could find a way to arrange all the moving pieces in the right order.

  Teela dug her nails into the skin of Yilenn’s arm where her fingers still lay, burrowed in her soft muscle to a cramping point. “Let go of him, Yilenn.” In her stupor, the siren only blinked in answer, but her head turned slowly toward Teela. “You can do it; get him off.”

  An action in a situation so dire can come before a proper thought, and that was what happened to Teela in that instant. Before she could give her decision much consideration, she found she was already moving. The point of her knife poked into the vulnerable flesh of the free man’s belly, her wielding arm extended awkwardly to him and trembling. She didn’t put more pressure into the movement than necessary, only just enough to call his attention—enough to hurt and perhaps cut into his skin superficially.

  When his eyes slightly cleared of their hungry fog and lowered to his threatened vitals, they widened with shock and fright. Then they followed the metal of the blade up and through Teela’s arm to find her gaze. “Let go of her,” she told him in as menacing a voice as she could muster. “You’ve crossed into the wrong part of the city.”

  It took him several long and excruciating heartbeats to understand where he was, who he was amidst, and where he’d unknowingly put his hands. Yilenn’s clothing was halfway unlaced, with his skinny fingers still clutching the waist of her trousers with his left hand and the now-loose strings that gathered the opening of the garment with his right.

  The unsworn man reacted faster than Teela would have thought possible when understanding befell him. She could see in his eyes the precise moment when his survival instincts kicked in and set his whole body in motion. He took in his surroundings with a lightning-fast glance, determined his fastest escape route, and ran. Back in the direction he’d come from, he sprinted and swiftly disappeared from sight upon turning a corner.

  Laughter arose from the crowd of Sunmen, along with a few muttered words of reproach at Teela’s interceding in a situation that could have provided entertainment for them, or more. Already they were moving in again, perhaps inspired by the unsworn man’s brazen and seemingly well-received approach. One of them took Yilenn by the shoulders and whispered in the crook of her neck as he bent to take a deep inhale of her scent.

  “Get off!” the siren said, jerking away from him as if awakening from a trance. “Get back! Back away, all of you.”

  Some did as she said, but most only looked surprised and unamused by her outburst. Yilenn’s eyes found Teela’s, and a mutual understanding passed between them. The siren had come to the same conclusion as her, Teela realized with a great sense of relief. She’d come back to herself.

  “Can you—” Teela started to voice her thought, but the woman cut her off.

  “Yes. I’m fine.”

  Then a humming sweetness Teela hadn’t felt before hit her senses like a sudden gale. It was recognizable but distorted, enhanced. Her senses remained unaltered beyond that abrupt smell in the air, that beautiful energy surrounding and passing her by, and Teela understood that she was only just perceiving Yilenn’s charm. She wondered what it would be like to be the target of such a strong stimulant, to be affected by its lure.

  The men going through just that looked happy enough to be under her spell. Their faces conveyed pleasure and ease. Frowns were replaced by complacent smiles, and hawk-eyed looks turned half-lidded. They stood inert, a dozen of them. Twenty-four shining halos of various golden shades were pointed at them, and their intermittent blinks reminded Teela of fireflies illuminating the night air. They looked so inoffensive like that, in their brown roughspun tunics and leather sandals, with their lax hands hanging limply at their sides and their looks void of intention.

  “Would you come closer? Come, come here,” Yilenn sang, sewing her words skillfully together in a pretty little melody that Teela had heard before. The men stepped forward, arranging themselves around her. Teela pushed closer to the siren, too, for the space they’d inhabited had abruptly become overcrowded. “Stay close to me, stay. Don’t stray from me. Come.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  And like that they started walking again, although unnervingly slowly, toward their destination. The Sunmen skirted them beyond closely, making it impossible to perform movements larger than a tiny step forward at a time. Teela wouldn’t have been able to raise her arms above her head for how little room there was inside their odd veil of Sun servants, but at least they were moving.

  In the interminable time it took to cover the distance to the house with the benches, and while Yilenn kept busy weaving her charm with her lilting voice, Teela tried to prepare for the last thing they needed to overcome before escalating to the the next impossible task: leaving their human shield behind when the time for it came.

  They all collectively came to a sudden stop on Yilenn’s instruction then, and Teela turned to give her a meaningful look. What now?

  “Go in; get the coach. If I stop, they’ll come to themselves and become angered,” Yilenn whispered distractedly. Teela didn’t catch her meaning completely at first, but the siren said no more and only went back to her melodic commands to be still, to stay close, to remain by her side.

  Teela liked the idea of leaving her there alone not at all, and so she decided to do her part as quickly as possible to minimize the likelihood that something terrible could happen in her absence. She steadied herself and was about to squeeze out of the circle when she thought of one last thing that might help. “Take this. I’ll be quick; I promise.” She pressed the hilt of the knife, warm with her body heat and a little damp with her sweat, into Yilenn’s hand. The siren’s lithe fingers were shaking and at first reluctant to accept the weapon, but after a moment of insistence Yilenn finally captured the knife and gave Teela one uncertain nod of thanks.

  Getting past the men gathered around them was easy, as was locating the Restful Doe. Teela walked speedily but trying to be as discreet as her inelegant, unsworn body would allow to the entrance of the establishment, and found a man working behind a large table where guests and customers could be admitted. The room was empty except for him. His hair was long and straight and tied at his nape with a strip of leather, dark brown in color except for the sides of his head, where the strands of gray that showed his age proliferated. His luminous eyes found Teela disinterestedly at first, but turned wary upon fully taking in her appearance and manner.

  “Can I help you?” he asked.

  Teela was lost for words for a moment, too rattled by the intensity of the situation. All she could think to do was to pull her hood down.

  “I-I need help,” she said stupidly.

  “I see,” the man observed, his brow cinched, coming quickly around his desk to stand in front of her. “You can cover up now; I understand. We have a room in the back for—”

  “No. I need—my horse is here. Clover. A woman with orange eyes, her name is Mantis, came to this inn yesterday, to stable two horses and to store a coach. I need to retrieve them all urgently.”

  The man only looked at her with confusion and skepticism, and Teela was overtaken with desperation. “It’s my horse! One of them, at least. The other belongs to Mantis, but the carriage isn’t even hers. She stole it, and now I need it! We’re together—I arrived in this city with her, on that coach; I know it well: the interior’s varnished oak. The horses, too: mine is a chestnut gelding and Mantis’s is a black stallion, tall. His name is Otto,” Teela pleaded with all she could think to say, all the information she could gather as proof of her truthfulness.

  “Surely you’ll understand that I can’t allow you to retrieve horses you didn’t bring to me yourself. I don’t know you, miss.”

  “But it’s my horse!” Teela couldn’t believe her misfortune to have gotten so far only to fail now. “Please, sir. What can I say to make you believe me? What can I do? I swear on my soul, I’m as entitled to that coach as the woman who brought it here. Yilenn—my, my friend is outside. She’s being harassed by Sunmen. She’s in danger, and we need to get to the Rays. We cannot walk that far; it was difficult enough to make it here on foot. We need that coach! Please.”

  The man standing before her looked her up and down. He shook his head. “What would you have me do, were the Mantis to return to find the belongings she entrusted us with gone?”

  “Have you heard what they say of Prince Siebos, sir?” Teela asked, testing a different approach, spurred by sheer necessity. The stranger nodded hesitatingly in response. “And you’ve heard of the Mantis—what she does?” Again a nod. “Well, she’s going to have a chance to kill the prince today. My friend and I are on our way to meet her, to convince her to do it.” Teela didn’t see a reason to mention her other reasons to want to join Mantis and Leroh, as the dubious safety of her brother and the fact that Teela felt deeply unsettled by their being apart at this time were likely not a matter of concern for this stranger.

  Several breaths passed before the Sunman asked. “She needs convincing to kill that degenerate?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Who even are you? How do you know all this?”

  “I’m…I’m not sure who I am to her. But she listens to me. And… I don’t know what else to say, really. I need to get to her, and my friend outside needs me. Can you help us?”

  The middle aged Sun servant lifted a hand to scratch his short beard in consideration. He seemed morally troubled, and looked uncomfortable with that emotion. Then he puffed out a short sigh of resignation and waved her to follow, making Teela feel flooded with accomplishment and a rush of adrenaline that set her body tingling.

  Now, onto the next daunting obstacle.

  With the help of the agile hands of a yellow-eyed stableboy, Teela was able to get the carriage and horses ready efficiently enough, but not as fast as she would have liked. It was only when she finally climbed onto the driver’s seat and saw herself in her current situation that she realized she’d not had enough time to even think through this part of her scheme. She didn’t know how to drive the coach.

  “Wait!” she begged the boy who’d helped her as he was retreating to the back of the stables, his arms laden with leather parts and tools. “Can you…Do you know how to drive this?”

  “What’re you playin’ at?” he said, irritated. “Use the reins. It’s your carriage.”

  “I’ve never driven it before. Could you show me how to do it?”