"You must avoid magic at all costs." Darrow's eyes were open wide, and clearer than they had been before. "Endrick can sense magic. If he decides to come after you, no one will be able to protect you."
"Except the Infidante. I intend to help him go after Endrick instead. Darrow, I'll help you do that." He blinked hard, as if he'd heard me wrong. I touched his arm. "By tomorrow morning, you'll be well enough to travel. You must go back to the Halderians, to your people. Captain Tenger will offer them the Olden Blade. You need to claim it."
He shook his head. "I'm no one, Kestra. Only a servant."
"A servant who has more talent with a sword than anyone I've ever known. You have access to the Dallisors, and thus to Lord Endrick. And you have me. Once you become the Infidante, I will do everything I can to help you succeed. Please, Darrow, you must go to that ceremony."
Darrow closed his eyes. "For your sake, I will do it. But I must go alone. You are not safe among my people. Not unless--"
From out on the stairway where Gabe still waited, footsteps pounded down toward us. Simon burst through the door, breathless and clutching his side. I guessed Loelle had started treating him, but she clearly hadn't finished. He crossed the room to me in three wide steps.
"That bump on the back of your neck, where Lord Endrick touched you. I need to see it."
I stood and pulled my hair over one shoulder. He whispered, "I'm sorry, this might hurt." And he pressed his thumb down on the bruise.
I gasped and reached up to my neck. He wasn't just pushing on the bruise, he was moving his thumb around it, each motion sending new sparks of pain through me.
"What are you doing to her?" Darrow attempted to sit up and failed. "Stop that."
Simon did stop, but his eyes were wild with fear. "We must leave immediately."
"Why? What's wrong?"
"Gabe's proximity alarms are going off." He grabbed my hand, taking me toward the doorway where Darrow had come in. Tunnels lay straight ahead but he was pulling me up a separate set of stairs, not even allowing me a chance to tell Darrow good-bye. "Do you trust me?"
"I'm furious with you!"
"Yes, but do you trust me?" He stopped on the stairs long enough to say, "The bruise on your neck is there because something is beneath the flesh, placed there by Lord Endrick. Tenger believes Lord Endrick has a kind of magic that allows him to track a person, to find them wherever they are."
"I'm being tracked?"
"If he finds you, he finds the heart of the rebellion. Tenger is getting as many people as he can out of Silven. We must get you out too. The Dominion armies are coming."
We weren't to the top of the stairs before an explosion outside shook the earth.
They were not coming. The Dominion armies were here.
I pulled against Simon's hand. "We have to go back for Darrow!"
He tugged in his direction. "As long as that tracker is in your neck, bringing Darrow with you is the worst thing we could do. Let's get as far from Silven as we can and hope to draw the armies away from him."
A cheerful thought. I would bring their armies to me.
We climbed a set of stairs, pushing up on a door built into the floor that took us into a humble family home with a cradle in the corner. Whoever lived here was probably on their way out of town already. Or, at least, I hoped they were. The Dominion would not spare them just because they had children.
We hurried out the door onto a road with hundreds of people who were already swarming southward. The armies must be coming from the north, where more explosions continued shaking the ground. Every boom surely represented deaths, of Coracks, their sympathizers, and far too many innocents who might never have guessed a rebellion was among them.
"I left a horse here." Simon looked up and down the road, his grip on my hand tightening. "It's gone. Wait here and hide."
"What about Darrow?"
"Someone else will come for him."
"I can help!"
He pushed me back into the gap between the home we had just come from and a neighboring building. "If you wanted to help, then you should have told me about the Olden Blade. Stay here and hide until I get back. Nothing gets easier if you're recognized."
I shook my head. "If you come back ... with this tracker, if you're with me--"