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can put clothes on there. Keil said you’d need your packs, so we brought them.”
Half carrying the girls, they ran back. Shael still hadn’t said a word. Keilin noticed she had her arm tight around him, but she was keeping her fingers very carefully straight. When they arrived at the staircase, she said in a small voice. “Cay . . . please take my dress out of my pack, and . . . and help me put it on. I’m scared to scratch anything. I’ve got tetrodotoxin on my fingernails.”
“What?” Keilin started.
“Puffer-fish liver. That’s how I killed him. Please give me some clothes. I’m cold.” She shivered.
The air in the room was hot and still. Yet her arm was chilly, and her body beaded with a fine cold sweat. Her eyes were very wide. Hastily Keilin took the first garment from the top of her pack, and helped her into it. Then, still with his arm around her, they hurried up the stairs and out into the light.
Cap had been busy. Six more bodies lay there. “Come on,” he said roughly. “That captain couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery, never mind a bloody coup.”
Whatever the captain’s organizational abilities were, the coup attempt had bred phenomenal chaos. The sounds of fighting, shouting and running echoed down the passages, and the gate was deserted. “Now, ­local boy. Get us the hell out of here.” Cap pushed him forward.
Keilin wove them down the maze of alleyways, keeping away from the main roads, except for one hurried crossing. He stopped them just short of the North Gate, in the shadow of one