Corva sprints along Bule’s stone pathways and tunnels, chaotically zigzagging between buildings and skittering by anyone in her way. She can feel her heart beating in her teeth.

Merda! Shit! Where in the world is Zeke? He said he’d only be a minute.

Said. It still feels weird—crazy, even—that she can hold a real conversation with a monkey. Yeah, only she can “hear” him, but it is real and she needs his help now. With every turn she makes, every cut in and out of an alleyway, she scans the ground and walls for any trace of the little monkey.

Sure, she escaped the bar. Escaped Death. But it doesn’t matter how serpentine her path is or how far she runs. He will find her. Death. Thegn. Thegn will kill her. He’ll do it the same way he’s done in every one of her dreams. They’re not dreams. They’re prophecies. Or they will be if she can’t get Zeke’s help. Unfortunately, the little monkey is nowhere to be found. Each empty turn through this cliffside town amplifies her despair.

She needs to hide.

There’s a narrow pass between two buildings up ahead of her. In the pass, there’s a little connecting bridge between the buildings and beneath that bridge is a little space—a drainage duct—not much bigger than her body. She drops to her belly and slides backward into the space. The whole time, she focuses on the direction she came.

Mouth dry, she gulps hard to force her heart back down into her chest. Her hands shake as if they’re buzzing, but there’s something pecking at her mind like a jay on an acorn.

Thegn. His words back at the bar. But it’s not Thegn that’s bothering her. It’s Jack. His face when Thegn mentioned the Touch.

Jack’s face had been full of fear. Not from having Death at his door. Not from the Touch itself. But from her. He was looking at her and seemed scared out of his mind. Why would that be?

She squeezes her eyes shut and buries her forehead into the ground. It doesn’t help that her head is still throbbing from her interaction on the stairs with Zeke.

Caralho! It feels like my brain is jumping on the back of my eyes. What is going on? It’s too much. I’m talking to a monkey. I have some kind of natural gift for fighting. Death wants to kill me in my dreams and in real life. My only friend in years—

Corva lifts her face from the dirt. Her head no longer hurts, and a sense of peace settles upon her. It’s as if she’s been tucked in under a blanket of calm. She can’t move. She doesn’t want to. Her face becomes a placid mask as a large white rat ambles into the drainage pass. It turns to face her.

She looks at the rodent and smiles, her eyes slowly glazing over. “Hello Senhor Rato. I think I had a dream about you once. A tunnel and a knife and—”

Her eyes close and the dark tranquility envelops her mind.