STEEL IN THE ALLEY

She ran like water.
That was all Godori could think, in the first long minute of the chase, as he pelted along the ridge of a tiled roof with the wind tearing at his cloak and the whole dark city wheeling below him. She did not look as if she were running at all. She flowed, light and quick and quiet, over gables and chimneys and sagging gutters, her pale head bobbing ahead of him like a lantern, and every time he thought he was gaining, she was somehow another twenty feet away.
"*Stop!*" he shouted.
She did not stop.
"I just want to *talk!*"
"No, you don't," called the girl, over her shoulder, without breaking stride.
"I *do!*"
"You want to catch me!"
"That's... that's the same thing!"
"It's *not!*"
She leapt a narrow lane without a hitch. He leapt it with his heart in his mouth, hit the far gutter with a clatter, and nearly went over. A loose tile spun away from under his boot and fell, and he heard it strike the cobbles far below with a thin, sharp crack.
*Somebody'll hear that,* he thought, wildly. *The Wardens. The whole district.*
Nobody came.
It was the strangest thing. He ran through a hundred yards of roofs, through shadows and moonlight, over three bridges and a walled courtyard, and not once did a shutter open, or a head appear, or a lantern swing. The city lay silent and shuttered under the stars. It was as if the whole of it had been told to look the other way.
*They know,* he thought. *They all know. And they're letting it happen.*
---
She led him south.
He realised it slowly, the way one realises that a river is running downhill. The roofs grew lower. The towers fell away. The paving beneath him changed from smooth grey slabs to a coarse dark cobble, and the buildings squatted closer together, narrow and shabby, with crooked doors and patched shutters. This was a poor quarter, an old quarter, a maze of crumbling lanes and blind courtyards that had not been touched since the first masters came.
And somewhere ahead, rising out of the roofs like a black fang, he saw the wall.
*The inner wall,* he thought. *She's taking me to the wall.*
The girl glanced back.
It was only for a second. But he saw her face in the moonlight, and it was not the calm, tilted, secret face of the rooftop. It was tight. It was drawn. She looked, for the first time, uncertain.
"You are too fast," she called.
"You're too slow!"
"I'm *not!*"
"Then stop and prove it!"
She made a small exasperated sound. And then, abruptly, without a hint of warning, she cut left, off the ridge, down the slope of a roof, and dropped.
Godori skidded to a halt at the edge.
Below him lay a narrow, dark, dead-straight alley, no wider than a man's outstretched arms, running between two blank walls. It was perhaps forty paces long. It ended, at the far side, in a flat black stone face, as smooth and glossy as glass.
And in the very middle of that face, a faint blue line of light had begun to glow.
*It's the door,* he thought.
*It's the same door. It's a different one, but it's the same.*
The girl had landed on the cobbles at the foot of the wall. She stood with her back to him, small and straight and pale, her hand raised. The ribbon at her wrist glimmered, thin and black as spilled ink. She was reaching, very slowly, toward the glowing line.
*If she touches it,* thought Godori, *it opens. And whatever's behind it, it's going to take her. And then I'll never...*
He did not think any further.
He jumped.
---
It was a thirty-foot drop.
He knew it was thirty feet, because he had spent his whole life measuring such things. He had fallen out of trees. He had fallen off roofs. He had once, at the age of nine, fallen out of the back of a hay cart onto a stone wall. And all of it, every bone-jarring, tooth-rattling tumble, had gone into a single stubborn conviction.
*I'm tough.*
He hit the alley like a thrown sack.
The whole world went white. The cobbles cracked under his boots. A shock ran up through his legs, his spine, his teeth, and exploded behind his eyes. He folded, rolled, and came up on his hands and knees in a spray of grit, gasping, his ears ringing.
Something small and quick moved at the edge of his sight.
"You *idiot!*" said the girl.
She was staring at him. Her large grey eyes were wide and horrified, and she had taken three steps backward, her hand flung out in front of her. "You could have *died!* You jumped from the *roof!*"
"It wasn't that high."
"It was *thirty feet!*"
"I've done worse."
"You are *insane!*"
"So I hear." He climbed to his feet. His knees shook, and every inch of him ached, but nothing was broken. He wiped his face on his sleeve and tried to smile. "I'm Godori. Remember? I told you."
"I remember," said the girl, faintly.
"Don't touch the door."
She looked at her hand. It was still raised, half an inch from the glowing line. She lowered it, slowly, as if it belonged to somebody else.
"Why not?"
"Because I think you don't want to go in."
"I *have* to."
"Why?"
"Because I was *told.*"
"By whom?"
"By the one who..." She stopped. Her mouth shut. She stood very still, with her back to the wall, and the blue light shone on her face like water. For a long moment she did not say anything at all.
Then she said, in a very small voice, "Please move."
"No."
"Please."
"I can't," said Godori, gently. "I'm sorry. I really can't."
"Then I shall have to *make* you," said the girl.
And she drew her sword.
---
He had never seen it happen so fast.
One moment her hands were empty. The next there was a thin bright line in the air, a hiss like tearing silk, and something flashed past his ear and *bit.* He felt the sting. He felt a warm trickle run down his neck. He threw himself sideways, with his hands up, and the second cut passed so close to his chest that it split his cloak from collar to hem.
"Stop!" he cried.
"I told you."
"I don't want to *fight* you!"
"I know." The girl's voice was calm again, almost pleasant. She stood three paces away, with her sword held low and her feet planted, in a stance so smooth and still that it made his skin crawl. "That's what makes it easy."
She cut.
He saw it, this time. He saw the first faint ripple of kai run down her arm, the subtle shift in her weight, the half-breath before the stroke. He ducked. The blade whistled over his head and chipped a long white scar from the wall. He rolled, came up on one knee, and she was already there, her sword coming down in a clean, bright, merciless arc.
*Don't block. Read.*
*Read.*
He closed his eyes.
It was the stupidest thing he had ever done. A blade was falling at his skull. His whole body screamed at him to move. But the world had narrowed, as it always did, to a single bright point, and in the dark behind his eyes he *felt* her. He felt the thin cold thread of her kai, running along the sword like a wire. He felt the knot in it, the little bright seam, a hand's breadth from the tip. He felt the whole shape of the stroke, long before it came.
He raised his right arm.
The blade struck.
It was a very strange sensation. There was no clash. There was no ring of steel. There was only a faint, deep, shuddering *hum,* like a plucked string, and then a long hot line across his forearm where the sword had slid along his sleeve and skidded away. It had not gone through. It had not bitten. It had simply... *slipped.*
"What?" said the girl.
He opened his eyes.
She was staring at the blade. It hung in her fingers, motionless, at the end of her extended arm, and her face had gone perfectly blank.
"I cut," she whispered. "I cut it. I found the seam. I *felt* it. It was *there.*"
"I know."
"It was *right there!*"
"I know," said Godori. "I'm sorry. It does that."
"It *doesn't!* Nothing does that!" Her voice cracked. She stepped back, and her sword came up between them, trembling. "You're not, you're not *supposed* to... you have no *seam!*"
"It's not something I did."
"Then what *are* you?"
He did not know.
He stood in the narrow alley with the blood running down his neck and the blue light on his face, and he did not know. He only knew that the warm golden thing in his chest had stirred again, quietly, like a sleeper turning over, and that it was very, very patient.
"I'm just a boy," he said.
The girl stared at him.
Then, with a small, strangled, furious cry, she threw herself at him.
---
It was not a duel. It was a scramble.
Godori would never be able to remember most of it afterward. It was a blur of grey and silver, a hissing, whirling, slashing storm, and every stroke came faster than the last. The girl fought as Anna had fought at the end, with no pattern, no grace, only a wild, desperate, shaking fury. She cut at his throat and his hands and his knees. She cut at everything. She cut at *him.*
And he did not cut back.
He ducked. He rolled. He caught a stroke on the flat of his palm, felt it skid, and let it go. He took one across the shoulder, and a second on the thigh, and the old tough skin that had carried him through a hundred fights took the edge of the steel and turned it aside. He bled. He bled in a dozen places. But none of it went deep.
"*Hit me!*" screamed the girl. "*Why won't you hit me?*"
"I don't *want* to!"
"You're *mocking* me!"
"I'm *not!*"
"You *are!*"
"I'm not! I swear! I'm just..." He ducked a vicious slash, rolled, and came up inches from her. "I'm just *trying to talk!*"
"*Talk?*"
"Yes!"
"*We are in the middle of a fight!*"
"I *know!*"
"Then *fight!*"
She struck, a short, hard, stabbing thrust at his belly. He caught it. He did not know how. His left hand shot out and closed round her wrist, hot and rough, and he heard her gasp as the blade stopped dead, a finger's breadth from his ribs.
Their eyes met.
They stood very close, face to face, in the blue glow of the door, both of them panting. Her face was white. Her lip was bleeding. Her great grey eyes were huge and wet and frightened, and the point of her sword trembled against his tunic, and neither of them moved.
"Let go," she whispered.
"No."
"I'll cut you."
"You've been trying for five minutes."
"I'll try *harder.*"
"I don't think you will," said Godori, softly.
She stared at him.
He did not know why he said it. He did not know why he stood there, with a blade at his stomach and his hand locked round her wrist, and felt, quite clearly and calmly, that he was in no danger at all. But he looked into those wide grey eyes, and he saw something that made his chest go tight.
It was not hatred. It was not even anger. It was *fear.* It was the fear of a very small girl in a very big room, who had been told, over and over, what she must do, and had never once been asked what she wanted.
"You don't want to hurt me," he said.
"I *do.*"
"You don't."
"I do! I do! I'm *supposed* to!"
"I know." His voice was very gentle. "But you don't."
Her lip trembled. A tear ran down her cheek. She tried to say something, and her voice broke into pieces, and with a small, high, helpless cry she wrenched her arm back and swung her free hand at his face.
He caught that too.
It was a clumsy catch. He had to let go of her sword wrist to do it. But the weapon, released, clattered to the stones, and in the same instant he did the only thing he had ever been good at. He dropped his shoulder, and stepped in, and *wrestled.*
He had fought boys twice his size, in the village. He knew every trick of it, the hook, the twist, the sudden shift of weight that turned an opponent's strength against her. The girl was fast. She was fierce. But she had been trained for blades, not for scrapping, and when his heel hooked behind her knee, and his shoulder drove into her chest, she went over backward with a little startled squeak.
They hit the cobbles together.
He landed on top. It was not graceful. It knocked the breath out of him. But his knee was on her sword arm, and his hands were round both her wrists, and he held her pinned to the stones, panting, bleeding, covered in dust, with her face a hand's breadth from his own.
"Got you," said Godori, rather stupidly.
---
For a very long moment, neither of them said a word.
The alley was silent. The blue light flickered on the wall. Somewhere high above, a late night bird made one soft, puzzled sound and was still. The girl lay on her back with her pale hair spread across the cobbles and her chest heaving, and she was looking at him with an expression that was almost, he thought, one of dawning, wondering awe.
"She was right," she said.
"Who?"
"The one with the scar." Her voice was very small. "She said you couldn't be hurt. She said you would not even try. I did not believe her." She swallowed. "I thought she was *lying.*"
"She wasn't."
"No."
"What's your name?" said Godori.
She said nothing.
"I told you mine."
"You were not supposed to."
"I know. But I did." He drew a long breath. His arms ached. His whole body throbbed. "I'm not going to hurt you. I won't. I swear on... on my friends. On Dan and Zetsu and Tetsu. I swear it. But I want to know who you are."
Her eyes widened.
"You swear on the dead?"
"Yes."
"That is not done."
"It is where I come from."
She looked at him for a long moment. The blue light moved across her face, and under it, very slowly, something in her expression began to crumble. It was a small, tired, bewildered crumbling, like a sandcastle in the tide.
"Sae," she said, at last.
It was a whisper.
"Sae."
"Yes."
"That's a nice name."
"It is only a name."
"It's a good one." He managed a smile. "I'm glad to meet you, Sae."
She stared at him. Her mouth opened. Her eyes filled with tears. And she turned her head away, very fast, and said, in a thick, shaking voice, "You are *impossible.*"
"That's what everyone says."
"They are right."
"I know."
---
It was the door that gave them away.
It began as a sound, a deep, slow, grinding vibration, like a great stone being dragged across a floor. It rolled up through the cobbles and into Godori's knees. He lifted his head. The blue line on the wall had widened, as he watched, to a hand's breadth. A cold light poured out of it, pale as moonlight on ice.
"No," whispered Sae.
"What is it?"
"Someone's coming."
"Who?"
"Someone from inside." Her face had gone grey. "I did not touch it. I did not give the signal. They are opening it from *below.*" Her eyes flew to his. "They saw. They can *see* us. There is a, there is a window, in the wall. They have been watching the whole time."
Godori's blood ran cold.
The door was opening.
It swung inward, slowly, quite silently, a great black slab of stone, ten feet tall. And in the blue light behind it, at the top of a long descending stair, a figure stood, tall and thin and still, with a black ribbon at its wrist.
"Sae," said a soft voice.
It was a man's voice, young, pleasant, and utterly without expression. It was the kind of voice that might have been asking about the weather. "You have been a long time."
"I..." said Sae. "I... I'm..."
"Report."
"I, I have... I..."
"*Run!*" said another voice.
It came from the mouth of the alley. It was low and fierce and breathless, and it cut through the cold air like a knife. Godori's head jerked round. Standing at the end of the lane, in the grey light of the moon, with her hood thrown back and her dark hair streaming and an unwrapped sword in her fist, was Irel.
She was not wearing her calm face. She was not wearing any face he had ever seen. She was white to the lips, and her eyes were blazing, and a thin skin of frost was spreading, quite unauthorised, across the cobbles under her boots.
"*Godori!*" she snapped. "*Now!*"
He did not argue.
He scooped Sae off the ground, light as a bundle of sticks, and flung her over his shoulder, and she let out a startled squawk and kicked once and went limp. He ran. He ran down the alley with her weight on his back and his own pulse thundering in his ears, and Irel fell in beside him, and behind them, very faintly, the tall figure on the stair said, in the same calm, courteous, empty voice:
"Ah. I see."
They did not look back.
---
They did not stop until they were three streets away.
It was a small dark courtyard, with a dry well in the middle, and a single crooked pine, and no lights in the windows. Godori set Sae down against the well. She sat there, in a crumpled grey heap, with her knees drawn up and her face hidden, and did not say a word.
Irel stood over him with her fists clenched.
"You," she said.
"I know."
"You left without telling me."
"I *know.*"
"You went out alone. At *night.* After a *Warden told you not to.*" Her voice shook. "I woke up and your mat was empty. I thought, I thought..." She stopped. She drew a breath. "I followed the lamps. I ran all over the *city.*"
"I'm sorry."
"You could have been *killed!*"
"I know."
"You could have been *taken!*"
"I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"I've been so *frightened!*"
She said it in a thin, cracked, furious little voice, and then she did something that astonished them both. She stepped forward and flung her arms round his neck, and held on so hard that he could feel her whole body trembling. He stood quite still. His hands hung at his sides. Slowly, carefully, as if afraid to break something, he put them round her back.
"I'm here," he said.
"You *idiot.*"
"I know."
"*Never* do that again."
"I won't."
"Promise me."
"I promise."
"Say it properly."
"I promise I won't leave without telling you," said Godori, into her hair.
She was quiet for a while. When she spoke again, her voice was very small. "It is only that..." She stopped. "I could not bear it. If it was you."
He did not answer. He did not know what to say. He only stood there, in the dark, with her arms round his neck and her breath warm against his collar, and thought that his heart was going to burst.
*It's not the cold,* said a small, clear voice in the back of his mind.
*It was never the cold.*
For once, he did not argue with it.
At last Irel drew back. She scrubbed her face with her sleeve, hard, and drew herself up, and became again, with an effort that was almost visible, the calm, level, composed girl of the road.
"Who is this?" she said.
She was looking at Sae.
The girl had lifted her head. Her face was pale and tear-streaked and streaked with dust, and her grey eyes, huge and bruised and wary, flicked from one of them to the other.
"Sae," said Godori.
"She is one of them."
"Yes."
"She tried to kill you."
"A bit."
"And you *brought her.*"
"I... yes."
"Goro," said Irel, very slowly.
"I couldn't leave her."
"Why not?"
"Because she's... because she's *frightened,*" said Godori, helplessly. "And because they were going to take her back. And I don't think they'd have been kind about it." He looked at Sae. "And because she knows things. About the door. And the Ark. And Anna."
Irel looked at him. Her expression was unreadable.
"You are going to be the death of me," she said.
"I know."
"I mean it."
"I know."
"But it is the right thing."
"...It is?"
"Yes." She let out a long breath. "I hate it. But yes." She turned to Sae. "Can you walk?"
Sae stared at her.
"I will not run," she said, in a small voice.
"That is not what I asked."
"I... yes. I can walk."
"Then get up."
Sae got up. She stood swaying in the middle of the courtyard, small and thin and shivering, with her short pale hair standing on end and a thin line of blood on her chin. She looked, thought Godori, like a very young bird that had fallen out of a nest.
"Where are you taking me?" she whispered.
"Home," said Godori.
"Whose?"
"Ours."
"I do not have a home."
"You do now," said Godori, and then, because it had come out wrong, flushed to the ears. "I mean, you're... I mean, temporarily. Until we, um. Until we figure out what to do."
Sae looked at him.
Then, for the first time, she laughed. It was a thin, cracked, startled little sound, almost a hiccup. She clapped a hand over her mouth,