“Rhagos, Lord of the Dead,” he says, and then gestures at the cobbled gutter and the stepping stones raised up inside it. “If you’re done fawning over his visage, I’d like to get going before someone realizes we’re here.”

“God, you’re such a cranky bitch,” I snap at him, moving to his side. I nearly trip over one of the stepping stones, and kick it, my mood foul. “And why are these stones raised up in the gutter? A person could fall and hurt themselves.”

“It’s so you can cross when the gutter is full.” He narrows his eyes at me. “I worry about your cities. It sounds like they’re a mess. No sewers, no gutters, no cemeteries.” The god shakes his head. “I’m picturing a bunch of helpless fools sitting atop a mound of trash and calling that home.”

I grind my teeth. “My home is very nice, thank you very much.”

He only snorts in disbelief. “If it’s so nice, then why are you here?”

The throbbing vein in my forehead threatens to explode. “Oh my god. I don’t WANT to be here, Aron! I’m trapped here! You—“ I break off in shock when he glances over his shoulder and there’s a hint of a smirk on his firm mouth. He’s joking. “Oh, you are such a dick.”

“A dick that wants to leave this place behind for fairer cities, yes.”

On that, we’re agreed. When he puts his hand out for me, I take it again and move to his side. My sodden cloak squelches and slaps against my legs when I move, but I can’t abandon it. At this hour, it’s growing chilly, and my breath is starting to frost over. At least his hand is warm, and I instinctively move closer. “It’s really quiet. No one’s here in the graveyard even at night?”

Aron shrugs. “The prayer candles are dark. I guess no one bothers when they know Rhagos is not in his deathly kingdom to hear them.”

I look around, half expecting to see mobs of people with torches in the distance, but things are quiet. Off at the front of the gates, I see what looks like a lantern, but no one’s coming to check us out. Why guard a graveyard? Are they having trouble with looting? I’m afraid to ask Aron because he might make another salty comment about where I come from and make me feel stupid. Still, I can’t help but wonder. “It’s odd that no one’s checking out this part of town. They were all over the place every other street we turned down.”

He grunts. “We might have lost them.”

“But there are guards at the gate and they’re not even bothering to look for us,” I point out. There’s something about this I find creepy and wrong. Either we lost them, or people are deliberately avoiding this area.

I wait for Aron to make another shitty comment, but he’s only thoughtful. He gives me the grunt that tells me he’s considering what I said, but doesn’t stop moving. He tugs me forward and I wince at the fact that we’re walking over people’s graves. Other than staying in the gutter, there’s just not many other places to walk. “Where are we going?”

“Away from the city.” He points at the far side of the graveyard. Past a few more decorative trees and the endless lines of tombstones, I can see a break up ahead that looks a bit like a road in the moonlight. “That leads out. We’ll follow it for a bit and regroup.”

“All right.”

We move silently through the graveyard, the only sound the cold, wet slap of clothing against our bodies. The farther we get from the fountain and the center of the graveyard itself, the more…run down things look. The graves go from stone to wood, and they look even tighter together than before, which I didn’t think was possible. Even here, the poor get screwed. I bite back my whimpers when we cross over fresh dirt, because I know it’s just superstition, but it creeps me out.

Of course, then we come to the mass grave, and then I’m really freaked out. How is this okay with anyone? I stare in horror at the cloth-wrapped bodies carelessly tossed atop one another, as if they’re discarded dolls instead of people. “What is this, Aron?” I grab his arm and make him stop. “I don’t understand.”

He gazes out at the enormous pile of dead in the trench, and the curt comment I keep waiting for doesn’t come. “There must be plague.”

“Plague?” I have to bite back the shriek rising in my throat.

“Either that or the poor have no money to bury themselves and so this happens.” Aron gestures at the pit of corpses. “I think I prefer the thought of plague.”

“Well, I don’t,” I hiss back at him, trotting at his side when he starts to walk away. “Aron, what do we do if there’s plague? Like…black plague? From rats? Are there more plagues than that one?”

“I would not know. I am not the god of plagues.”

Right. Health and sickness is someone else’s forte. “So is this happening because that particular god is nearby? His Aspect?”

He pauses and gives me a hard look. “You keep asking these things as if I have the answers.”

“That’s because I’m scared.”

Aron turns toward me and to my surprise, he tucks my hand into his, giving it a comforting squeeze and slowing his steps so I can walk at his side. “Do not fear. I am with you. I will keep you safe.”

I study his face and some of my panic subsides. If I’m safe with anyone in this crazy world, I guess it’s with him.

Well…unless one of his Aspects shows up and tries to murder me. But overall, it’s nice to hear him be understanding and not a dick. “Thanks, Aron. You’re all right sometimes.” Before he can say something douchey, I add, “But only sometimes. Don’t let it go to your head.”

He snorts. “Are you going to chatter all night or can we leave this place?”

“I would very, very much like to leave,” I tell him, and I can’t hide my eagerness. “I’m not a fan of Katharn, or its crazy-sized sewers or its bloodthirsty mobs. I would rather be anywhere but here, in fact.”

“You and I both.” He thinks for a moment as we walk. “Well, almost anywhere.”

“What’s worse than here?” I can’t get past the fact that my cloak is covered in filth and slapping against my legs, or that if I breathe deep enough, I can probably smell the dead piled up nearby.

“Tadekha’s Citadel.”

I’m silent at that. Tadekha was very strange, true. She fed me and clothed me—and okay, made me sex crazed—but I’m surprised to hear him say that. I don’t know what to think. Was me touching him (and him touching me) so awful that he prefers this? Why are my feelings hurt at the thought? You’d think I was rubbing him off with a damn cactus instead of my very eager hands.

Arrogant jerk.

How much does it suck that I still think about that night? Like, a lot?

All the time?

Obviously I’m the only one who even gives it much thought at all. But I force a laugh to my throat. “Yeah. That was the worst, wasn’t it?”

“You nearly died and ended our journey very abruptly.”

“You were the one that wanted us to leave quickly! How was I supposed to know the rope was too short?”

“I was referring to the fact that we were both suffering from the parting sickness, but come to think of it, you nearly died twice.” His tone is utterly sour.

Before I can make a protest to that accusation, there’s a low, creaking groan that rolls through the cemetery. Aron pauses, his hand going to my breast as he pulls out one of his blades. I want to point out that he’s grabbing dangerously close to tit-meat, but the look on his face is anything but playful.

There’s danger here. I scoot behind him, my heart pounding as the nighttime cemetery is silent around us except for the blowing wind that teases at my hair.

The creaking sound happens again, followed by a scratching. It’s weird. The sound seems out of place here, and I squint into the darkness, trying to figure it out. “What is that?”

“Hsst,” Aron tells me with a sharp look, indicating I should be silent.

I bite back my irritation, because the sound happens again, followed by another round of scratching. Then more scratching.