" I KEEP SEARCHING THE STREETS FOR THAT / BLOOD-WINE BATTLESHIP SHE DRIVES. "
Ah, but foreigners are all so predictable.
And so easy to pick out. She can tell instantly that he is not from here (although, to be fair, the fact that he can’t read should have been the first clue). His kind, strangers from a distant land, are the kind that shrink away at the sight of her third eye, or try too hard to meet its gaze and inadvertently stare; they are the kind whose awkwardness around the sight of magic is palpable.
But this man does not shrink or stare. O resentfully admires him for it—the way he keeps himself stringently together. But even the best actor in the world would flinch a little in surprise, and the way his body tightens like a bowstring tells her that he is not, in fact, the best actor in the world.
He turns away from her. His large, refined head dips toward the pages again, and O watches with cool interest as the bone-white, spear-sharp tip of that weaponous horn skates the page. It is like a pen, O thinks; a pen and a sword all at once. If one is mightier than the other—well, then he is quite lucky to have both.
It points to Isra. Raum. Then: Acton.
O swallows sharply. The third eye squeezes suddenly and violently closed, as if it has seen something it is terribly afraid of; but the other two remain fixed stubbornly on Martell’s green gaze.
“Isra survived,” she muses, “because she found someone who was willing to die for her. Raum and Acton didn’t.” A pause; her mouth works, turning suddenly to the side. “At least, not with them. Not when it all went down. I guess that makes the why of it luck.”
