The noise came with fury in the middle of the night: against Glenn Burnie's door, a rapping, violent and powerful, as if the portal itself might fall away at the hinges at every blow.
A rain had swept across Razasan earlier in the day. Well past midnight it continued to drum at the cobbles and at the thatch and slate of Razasani roofs. Sometimes it ebbed with a furious, thunderous strength, and lightning would flash in the distance; other times, it quieted to a soft hiss of mist and drizzle, taking mercy on the muddy streets and alleys.
With mounting impatience, the sound became more broad: the tight fist turned to an open hand, the palm blasting impetuously on the woodgrain, now a boom rather than a thud.
For four nights she sat as still as a statue in her room at the Piggsowen, half-clothed, the cold steel of Liam pressing against her thigh and clutched in a white-knuckled grip. When drunken feet shuffled through the tavern's hallways, she made solid every loose muscle in her body and skulked, trembling, toward the door. She held the blade poised near the jamb and murdered her breath.
She would kill them. If they came near, if they broke through the lock, she would have their eyes for her own. So quick she would be that they'd never know until they awoke in the Afterplace that they'd even been killed at all...
Once, when a carriage rattled past in the night, the glowing lanterns hanging on its frame throwing a starburst of light, the knocking stopped.
Then the rain crescendoed to a great, interminable rush.
And the knocking began again.