Fifth Quarter Read Online Free PDF

for the floor was not always exactly where she thought it should be, she walked to the window, careful to remain out of the line of sight from below. Time had not stopped just because the impossible had occurred and she—they—were still in the heart of an enemy stronghold. Her hand held the heavy swag curtains motionless and she looked out at the sky. The stars had danced most of the night away.
     
    "We've got to get out of here."
     
    "Agreed."
     
    But instead she stood staring at her hand as though she'd never seen it before. It was too slender, a strong hand but a woman's hand. The nails were too even, they should have been ragged, chewed to the quick. The white line of scar from the second knuckle to the base of the thumb—where had it come from?
     
    "Bannon."
     
    The sound of his name barely carried past her lips but he heard it.
     
    "Not mine…"
     
    "No. Mine." And suddenly, it was her familiar hand again. She felt his presence draw in on itself, wrapped around equal parts of torment and terror. She wanted to reach out and touch him…
     
    … with her hand…
     
    … hers…
     
    … but she couldn't, so she settled for getting them safely out of the stronghold instead.
     
    By the time they were over the wall and back into the city, her body was responding with the fluid grace and economy of movement they had always shared. If Bannon occasionally added his control to hers, Vree couldn't tell, and she supposed that was all that mattered.
     
    "Head for the South Road."
     
    She paused, one foot half raised. "What?"
     
    "Aralt is going north, toward the Capital." If the city had another name, no one remembered it. No one had used it in generations.
     
    "And we'll go north right after we tell Commander Neegan what's going on."
     
    "No."
     
    Vree slid into the shadow cast by the damp, above-ground wall of a cistern. "What do you mean, no?"
     
    "Commander Neegan won't believe you."
     
    Her protest died, unformed. In the commander's place would she believe that an old man had stolen her brother's body and pushed his life out into a dying shell? Would she believe such an impossible story without the presence of Bannon's thoughts beside her own?
     
    "He'll think I died in there and you've gone crazy,"
     
    Bannon insisted. "The army thinks assassins are half crazy anyway. You'll be shackled so you don't hurt anyone. Probably drugged. We'll die like that, Vree."
     
    "The commander has known us all our lives."
     
    "So what." His hostility surprised her.
     
    "We could convince him." But in the face of Bannon's certainty, she was no longer convincing even herself.
     
    "We've got to go north now or we'll lose all chance of catching Aralt and my body."
     
    "If we leave the army like this—if we desert— they'll hunt us down." Assassins who deserted were under an immediate death sentence; an Imperial edict designed to reassure the citizens that the army's more subtle killers remained under control.
     
    "Slaughter it, Vree! Why would they think we deserted? They'll think the odds finally caught up to us and we died in Ghoti. And if you'd stop arguing, we could have him by dawn and be back in camp before they even miss us."
     
    "Don't be an idiot, Bannon…"
     
    "He's in my body; I should know how far he can get! He's only a couple of hours ahead of us."
     
    "And it's less than a couple of hours till dawn." Very pointedly, Vree turned to face the east. Whether the frustration she felt was his or hers, she had no idea. "If Aralt was ready for you, he was ready to travel. He might even be on horseback."
     
    "No, no horse."
     
    "How do you know?"
     
    "I just know, okay? I just know."
     
    She ground her teeth and struggled to find order in the emotional maelstrom inside her head; fought to separate her reactions from his. "So we skirt the army for the South Road, and then what?"
     
    "And then we find Aralt and reclaim my body."
     
    "You really think it's going to be that easy?"
     
    His anger started