Forged in Blood I Read Online Free PDF Page B

into or behind.
    At the moment, she didn’t see anyone, so she eased inside, choosing a route between the side wall and a roll of paper on a spindle longer than Maldynado was tall. It supplied a two-story steam-powered press that clanked and thunked loudly enough to drown out voices and everything else that would have warned her people were nearby. She waited for Maldynado to join her, then poked an eye around the end of the roll.
    A man in black fatigues was heading their way, and she pulled back. He walked past their spot, but didn’t glance behind the press. Instead, he headed toward the back wall where staircases led up and down, and a sign on their floor read WC.
    As soon as the man disappeared into the water closet, Amaranthe checked both sides of the long press. Nobody else was in sight.
    Stay here , she signed, figuring she’d have an easier time crawling under a machine or slipping into a nook than Maldynado.
    He propped his fists on his hips.
    Amaranthe slipped out before he could argue. She wanted to see what their roll of paper was being turned into on the other end of the press and didn’t know how much time she’d have before the man returned. Automatic cutters rasped on the next machine over, but she found the uncut sheets and, with her back to the wall, stopped to read. Light from a floor lamp illuminated the text, an unfamiliar one-column layout.
    “These aren’t newspapers,” she whispered after she’d read a few lines. “They’re pamphlets.” She skimmed further, her gaze sliding over lines like, “…an end to dangerous progressive policies,” and “deportation of foreign plunderers.” “ Propaganda pamphlets,” she murmured.
    Figuring the soldier would return soon, she jogged back toward the rear of the press. She’d like to have one of the pamphlets to take back to Books, but tearing one off from the uncut sheets wouldn’t be terribly subtle. Maybe she could sneak around the cutting machine and grab one of the—
    Amaranthe halted. Maldynado was gone.
    Back out to the loading dock? Or out into the pressroom?
    The water closet door opened, and she shifted into the shadows without getting a chance to search. The man returned to the front of the press and resumed his job at the paper cutter.
    Amaranthe drummed her fingers on her thigh. Search further into the pressroom or slip back outside? She hadn’t felt a cold draft that would have signified the outer door opening. Using the press to hide her advance, she crept farther into the room. A soldier with a box walked past the front end of the machine. She hid in the shadows of the machinery, halting all movement. He said something to the man working the cutter, but the clanking machinery drowned out the words. Someone else called a question from the other side of the room, then a third man walked past with an empty box, heading for the freshly cut pamphlets.
    There were too many men around. This hadn’t been a good idea. It’d be best to find Mancrest at his tenement building, then, if they couldn’t get the truth out of him, return to the Gazette at a later hour.
    She’d barely finished the thought when she spotted Maldynado. He had indeed gone farther into the room. He’d used a support column to hide his back—most of it—and had climbed up an inactive press to peer over the other side, toward the desk-filled front of the building.
    Amaranthe let her head clunk back against the machine behind her. Though he wasn’t near any lamps, he wasn’t that well hidden. Any of those soldiers strolling about, filling boxes, might spot him when they walked past. Emperor’s teeth, she wasn’t well hidden either. She wanted to get his attention, to sign to him—what was he looking at that was worth risking discovery for?—but his back was to her.
    She dropped to hands and knees to get close to him without being seen, and advanced into the room, peering through the legs of the press as she went. The man at the paper cutter had his back to