The Healing Wars: Book III: Darkfall by Janice Hardy

palm trees, their fronds rustling in the breeze.
    “Seems quiet. If that torch was a patrol, they’re gone now.”
    I stood. Tali didn’t. I tugged the rope. “Time to go, Tali.”
    She shook her head. My heart soared. She’d responded!
    “Just a little farther, then you can sleep. Come on, you can do it.”
    She shook her head again.
    “Tali, get up.”
    She got to her feet, moving as if she hadn’t slept for a week. I hoped we wouldn’t have to run.
    We crossed the too-high grass to the street, staying in the shadows again. At Beacon Walk we turned right, heading away from the Sanctuary, the only light on this isle that I’d seen so far. Well, aside from the patrol.
    Zertanik’s town house was halfway between the Sanctuary and his pain merchant shop close to the League. A residential block for those with money but not wealthy enough to afford the aristocrats’ district or the terraces. Folks who had enough to be paranoid about holding on to it.
    Most of the first-floor windows along the street were boarded up, a good thing for us. No allies lived in these buildings. A few gates were barred, heavy boards across them. No sounds of fighting, no sounds of any kind, really, just the soft tap of our footsteps on brick. My pace quickened the closer we got to the town house.
    “There it is.” It was more overgrown than we’d left it, with trash in the courtyard like all the other buildings we’d passed. No lights shone in any of the windows. None were boarded up.
    Danello hurried forward, but I caught his shoulder. “Easy. Anyone could be in there.”
    He nodded and we moved slower, checking the shadows and the likely places someone might be hiding if they were guarding this building. The places we’d watched from when we were hiding here.
    No sign of anyone. The front door wasn’t locked, and the entrance room looked as abandoned as the courtyard. Drawers and cabinets hung open, and it looked like everything worth having was gone.
    We stepped farther inside, the occasional creaks sounding loud as screams. No doors opened, and I didn’t hear anyone moving around on the upper floors.
    “Soek and I will search upstairs,” Danello said. “Quenji, Aylin, you take the bottom floor. Nya can guard the door with Tali.”
    Tali was looking around, her eyes wide, her mouth open a little. Did she know this place? Did she remember? I sat on the stairs and talked to her, but she ignored me like she had all night. Like a good little soldier, she only listened when I gave an order. I wiped my eyes.
    Danello and Soek returned shortly after Aylin and Quenji were done.
    “There’s no one here,” Danello said. “It looks safe.”
    “So we start searching?” Quenji asked.
    Soek shrugged. “If there’s anything left to find.”
    “Nya said the owner was a thief,” Quenji said. “Thieves hide stuff. I found jewels inside a table leg once.”
    A fuzzy image popped into my mind, of bookshelves and something hidden behind them that made my skin itch. What was it? The image cleared. A small locked box I’d found hidden behind some books months ago when we were living in the town house. We’d been looking for valuables to sell, but the box had bothered me so much, I hadn’t wanted to open it.
    “There might be something in the library,” I said.
    “Let’s see if it’s still there,” Quenji said.
    I nodding, praying it was and that it held some clue to helping Tali.

NINE
    D anello made a torch out of some ripped fabric and a broken table leg while Quenji found some flint in the kitchen. It took a few strikes of the flint to light the torch, but it gave us enough light to see by. I just hoped it wasn’t bright enough to be seen from the outside.
    Tali had curled up in a chair, her eyes closed.
    “I’ll stay here and watch her,” Aylin said softly. “Soek can guard the door.”
    “No one gets in,” he said, hefting another table leg.
    I smiled. “Thanks.” I hesitated, then turned back to Aylin. She’d almost