The Element of Fire, page 341 by Martha Wells
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a moment.
She climbed out onto the sill, then stepped to the broad ledge. The black spraggat was no longer in sight though it might come back at any moment. She was in a poor position to defend herself.
The frigid wind tore at her, tearing the air out of her lungs. Kade edged her way along, fingers clinging tightly to the chinks in the stone. She hadn't pinned her coat together again and the cold air poured down her back. She would have to cross the siege wall to get to the Old Palace anyway. Can I do it from the outside? Another laborious ten feet and Kade saw that she couldn't, not without falling to her death. She would have to enter the North Bastion to reach the walkway along the top of the wall.
Finally Kade could stand the cold no more. She reached a set of windows she could push open, then almost fell through them onto the floor of a small bedchamber. Sitting up on the rug that was stiff with frost, she realized she had not even bothered to glance in first to see if the room was unoccupied. She could have landed headfirst among a whole tribe of spriggans, or a troop of Alsene soldiers.
She buried her head in her hands. He has you on the run. You're playing into his hands again.
Kade pushed to her feet and went through the doorway to the next room. It was a beautifully arranged parlor, the wallpaper and upholstery of rose and gold. She didn't know who this suite had belonged to or where she was, except that she was near the corner and would have to find the stairs that let out onto the siege wall. The light from the window in the bedchamber made no inroads on the shadows in the corners. The next room would be dark as pitch.
Kade dug in her pockets and finally came up with a tinder-box. She would light one of the candles in here and take it with her. She would have to do that anyway if she didn't want to be running into walls and stepping on bogles. Coward, she thought as she fumbled with the flint. Bloody coward.
It refus