by Kirby Crow
“Why would you think that?” Dominique's scarred mouth curled in disgust. “Because you're not Jean?” He saw Tris flinch. “That’s it, isn’t it? Jean Rivard is the biggest slut in the city, legs and mouth open for all comers. You'll never be like him, and thank Paladin for that. He's a Pae without the silks. The Undines would weep at the stories I've heard.”
Tris shook his head, not believing it. Jean was a lion; a great, beautiful, feline statue of a man. Men sensed his power and craved a look from him, a word. They followed him because they loved his strength and his beauty and wanted to share in it.
“Marion and Jean were lovers for twenty years. I thought it would be over in a month. I know I’m handsome, but so are a thousand others Marion could have.”
Dominique's eyes widened. “Handsome? Listen to you.” He strode closer and looked down on Tris, his face like a thundercloud. “Kon kept you shut away too long. I warned the idiot that you needed to see your reflection in something besides a fancy mirror. Half the men I know would do murder to have a lover like you. You don't know what you're worth.”
That made Tris smile a little. “Marion says the same.”
“Then maybe I won’t have to kill him.”
That was nearly praise, coming from Dominique. It gave him hope. “I need your help, papa.”
Dominique went still. “What's happened? Is Kon—”
“He's fine,” Tris said quickly. “He's safe at home, last I knew.” In his sleeve was the painted canvas that he'd rolled into a tight, stiff scroll. He offered it to Dominique, who opened it and looked. His pallor told Tris much.
“You knew?” Tris asked in shock.
Dominique folded his arms. He didn't offer the canvas back. “Tell me whose hand brought this to you.”
“Paris.”
Dominique's eyes flicked coldly to the lowcoach. “Who else has seen it?”
“Just us, but Paris was informed in a telegraph where to look for it. He claims he could not discover who sent it.”
Dominique's chin jutted out at the mention of telegraphs. “Damned things. I won't have them on my docks. If a man needs to say something he can use his mouth so I know where to aim my fist when he lies.”
“But this isn't a lie, is it?”
“No, lamb. Not a lie, but it was a long, long time ago. None of it matters now. All of us began as something else, from someplace else.”
Tris lowered his voice to a hushed whisper. “But a Starless Man, and his true family, Lord Nera... if the Consolari knew—”
Dominique took Tris by the arm and drew him closer. He lowered his voice as well. “Death or exile. Both, if they get to decide, along with a jolly quartering. They'd never believe that a son of Nera wasn't planning to turn the city over to the marauders one day, even though he's served their fucking high and mighty Citta Alta for thirty-five years.” He took three steps to the torchiere and thrust the canvas into the flames.
Tris gasped. “No!”
“You'd rather see your father hanged?”
“Never. But that belonged to him. Whatever it means, he deserves to have it.”
“Trust me, boy. Kon doesn't need to see this.” Dominique let the dried, cracked oils of the little painting catch up and held the burning canvas like a taper until only a shard was left. The flames reached his fingers and must surely have been burning him before he let go.
Tris watched as the shard floated up over their heads and kept burning, guttering out to a black curl of ash and then dropping. It vanished over the side of the hulk as if giving chase to a memory.
Dominique slapped the soot from his fingers. “Just like that, old lives and ash.”
Tris shook his head. “It can't be that easy.”
“That's why we have Aequora. That's what we are.” Dominique glanced at the lowcoach again. “Do you trust Paris?”
Tris’s eyes stung and he blinked, ashamed of his weakness. “Not at all.”
Dominique wrapped his arms around him in a bear hug. His voice was a soft, deep burr, endlessly comforting. “That’s my boy. That's why you came all the way down here, eh? Running to papa with a problem you couldn't take to anyone else.”
Tris’s fingers bunched in Dominique's tunic and he pressed his cheek against the rough, salt-washed shirt. His father smelled of sweat and seawater, leather and beer, everything of home.
Dominique patted his back and hugged him once more. “There now.”
“Mi dispiace. Mi dispiace tanto, papa.”
Dominique's chest heaved in a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, too. It wasn’t your fault, a boy like you and your first man. I should have just beat Marion to a pulp and let it go.”
Tris choked on a laugh and wiped his eyes. “Hardly a better solution.”
A last caress to his hair, and Dominique took him by the shoulders and held him away. “Look at me. Where are you off to?”
“Paris believes that Marion was meant to find the painting. I think whoever sent the telegraph believed that father would kill Marion, rather than risk anyone else finding out. Or, knowing Marion’s history with Aureo Marigny, they hoped that Marion would kill Kon first.”
“Do you want the truth?” Dominique’s blue eyes were steady and merciless. “Kon might have considered it before you were promised. Now... no. He'd never cause you that pain just to save himself. As for Marion, well, Aureo Marigny was closer to him than Kon, and Aureo is dead as hell.”
“Aureo deserved it.”
Dominique smirked. “Right you are. The painting is a distraction, nothing more. You’re in the center of a plot, lamb. How will you protect Marion without giving away your father’s secrets?”
“I don't know yet, but Paris is trying very hard to convince me that someone wants Marion dead.”
Dominique laughed. “Oh, bambino, lots of men want your bello dead. They talk about it 'til dawn in the taverns. Yap yap yap.” He spit over the side of the railing. “Limp cocks, all of 'em. Barking dogs sent baying with a good kick. No, the man who put this plot into motion is one who doesn't waste his breath shouting at drunks. A smart man, someone who will make his plans, gather his forces, and then act. A quiet man.”
Tris knew several men like that, but few capable of plotting murder. “L'arciere?”
Dominique nodded wisely. “A very silent man, that one. And where do silent men go?”
“The grave?”
“Not so far as that.” He looked past Tris and grinned wolfishly. “Stay close to Dell'Acqua. He won't let anything happen to you. He knows if he does, I'll have his head in a basket.”
“Where are you going?”
“That's my business. Just do as I say.”
“You're going home.” Despite his worry, Tris smiled. “You are, aren't you?” Kon would be so happy. It was one piece of light in all the dread.
“Yes, of course,” Dominique sighed. “Was there ever any doubt I’d go back to the bastard?”
Tris smiled. “None.”
Dominique tapped Tris’s nose. “I'm not going to tell Kon you were here. Not yet. And if I know that silk-pantsed jailer, he’s got his sights set on the Zanzare. It’s dangerous. Kon would try to stop you.”
“You're not?”
Dominique grinned. “Hell, no. It's past time you took a few risks, and you're smart enough to think your way around ten enemies. Buona fortuna. Just be careful.”
“Are you going to tell father that I know about him?”
“No. That’s your decision.”
“Thank you, papa.” Tris kissed Dominique’s hand and turned to go.
“Lamb?” Dominique rubbed his scarred jaw as if pondering a problem. He crooked a finger, beckoning.
Tris followed Mika into the dim sterncastle of his quarters. The curved walls smelled of tar, though the oak chairs and table were as fine as any in the upper city. A thick-woven tapestry covered a window of thick glass cloudy with trapped air bubbles.
Dominique closed the cabin door and turned the bolt, plunging the room into near
-darkness. He went to the desk and opened a drawer, then levered pressure on it with his fist before slamming it home. The desk clicked like a lock opening. Dominique reached down into it. “You might need this. If not, so much the better.”
Tris stared in awe at the sleek lines of silver, steel, and polished wood that Dominique offered him. “Oh,” he whispered, “But I thought father had the only one.”
Dominique's scarred mouth quirked. “So does he.”
***
The steep sides of tall insulae enclosing the canal kept the waterway in perpetual shade. An iron-banded door opened directly onto the water, a flight of damp steps beyond leading up to the secret garret.
Tris gave the rugged sandolier a warning glance and paid him triple his fare. Until now, Tris had only traveled to this place masked, in a sandolo he hired several streets away from his home. He hated to reveal his private place to Paris, or even to an unknown sandolier, but the garret was only accessible by canal and Paris insisted they must wait until dark to enter the Zanzare.
“I was not here,” he told the sandolier, spilling coins into the leathery hand.
The sandolier grunted and looked away, and Tris knew he'd done as well as he could, given the circumstances.
He stood up carefully in the boat and fitted a brass key into the mouth of the lock. The rusted door screeched on its hinges and swung inward, and he stepped up, turning to offer his hand to Paris. The sandolo glided away as stealthily as a waterbug.
“What is this place?” Paris asked.
Tris shook his head and put his shoulder to the door. It closed with a drum-like boom, and he struck a match and began climbing. He lit two more matches on the ascent of the narrow passageway, Paris following silently. At the top step he touched the flame to the beeswax candle he'd left in its small niche.
There was no second lock to breach. The stairs simply ended at an open doorway into a round garret with smooth stone walls. He took the candle and went inside, illuminating the heavy arched beams that supported the ceiling. He found the other candles about the room and lit them, as well as the oil lamp he'd filled last month.
The chamber began to fill with a warm yellow glow, and Paris looked around, those charming curls at the corners of his mouth turning upward.
“So this is where a prince of the city goes to hide.”
“It was a bartizan once,” Tris said. “Or perhaps part of an old observatory. I discovered it on a map I was commissioned to restore. Curiosity led me to investigate further.”
The embrasures had been bricked up and access to the rest of the structure had been sealed off with mortar and heavy stone. There was simply the door, the stairs and the room, nothing more. Such a place was not desirable for living quarters, but in it, Tris found a place for the treasures he did not want to keep under Kon's roof.
Paris touched the empty owl cage Tris had kept Seta in, made of welded black metal too strong for even Seta's formidable beak. Resting against the cage was the Bauta mask Kon would never let him wear, and Gallop: the painted horse he'd been given for his sixth birthday.
There were other treasures; a leather trunk, and one of wood where he kept a fine sword and a velvet cloak with a deep hood, boots, gloves, curved knives that could be cleverly hidden in a special belt, and pornographic romance novels. An astrolabe made of glass and copper. A brass telescope with a cracked lens, kept solely for the ancient letters scrolling over the metal, written in a language he had never been able to decipher. A wooden man threaded with wire who could be posed in any position stood saluting the doorway, no bigger than Tris’s hand, a broken time piece hung on its neck. Wooden stars on strings balanced on a mobile that the merest breath would turn. The stars turned silently over a box of dried paints acting as a paperweight to a sheaf of tattered figure sketches he'd drawn years ago.
Yet another strangled talent that Kon had not approved of.
“This isn't a lover's rendezvous,” Paris said. He slipped one of the sketches from under the box. “Marion doesn't know.” His hazel eyes turned soft. “Does he?”
Tris shook his head and took the sketch out of Paris's hands. Paris touched the owl cage.
“Please let that be,” Tris said, then bit his lip. Kon had been very kind the night Seta flew away, promising to buy him another, but he had refused. Everyone believed that clever Seta had clawed the lock of his cage and escaped, but the truth was that after Tris had watched Seta stare in fascination at the full silver moon for an entire hour, he had opened the cage himself.
Paris ran his fingers along the brocade and velvet padding an antique wooden couch that had been in the garret when Tris found it. Both the couch and the table were too large to fit through the door, and too heavy to move. Their dark woods were like iron.
“I didn't know you were a real artist,” Paris said.
Tris returned the sketch to its place. Kon's colorless eyes stared up at him from the paper, strangely alive. “I'm not. I could have been. Now I just draw maps.”
“You're very good. I've never seen a better likeness of Kon, not even in that painting.” Paris sat on the pillows and stretched like a cat. “How long do you plan on staying here?”
Tris was struck again by how handsome Paris was. It was a shame that Paris had so little pity for anyone. His lack of empathy made him cold to the lives of others, and Tris could not abide that.
“Until midnight, I think.”
“I can think of worse things than to be in your company for several hours, alone.”
Tris sighed. “Paris...”
“Nothing has changed for me, you know,” Paris said, suddenly serious. “I still think I'm the better man for you. At least I can appreciate all of your talents. Does Marion even have a clue how brilliant you are?”
“He values my other qualities.”
“Meaning he doesn't recognize that you're a genius.”
Tris chuckled. “Yes, I can name every bridge, house, street and canal in the city. I could do it in my sleep. I can draw them from memory, too. Does that sound like a skill? It's more of a parlor trick.” He flipped open the lid of the trunk and brought out a dusty magnum of purple glass. “Speaking of parlor tricks: voila. I have made this bottle appear. Magic.”
Paris grinned. “Does darling papa know you drink?”
Tris collected a pewter cup from the trunk. “Yes. Both of them. And if you persist in referring to my fathers like that, I'll be drinking alone.” The weight of what Dominique had given him was heavy in his pocket under his coat. He wondered for a fleeting moment if he would have to use it to get out of the garret alone. He fervently hoped not.
Paris watched him uncork the bottle. Tris poured a full measure and offered it. “This is the only cup. We'll have to share.”
Paris smiled as he sniffed the bouquet. “Old,” he judged. “Expensive. Where did you get it?”
Tris fluttered his fingers. “Magic.”
Paris took a sip and deliberately let his tongue linger on the rim, holding Tris’s gaze. “I don't mind sharing.”
Tris began to feel better about his plan. “It was a gift.”
Paris drank again and smacked his lips. “There's a strange tang to it.”
“That would be the cup. I don't dare leave silver or gold up here. The location is obscure, but no door is safe this close to the Arsenale.”
“I'm amazed your little haven exists at all. I never credited you with slyness.” Paris emptied the cup and wiped a purple drop from his chin. Holding Tris's gaze, he licked his finger.
Tris shook his head, feeling drained and irked at the same time. “You never stop, do you?”
“Sorry.” Paris did not look contrite at all. “It took me ten years to adjust to a world of men. I wouldn't know how to stop now, to be honest.”
“When have you ever been honest?” He motioned for Paris to give him the cup and poured it full once more.
Paris waved the cup away. “Your turn.”
Tris smiled. “You're the guest.”
“You little shit...” The cup slipped to the floor, purple wine spilling across the stone flags.
“Maaaagic,” Tris hummed.
Paris fell off the couch.
Tris looked down at the fallen carcelero for a long moment. Paris cared more about having Marion’s job than Marion’s life. If he thought that fact had escaped Tris, then he believed Tris a fool.
Like Kon, Paris had the same easy ability to shunt emotion aside and analyze matters from a distance. Paris had a fine mind, but the rest of him was all wrong, because Paris could never make the journey back. He went to cold places in his heart, barring the windows and doors against intruders.
We could have been such good friends, Tris mourned.
Marion had warmth. Paris had a calculating void in the middle of him that no love would fill. Paris would always be unsatisfied, always searching, and Tris was grateful that he'd grown wise enough to see it for himself, that he'd been spared the heartache of falling in love with a man so completely wrong for him.
“Genius, indeed,” he sighed. He yanked a pillow from the couch and knelt to wedge it under Paris's head. Paris was out cold.
“You, signore, are no Marion Casterline,” Tris murmured. “No man will ever break that heart, and I don't know if you should curse the gods for it or bless them for their mercy.”
Paris would wake in two or three hours with a splitting headache. That should be enough time. Tris went to the trunk and searched deep in the bottom, sliding the false panel aside. He brought out a white enameled Volto mask. The eyes of the mask were enhanced with thick scrolls of pure silver. A crimson rose decorated the forehead, and the painted mouth was a delicate pink blush so pale and artful that the lips appeared to glisten with moisture. Worn, the Volto would cover his entire face.
From the leather trunk he took a black tunic sewn with ivory lace, breeches, a wide-brimmed tricorne hat with a cocky feather, black velvet gloves, high boots that came up to his thighs, and two long daggers, sharp enough to sail through canvas. He dressed quickly and tied the mask on, pushing his hair under the hat and pulling the brim down low.