by Ari Marmell
Or so the young Delacroix explained. All Widdershins could tell for certain was that the place was tightly shuttered and smelled of turpentine.
“The proprietor lives with his sister, in a room over her shop,” Cyrille continued. “So he pays us rent on only the lower floor. The upper's empty. After you, m'lady.”
Shins managed to turn away before smirking at the boy's clumsy flattery, and preceded him up the narrow stairs that climbed the side of the building. It was only when they reached a small landing and Cyrille began to reach for the latch that he abruptly froze.
“Um…” Even in the dim light of the sporadic streetlamps, Shins could see his cheeks flush a shade of red that would have been the envy of any apple. “I, uh…”
It took everything the young thief had not to slap herself in the forehead so hard that the guards behind her would feel it. “You don't actually have a key, do you?”
“Well, I hadn't expected to…I didn't think…”
“Oh, for the love of pastries. Move over.” Shins dropped to a knee by the lock, slipped a wire from inside her belt, muttered a request for better night vision—which Olgun readily obliged—and had the door open in under a minute.
“After you,” she said brightly.
“Thank you…”
The poor boy sounded so crushed. “I feel like I just kicked a kitten,” Widdershins admitted to Olgun.
She managed to swallow a giggle at the god's response—an intense image of Cyrille with whiskers and fur-tufted ears, propelled into the air by the tip of Shins's boot to his rear—but it was a near thing.
It became a bit easier when she stepped into a room so dusty a single good sneeze would make the place almost as suffocating as the Thousand Crow's unnatural powder. As it was, she began to cough, until Olgun was able to soothe her already-inflamed throat just enough.
“Be fine,” she croaked in response to Cyrille's worried glance. “Just…stuffy in here, yes?” She made an exaggerated point of examining the space around her. “Also cramped. How friendly are you with your guards?”
Indeed, though the room was devoid of furniture—save for a rickety stool and a bed with a mattress that looked about as firm and supportive as peat—it wouldn't hold more than two at all comfortably, and no more than thrice that number unless they were prepared to lean on one another and possibly synchronize their breathing.
Shins slumped onto the stool—she didn't entirely trust the mattress not to either swallow her whole or seep into her clothes—and proceeded to ignore the inevitable argument occurring in the doorway. The guards didn't trust her, were hesitant to leave Cyrille alone with her, were worried of what might happen if Jourdain found out they'd done so, and were positively terrified of what might happen if Lady Delacroix discovered same.
When all was said—and shouted—and done, however, the bottom line was that Cyrille Delacroix was one of their employers. Perhaps his orders were subordinate to almost every other member of the family's, perhaps it was an authority they were unaccustomed to him exercising, but the fact remained that if he told them to wait outside, that's what they were bound to do.
By the time Cyrille had slammed the door and turned back her way, Widdershins had ditched her ragged cloak and worn gloves, tossing both over the headboard where they hopefully dangled out of reach of the mattress that, to her mind, was looking hungrier by the moment. Her rapier stood against the wall, within easy reach. She prodded gingerly at herself, checking the various lacerations and bruises she'd acquired over the course of the evening. Nothing serious—with Olgun's aid, they ought to have all but faded completely by morning—but still, better to check.
Especially when she still hadn't the first idea what else, if anything, that choking cloud might have done to her.
“All right, Widdershins.” Cyrille stepped around her and planted himself on the bed; if he mistrusted the thing at all, he showed no sign of it. His attentions seemed locked on her. “What the hell's going on?”
She told him, minus a few—read: any—personal details, only sporadically interrupted by her gradually easing cough. Her eavesdropping on the family conversation, her failure to find any proof of Carnot complicity, her earlier conversation with Jourdain, her search through two hundred and ninety-one (twelve) taverns and inns for any sign of the Thousand Crows.
And, of course, her battle and near escape when the Crows found her, as well as her near certainty that the strange magic they'd employed against her was related to the blights afflicting Delacroix lands.
“But you're still not going to tell me why you want to help us, are you?” Cyrille asked, almost pouting.
She shook her head, flexing her right elbow as she squeezed with her other hand, trying to work out a bit of stiffness. “Personal reasons,” she said.
“You know, it'd be easier to convince Mother of your sincerity if I had some idea why—”
“Personal! Reasons!”
“Fine!” The wood of the bed frame squeaked a bit as he almost violently crossed his arms. He'd had to have stuck his tongue out to appear any more petulant; Widdershins couldn't decide if she wanted to laugh or smack him on the back of his head.
Boys. No wonder I fell for someone older, like Julien….
The thought was a fist, one that nearly sent her reeling from her seat. It wasn't the first time she'd thought of the young guardsman since she'd left Davillon, not even remotely. But she honestly couldn't recall if she'd ever, until that moment, actually described her affection to herself, actually put any words to how she had felt, still felt…
“How do you do it?”
“I…What?” It took an effort to drag herself back from the recesses of her mind, to look once more through her own eyes at the room in which she sat, and the young aristocrat who'd just spoken. She actually envisioned herself reaching out, snagging his question like a lifeline. “Do what?”
“Everything you do. I've never seen anyone move the way you do, fight the way you do. Cevora's sake, I've never even heard of it, outside a few legends!”
He failed to notice her brief shudder at his invocation of Cevora.
“It's sure as hell not just special training,” he continued. “The human body can't do that. Not, uh, even one as impressive…” The sentence trailed off into an inaudible mumble.
And Olgun pinch her if she wasn't seriously tempted. It'd be so nice, after all this time, to have someone she could truly talk to about everything. She hadn't realized, until her brief visit with Brother Maurice, how much she missed that. Maybe even needed it.
For all that, she couldn't do it. How well did she truly know Cyrille? When push came to shove, if it truly came down to deciding between his family or her, which way would he jump? How devout was his devotion to Cevora and the rest of the Hallowed Pact? Would he even believe her?
Or might he believe too much? Would his first true experience with divinity be enough to inspire worship? Would she lose her unique bond to Olgun when she most desperately needed him?
She'd tried to share her faith once before, with Robin, and failed. She knew she should do so again, knew that he was as mortal as she so long as he had only a single worshipper. But this…This wasn't the right time. It couldn't be.
She needed it not to be.
“Sacred ritual,” she not quite lied, “with an element of genuine mysticism. From when I was younger.”
“You're not serious!” Cyrille's incredulity practically left imprints on the dusty floor. “Are you serious?”
The thief shrugged. “You asked.”
“But…Who? Why? How? Why you?”
Again she could only envision the man who'd taken her in, who'd changed her entire world, who'd introduced her into the sect of the god who now traveled everywhere at her side. “Family,” she said simply.
To that, the young Delacroix scion nodded in understanding, and pressed no further.
“Widdershins…” he began hesitantly, after a bit of silence.
“Shins is fine,”
she muttered absently, thoughts and plans for her next step ricocheting through her skull, a barrage of mental ammunition.
“Uh, all right. Shins…” Was Cyrille nervous? He sure looked it, rolling a fold of the mattress fabric between his fingers and scuffing the toe of one boot on the floor, but for the life of her the young woman couldn't begin to guess why. “So, um…I haven't, we haven't known each other very long, but—”
“Shh!” Widdershins's hand shot up, gesturing for silence.
The aristocrat actually recoiled. “What? You could at least hear—!”
But Shins was focused on something else entirely, the faint scrape of movement Olgun had directed to her ears. “I said hush!”
This time, Cyrille recognized the warning in her voice. Or maybe it was the fact that she was quietly reaching for the sword beside her stool.
“How loyal are your household guards?” she whispered.
“Completely.” Cyrille's fist closed on the hilt of his own weapon. “They'd lay down their lives for the family. Uh…Why do you ask?”
Shins didn't need Olgun's enhancement any longer; she could hear it quite clearly on her own.
“Because we never heard a single shout or trace of combat,” she told him calmly, “and there are at least a dozen pairs of boots tromping up those steps outside.”
“So what do we do?” Cyrille's words were too steady, almost monotonous. It was clearly either that or let them shake uncontrollably. Shins found herself just a tiny bit impressed; it was more than some experienced fighters could have done. “Out the window, maybe?”
She glanced at the tiny thing, rickety shutters in a wan, warped frame, and shook her head. They could probably both slip through it, but sliding smoothly from that to climbing the wall outside…Well, it wasn't too far down, but she still wasn't especially optimistic about Cyrille's odds.
“It's a narrow doorway,” she observed, her own voice rising to be heard over the increasingly loud juddering of the stairs. “I can hold off a good number of people, if you're ready to take any who get past me, yes?”
“Uh…‘Take’…? I'm not sure—”
“And assuming they don't just open fire, of course,” she continued. “Or light a fire, for that matter. This whole building feels like the kind of wood you'd use if you were having trouble lighting kindling.”
“Gghlrrk!” Cyrille informed her.
“Hopefully they won't want to go that far. Otherwise, we'll have to risk the win—”
Voices wafted to Widdershins's ears, hauled from the maelstrom of boots and creaking steps in Olgun's grasp. The thief briefly sagged, then drew herself fully erect.
“Or,” she said, striding toward the door, hand reaching for the knob, “we can just let them in and get this over with. Had to happen eventually, yes?”
“Who…What are you talking about?” Cyrille might not be on the edge of panic, but he was certainly edging out toward the face of the cliff.
“Jourdain must have sent one of his men ahead at a full gallop for this to happen so quickly. Your mother's here.”
“Oh.” A pause, long enough for Shins's hand to fall on the latch, start to turn. “Is it too late to go back to the ‘being set on fire’ option?”
Widdershins flashed him an impish grin, yanked the door open, and leapt back, hands held well away from her sides—and any weapons, concealed or otherwise, she might attempt to draw. The first of the Delacroix guards, who had apparently been preparing to put his shoulder to the door, blinked in puzzlement as a handful of others flooded in around him.
Or rather, attempted to. The rather intimate confines of the room capped that “handful” at two, if they had any intention whatsoever of brandishing swords. The pair seemed a bit uncertain now that they were here; others milled about on the steps or the small landing, trying to peer inside and wondering how to make themselves useful.
It was, all in all, assuredly not the household soldiers’ finest moment. It was only her understanding of how much worse it would make her circumstances that kept Widdershins from laughing outright.
The fact that Olgun was doing so, or at least the emotional equivalent, didn't make it any easier.
When the gruff bark of Jourdain's orders burst through the doorway, accompanied by a waft of expensive perfume strong enough to overpower the miasma of leather, oiled steel, and sweat, Widdershins's mirth turned to vinegar. She knew what was coming.
Guards snapped to attention, pushing themselves against the outer wall or banister to provide a pathway for their captain, Jourdain—and for their employer and matriarch, Calanthe Delacroix.
She was garbed in a fashionable full skirt and colorful blouse, but the leather jerkin she wore over it was clearly no mere accessory, and she held a gold-filigreed flintlock very much as one who knew how to use it.
One of the two guards in the room stepped—squeezed—out, so Jourdain could take his place. The Lady Delacroix remained on the landing, framed in the doorway. Her expression might well have inspired a snowman to put on a coat.
“Are you well, Cyrille?”
In her life, Shins had personally encountered not one, but two utterly inhuman creatures out of the depths of nightmare. The matriarch's voice, in that moment, was very nearly as disturbing.
“Mother, Widdershins isn't here to—”
“I don't want to hear that name out of your mouth again.”
“But—”
“I asked you a question, boy.”
Cyrille, without the slightest slump of his shoulders or exhalation of breath, somehow managed to convey the distinct impression of a sigh. “Yes, Mother. I'm perfectly fine.”
“Good. If I hear one more word out of you before we return to the house, you will regret it for weeks.”
No mere impression, this time. Cyrille gasped openly, his cheeks going red, the rest of his face corpse-pale. His lips moved soundlessly, first toward his mother, then Widdershins. Finally he stepped back, as near to the far corner as he could without actually cramming himself into it, his gaze downcast.
“My lady,” Shins began, drawing on everything she'd learned in her days both as, and then imitating, an aristocrat, “I can assure you, your son did nothing—”
The rest of the sentence was crushed beneath a strange, shocked gurgling noise as the matriarch's pistol rose sharply, gaping at Widdershins's head. She felt something from Olgun somewhere between a startled yelp and an angry growl. Even the Delacroix guards, Jourdain included, drew back half a step.
“I should put you down right here,” the older woman hissed, “as I would any other stray to come sniffing about where it's not welcome.”
“Mother, no!” Cyrille had either forgotten or ceased to care about her earlier threat. At the same time, Jourdain began, “My lady, I'm not so certain—”
“Were you truly foolish enough to believe,” she demanded, “that you would be permitted to interfere with this family without repercussion?”
“I'm not interfering with your stupid family! I'm trying to help you! Which,” she added more softly, “I suppose is interfering, by strict definition, but—”
Cyrille and Jourdain both stared at her as though she'd sneezed an elk.
“Even if that's true,” the matriarch interrupted, “and I'm not remotely convinced of it, so what? Do you think we can't see through you?” Then, with a withering glower at her son, “Most of us, anyway.”
“See through…What?”
“A common trollop.” The scorn was a cocoon around Calanthe's words, thick, nearly obscuring. “Were you hoping for coin? Perhaps Cyrille's hand, or that of one of my other sons? For what? Was a useless offer of assistance with a problem you cannot possibly comprehend supposed to make us overlook your lower birth and lower character? Feeble, even as such schemes go.”
“You arrogant…ungrateful…” The blood pounding in Widdershins's temples was a war prayer, a furious call to violence. Every bit of calm and control she'd fought for over the past weeks evaporated in a single
puff; she felt Olgun's rage burning alongside her own, the overlapping whole threatening to consume her. She wanted desperately to lash out, to draw steel across flesh and through blood. Anything to wipe the condescension off that woman's face, out of her tone….
Even get yourself killed in the process?
She almost didn't care, all but ignored that faintest voice of reason in the back of her head, a voice she almost recognized….
And get Olgun killed, too?
Her surroundings, the entire room, became ice water. “No…”
Then don't. Gentle, yet stern; refined, but in no way snooty. No surprise, she realized, that her conscience might select his voice, out of all the possibilities. And no surprise that, though he would no doubt be disappointed in the behavior of his distant cousins, he'd be even more so if Widdershins allowed them, or anyone else, to make her into something lesser than she was.
For him, she reminded herself, this time thinking in her own voice. You're here for him, not for them.
She could not begin to guess how long the internal tug-of-war had taken, but it couldn't have been all that long. When she blinked herself back to the room, seeing reality as it was rather than through a haze of crimson, nobody's expression had shifted. Calanthe glared, clearly awaiting the end of Widdershins's insult.
The thief, instead, crossed her arms and glared right back.
It was not the response the matriarch wanted, apparently, though Widdershins couldn't imagine what would have been. “Jourdain!”
“Yes, my lady!”
“I want this…vagabond in chains!”
It was Shins, this time—clinging to the memory of Alexandre by her soul's fingernails—working to calm Olgun's thunderburst of fury. “No.” Whispered, words barely even dripping from her lips. “Not yet…Patience…”
“Uh, my lady…” The guardsman, grown old and experienced in his work, actually sounded nervous. “I'm not sure we have the legal—”