“So. You don’t know who I am.”
Grandon opened his mouth, but Detan stepped toward him and Grandon gulped air as he took another step back to avoid coming chest-to-chest with him. Rage colored his cheeks and chest like an allergic reaction. Detan pressed on before he could recover his momentum.
“My name is Detan Honding.” He shoved a hand out. “And the pleasure’s all mine, Grandon.”
The big man narrowed his eyes at the extended hand. His friends went quiet. “You’re not a Honding.”
“Check the guest list.”
“You lied on it.”
Detan sighed and turned around. He caught Tibs’s eye as he turned, and he had his lips pressed together like it was the only thing keeping him from using some mighty cruel words. Oh well. He was in it now.
He reached back and lifted the hair that hung above the nape of his neck. There, burned in white scar flesh with puckered pink edges, was his family crest. A pickaxe and sword, crossed over the full sail of an old sea ship with the three stars of the landed below. A bit redundant, those landed stars, as the Honding family had been the first of them all to claim land rights on the Scorched. They’d earned it, the whole damned continent, by finding the secret veins of selium gas with sensitives they didn’t even know they had.
“Thought all but Dame Honding died off. Thought her nephew died in a mining accident,” Grandon croaked. It was a lame protest. There were people who would fake a crest, sure, but not a Honding one. There were easier things in the world to pretend to be.
“Sorry to disappoint you then, Grandon, but here I am.”
Grandon wasn’t a landed man, but he knew his manners. He backed off with a grumbled apology.
“Now, the steward here is going to have a look around your cubbies. If you’re clean, then we’ll forget about all this. If not, well, we’ll work that out when we come to it.”
The steward glided forward as if shaking down one of the wealthiest men in all Aransa was just another daily toil, and gave a good and thorough search of Grandon’s cubbies and all his accomplices. Out came Detan’s fine leather money pouch, and then Tibs’s cloth pouch stuffed with Ripka’s.
Tibs gave him a hard look as he took his pouch back, no doubt wondering just what in the fiery pits Detan’s plan had been if they’d ended up losing all their money and the stall tab for their flier. It seemed to Detan he couldn’t rightly complain. They’d gotten it back, after all.
“We have robes you can borrow,” the steward said. “Until the watch captain gets here to take your statements. I will order some new clothes for you right away, sirs.”
“No need to get the Watch involved, but I won’t be the one wearing the loaner robe.” He grinned over at the steward. “You handy with a needle and thread, New Chum?”
“Yes, sir.”
* * *
The steward sent Grandon and his companions on their merry way with nothing more than a thin robe each to their names. At least they smelled fresh, and Detan figured they might think twice before messing with a dirty sod next chance they got. He sighed. More than likely they’d go whining to their friends about those bully Hondings. He clenched his jaw. It’s not like his aunt would ever hear about it, and people probably wouldn’t believe them anyway. They’d think he’d just gone and got himself swindled by an imposter.
Which was half right.
“Hold still, sir.”
Detan grumbled as he forced himself to stand still. It wasn’t easy with Tibs glaring at him like that, but even old Tibs had to admit he looked good in his new ensemble. Grandon’s friends had sported some pretty refined taste, and one had been remarkably close to Tibs’s measurements. Only Detan needed the adjusting – he’d always been weirdly narrow in the shoulders compared to other men his size. He figured it made him better at getting out of tight spots. Or into them.
“You know we can take your measurements and send for a whole new set of clothes, sir,” the steward mumbled around the pins held between his lips.
“It’s the principle of the thing, New Chum. I want Grandon and his pals to see me strutting about in their own suits. Serves ’em right. And anyway, these seem fresh made.”
And their inner pockets were stuffed with tickets to Thratia’s fete. Tickets Grandon and his chums had gone and forgotten all about when they’d realized they’d be marching home in loaner robes.
“I suppose they were made for the party tonight, sir. We’ve been busy all day with people coming in to get cleaned up for it.”
“It’s a fete, New Chum. Parties are for toddlers and drunk academy kids.”
“I’m afraid I don’t see the difference, sir.”
“Fancier booze.”
The steward’s smile was dangerously wide, pins drooping from the corners. “Will you be going, sir?”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
Tibs crossed his arms and snorted. As the steward leaned downward to pull a stitch tight on the cuff of Detan’s new trousers, his shirt slipped, once more revealing the hint of a snake’s back wending its way over the steward’s shoulder. He bit his tongue, recalling Tibs’s admonishment to let the poor lad be, then said anyway, “What’s with the pet viper, New Chum?”
The poor steward jerked upright, sticking his thumb with the needle, and scurried back a step. Eyes darting, he shoved his thumb in his mouth to suck the blood – or, no, Detan realized. The man wasn’t licking his wounds, he was using the prick as an excuse to stall for time while he thought through what to say. Detan grinned.
“Come now, what’s a reptile between friends?”
New Chum straightened his collar and regained his composure so quickly it made Detan dizzy. “It is the mark of poor decisions in my past,” the steward said as he floated forward to take up the hem once more, studiously avoiding all eye contact.
“That’s a Glasseater’s mark,” Tibs drawled, and Detan watched in amazement as the steward’s shoulders drew in with shame. Detan scowled across the steward’s bent back at Tibs. Curse him and his leave-the-lad-be nonsense, he’d been holding out on Detan – had known all along the lad was sporting criminal ink.
“It’s crossed,” the steward blurted, shifting his shirt aside so they could see the thick black line running through the snake’s body. “I’m not associated with them anymore.”
“Not a friendly bunch, Glasseaters,” Detan spoke with care, watching the muscles of the steward’s back bunch with growing tension. “What do they control nowadays?” He looked at Tibs, brows raised. “Selling mudleaf?”
“And a handful of cardhouses,” Tibs amended.
“Not a lot of work there for a nice young man such as yourself.”
With a heady sigh the steward pulled the last stitch taut and rose, once more straightening his shirt and jacket. “My family–” He cleared his throat. “My family has long been in service as valets to bosses of a particular nature. I declined to continue that tradition.”
“I see. Delicate information, that. Why share it with yours truly?”
The steward shifted his gaze pointedly to Detan’s new pockets – pockets he’d been attempting to pick when he’d tipped the walkway with the noblebones on board. “It had occurred to me that you might be sympathetic to certain aspects of my past occupation. Sir.”
Detan grinned and clapped once. “I knew I liked you! What’s your name, New Chum?”
The lad actually flushed. “Enard Harwit, sir.”
“Oh. Ah. I see. Shall we stick with New Chum, then?”
“That would be acceptable.”
“Marvelous.” Detan jumped down from the dais and clapped him on the back. “You’ve been a treasure! Here you are.” He pressed some gold into his hand from the stash he’d taken out of Grandon’s lady’s pockets on the walkway. “Treat yourself, eh? And thank you for taking care of an old Honding.”
“It’s been an honor, sirs.”
Detan could tell by the gleam in his eye the poor sod really meant that. He felt a twinge of guilt, then turned
on his heel and hurried out.
When he and Tibs were back on the solid rock of Aransa, the old rat gave him a sturdy punch in the arm.
“You’re a mad bastard, Honding.”
“Pits below!” He jumped and rubbed at the ache. “I was perfectly safe navigating the vents. I got a good look at them from above.”
“It’s not the vents I’m on about,” Tibs said as he marched ahead, taking the lead back into the winding ways of the city. Detan reached up to ruff his hair in frustration, then shook himself and scurried to catch up. Dusk was descending over Aransa, the purple-mottled sky making Tibs little more than a silhouette before him. He stomped with every step he took, wiry fingers curled into knobby fists at his side. Detan slowed his steps and shoved his hands in his pockets, ducking his head down like a whipped dog.
“Is it the clothes?” Detan ventured, “Because, well, I figured that–”
“Nope, that ain’t it either.”
“Er. Well…”
Tibs stopped cold, pinning Detan down with his gaze as easily as he’d drive a nail through a board. “Dame Honding is going to hang you from your toenails, using your name with just anyone like that.”
“Oh! That. Well, it is my name, Tibs.”
“You had better write her a letter, sirra, before the rumors get back.”
Detan sighed and sat down hard on the top of a low, stone fence, heedless of the dust that undoubtedly coated his backside now. “I suppose. Wouldn’t want the old badger to worry, eh?”
“I suggest you do not address it to ‘the old badger’.”
“She’d laugh!”
“She’d fly right out here and beat you with her parasol.”
Detan broke a small rock from the fence and hucked it half-heartedly at Tibs, who stepped nimbly around it. There was still a bit of stiff anger in his posture, a crease of annoyance around his eyes. Detan took a slow breath, and probed.
“Isn’t just the name, is it?”
Tibs stared at some distant point over his shoulder. “Grandon needled your temper, and your first instinct was to reach for it. You losing control?”
It. His sel-sense. Didn’t need to say the words out loud – not on the street, anyway, not where they ran the risk of being overheard. Tibs’s head tilted, his gaze skewing toward the edge of the city, toward the Smokestack, that great firemount from which Aransa mined all its selium gas. Whole lotta’ sel in the city, and not just in ships. Walkways and jewelry, booze and fairycakes. All were laced with the stuff. He could feel its ubiquitous presence, if he let himself open his senses. A grey buzz in the back of his mind, like a swarming of locusts.
It’d be one thing, if he were just hiding his sensitivity to avoid working the mines or the ships. But his own flavor of sensitivity – deviant, as the empire and its whitecoats called it – could be just as destructive as that locust swarm, if he let his temper slip.
He slammed his senses shut, forcing mental barriers into place even as he plastered a goofy smirk onto his chapped lips and laid a hand against his collarbone as if deeply taken aback. “Me? Lose control over that worthless dune slide? Perish the thought!”
There was a smile back in the corner of Tibs’s mouth, little more than a shriveled curl, but that was the best Detan could hope for.
“Now, let’s go make use of these tickets, eh?” Detan ventured a grin.
“Tickets?”
“Check your interior breast pocket, my good man.”
Tibs poked one finger into the fine linen, then hit him with another surly glare. They were fine tickets, he’d snuck a peek while changing. Thick paper with Thratia’s name in big, embossed letters. There was no way Tibs could miss it.
“You expect me to believe you did all that for tickets?”
“Well, and the clothes. I did promise you a feast tonight.”
Tibs scowled. “And is there a reason you couldn’t have just filched them when you were busy rummaging through their pockets on the walkway?”
Detan pulled open the breast of his jacket to display the inner pocket where the ticket was stowed and gestured to the oversized bone button holding it shut.
“They were kept behind buttons, Tibs. Buttons! Sweet sands, but I hate buttons.”
Tibs sighed as he turned to go. “You really are terrible at this,” he muttered under his breath. Detan smiled to himself as he followed his old friend out into the deepening dark.
Chapter 9
Even from their narrow vantage, hunkered down under the shadow of a recessed doorway across the street, Detan could tell that Thratia was a woman of fine taste in parties and in guards. The whole of her compound was alight with oil lanterns slung from the eaves, hired hands keeping a careful eye on the flames as they wavered in the dry breeze. The great stone wall that encircled her abode had one side of its black iron gate propped open, three guards with seven facial scars between them keeping an eye on the ticket checkers and guests alike. It all would have been simple as sand in their new suits with their official tickets, if those rats weren’t checking for family crests.
“Chances of admittance do not look good,” Tibs said. “There’s no way Thratia put the Honding family on the nice list.”
“I’m aware of my familial peculiarity, old chum, but thanks for the chin-up.”
“My job’s to keep the ship buoyant, not your spirits.”
“Oh? And where is this buoyant ship you speak of?”
Tibs went quiet, and that was all right by Detan’s thinking. He was, after all, trying to concentrate, and the prattle of his erstwhile companion was most distracting. On the other side of the great wall, Detan’s extended senses could just pick up hints of selium.
Thratia was a grand host, and she had provided floating dining tables for the favorites of her guests to dine upon. There appeared to be a few of the platforms meandering the garden, not yet burdened with the bustles and bootstraps of the noblebones, and he was having a pit of a time finagling one nearer. They remained stubbornly just beyond his natural reach. He could strain himself, but not without risking the fine edge of his control. He hissed through his teeth in frustration.
“Come on then, let us have a closer look at the festivities.” Detan tried to keep his voice light, but he knew Tibs would see through to the strain of his annoyance.
Tibs’s face soured, but he fell in step and slunk along beside him. Thratia hadn’t made any effort at all to blend in with the local residents. Her compound was bigger than any normal house had a right to be, and as such she’d had to stick it in amongst the warehouses, claiming their superior infrastructure better suited her needs. Clever little witch. It also put her stronghold right in the heart of the city’s commerce, and Detan would bet his own shorthairs there wasn’t a deal that went down in the whole of Aransa she didn’t have her spidery eyes on.
Clever or not, the neighborhood was a right peach to sneak around in. Great shadows extended from the eaves of overlarge buildings, and as the sun was long since set the only establishments with any life and light in them were those who served cheap, hard brews. And what would you care about a couple of men slinking around in the dark if you had a pitcher of liquid fire to yourself?
Detan allowed his senses to guide him, homing in on the one dining platform that was set further off from the others. He only stepped in a foul puddle once.
Twice.
“Here’s the place,” Detan said as he shook out a disturbingly damp pant leg.
It was a good spot, generally speaking, in that it was well shadowed and smelled of piss in the way only a secretive alley can. It was particularly good for him, because hovering on the other side of that thick stone wall was the object of his sensory affection. It occurred to him then, that even if he could get the thing to come up to them, they had no way of getting up to the top of the wall to meet it. He could bring it back down the other side to meet them, but that may just push his luck a tad too far.
“Huh.” He scowled at the wall, willing a solution to present i
tself.
Tibs cleared his throat. “Is sirra, perhaps, thinking we would have better luck if we were to climb the ladder there and join those few revelers on the roof of this establishment?”
Detan was more than a little abashed to find the roof Tibs indicated was just behind them. Its top was aglow with wavering beeswax light – the cheapest candles to be had on the Scorched – and a dozen or so malformed shadows danced and sang at the night. Not to the night. No, they were definitely singing at it. The aroma of cheap beer wafted down, along with another sickeningly familiar bouquet.
He then realized why the alley smelled of piss.
Detan grabbed Tibs’s arm and hauled him out of the way just before they would have been anointed, and heard wild laughter from above.
“Hey, you two!”
Detan tipped his head up for a look, fearing another downpour, but it was only a face stuck over the edge. “Hullo!” Detan called.
“Got any beer?”
“We’ve got money!”
“That buys beer! Come on up!”
Detan scrambled up the ladder, Tibs quick on his heels. The rooftop party was stuffed with the type of folk Thratia might have hired to guard her doors or watch the lamps, but clearly their services had not been needed this night. The young man who’d called them up staggered over and shoved out a hand, snapping his fingers. “We don’t take paper tickets here, you hear?”
“Splendid!” Detan dropped a full silver grain into the man's hand.
He squinted at it.
“This real?”
“Yup.”
“Whoo! Hey, guys! We're going to Milky’s tonight!”
A cheer went up, but it wasn’t for Detan, it was for Milky’s. Which he supposed was well deserved, as he had yet to meet a harder working bunch of girls. With the revelers’ time committed for their immediate future, Detan grabbed Tibs’s arm and dragged him to the edge of the roof nearest the wall.
From this new perch, he could make out the extravagant garden Thratia kept with the extra water rations she no doubt paid an exorbitant sum for, and he cursed her for having the forethought to plant a variety of thick-canopied trees just on the other side of her long wall.
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