The Sisters Mederos

by Patrice Sarath

  “If you make a noise, or pound on the door or kick at anything, or call for any kind of attention, I’ll come back in here and put this right between your eyes.”

  He was so frightened his eyes rolled back in his head. She looked at Albero and shook her head in warning, hoping he took it seriously. She wasn’t the child here, and Tesara was in trouble. His only response was to turn his head away, his nostrils flaring as he tried to get air. She closed the door on them, locked it, and shoved a chair up against it for good measure. Stay there until dawn, she thought.

  She crammed herself into the dumbwaiter behind the meat course and began hauling on the ropes. The little compartment was nothing more than a platform, open on the sides. It lifted with a groan as if she were too heavy for it. She pulled and pulled, getting into a rhythm, until with a thump the dumbwaiter stopped at the dining room landing. The harsh bell took a moment to sound the alarm, starting with a rattle.

  The door scraped open. Yvienne could get only a sliver of a glimpse of the dining room behind Tesara. She and her sister exchanged glances, and then Tesara grabbed the platter, blocked the door with her body, and closed it, and sent Yvienne on her way again.

  Now she had more room to pull on the ropes with the platter out of the way. She hauled, wondering how much time she would have before they wondered where the next course was.

  The dumbwaiter landed with another thud. She took a breath, slid the door open, and peered out.

  The hall was empty and dark, no lamps. Yvienne slid out and kept her back to the wall, trying to control her breathing.

  The house felt lifeless yet watchful. It hardly felt like home. She made her way to the study, and fumbled at the doorknob. It was locked. She pulled out the oyster fork, and painstakingly worked the lock mechanism. It took several tries, but finally she was able to turn the doorknob. There was another lock, a bolt, but she knew how to deal with that one. She pulled out the butter knife and inserted it between the doorframe and the latch. It resisted only slightly before sliding back under her firm pressure. She put her shoulder into it, turned the knob, and the door opened. She closed the door behind herself and locked it. By the bit of light coming in the window, which caught the streetlight from the Crescent, she found a small lamp and matches. She lit the lamp, shielding her eyes from the light until her eyes could adjust.

  As Tesara had said, the room had nothing of their father’s comfortable study about it. There were just walls of bookcases, all locked. No doubt Trune held the keys on him, but no matter. She took a tiny screwdriver out of her pocket and set to work. It didn’t take long to undo the hinges and set the door aside. Holding up the lamp, she perused the files. There were thousands, she suspected, all Guild records. She rifled through to make sure. They were just records, though. There was nothing special that she could see. Fees, taxes, dues, enrollment, cargo. All honest and above board.

  If I had secret files, where would I put them?

  She looked at the desk. It was a magnificent piece, dark mahogany, burnished to a gleaming shine. There were no drawers, though. Yvienne continued to scan the room, stamping on the carpet to detect a hollow space, going back to the cabinets to see if there was anything she had missed.

  Running out of time, girl. Damnation, she thought, and leaned against the desk, fighting off despair. Her boot heel clunked against the side. Yvienne stopped, cocked her head, and clunked again. There it was – the faintest of rattles.

  It was clever, a thin panel that slid out from the inner side of the desk, ingeniously released with a push of a spring-loaded catch. The narrow drawer held several files that were old, shabby, and stained. She ran her fingers through the files, and cursed under her breath. Among Trune’s other villainies, the man did not alphabetize. She rifled through the tabs again. This time the notations were tantalizingly familiar – El. Mert. 73, for instance. Or Sola. 55. Fort. a, 97, Fort. b, 97. MC, 97.

  Ships. These were ships, and the dates they were lost at sea. Elizavetta Mertado, lost in ’73. The Soliano, in ’55. The Mederos ships, the Fortune, Fortitude, and the Main Chance, lost in ’97. Six years ago.

  A small discreet chime from the mantel clock caught her attention. She had been at her work for only ten minutes. She had perhaps five minutes more before Trune and his guests would wonder where the next course was. She laid out the papers on the desk and set the lantern beside them to read them.

  There it all was: the records of the Mederos shipping fleet, including their last fated journey. But instead of a date of the sinking taken from the single survivor, there was a careful listing of sales invoices for the cargo, with meticulously recorded dates from weeks and even months after the date of the wreck. Every last crate of hardware and bolt of cotton, every bit of tea and coffee and sugar and lumber, all of it divvied up into careful shares into Guild hands, all receivers carefully noted and identified. The cargo had been diverted, a willing sailor bribed or coerced into telling a tall tale of a violent storm and a tragic shipwreck.

  “The bastards,” she said out loud. She stuffed the pages into her bag. They had acted with complete impunity, too. Even if any merchants suspected, they could do nothing, for it would only ensure that their ships would be next. And not only that – it might be that they could be assured of a share in the next “sinking.” The Elizavetta Mertado was lost ten years before Yvienne was born, but she knew the ship. Like all the ships, her name and the name of her House were inscribed on the Cathedral’s wall. Elizavetta Mertado. House Lupiere.

  Perhaps that explained the punishment doled out to House Mederos. Had her parents refused to be complicit? A little voice inside her head wondered if that was because they hadn’t been given a chance.

  It doesn’t matter, she thought grimly, as she tied the strings of her now bulging satchel. It was up to her to avenge her family and bring down Trune and his cronies. One good thing, she thought. Tesara can stop worrying that she had done something to sink the fleet.

  She rifled through the rest of the files in the drawer. So much evidence, she thought. It was a crying shame to leave it all to be destroyed by the Guild. But she had the crux of the matter at hand, and it would have to suffice.

  A noise caught her attention. Voices, rising with anger and alarm. Discovery was at hand, and her sister was helpless in a nest of very bad men.

  Because if she had not sunk the fleet, it meant she didn’t have powers after all.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Yvienne, where are you?

  The charge continued to build in Tesara’s fingers. Compounded by her fear and anger, she felt it rising in her and almost had to keep blinking against a light that kept going on and off inside her head.

  Let it out. She did, making a surreptitious little gesture while she stood by the sideboard, stacking plates ostensibly to be sent down with the dumbwaiter, whenever it came back to the dining room. On command, a gust of wind tinkled through the crystal drops like a rain of glass. The candlelight in the chandelier above the dining table flickered, and several candles blew out.

  “What the devil!” Lupiere exclaimed.

  She heard heavy running footsteps, and the thuggish coachman burst into the dining room. He looked over at Trune. “We’ve got trouble.”

  Trune grew very still, then, with excruciating slowness, he wiped his lips, set down his napkin, and stood. “Gentlemen, if you will excuse me.”

  “Bring her,” the coachman said. Now everyone looked startled.

  Trune crooked a finger at her and she put down the silverware and followed obediently, head bowed, fingers interlaced demurely at her waist. Once she got out of the dining room, she could make enough of a diversion that Yvienne could escape. The coachman grabbed her by the elbow as soon as she walked past him and held her with her arm behind her. Trune closed the doors behind him.

  “The servants were trussed up in the kitchen. Marques said a masked man broke in and overpowered them,” the coachman said.

  “Indeed,” Trune said, furious. “And
where were you when this happened?”

  “On patrol.” The coachman gave him a dark look. “You were the one who wanted to turn everyone off for the night.”

  “So where is this intruder now?”

  “Upstairs. He won’t be able to get far. Between the two of us we can run him down.” Trune’s eyes narrowed as he turned to Tesara. “Who is he?”

  She lifted her shoulders. “No idea.”

  He slapped her. The stinging blow was like a thud to her cheekbone, the signet ring he wore splitting the skin. The taste and scent of blood, the tears the slap brought, the very force of the blow, rocked her back on her heels against the coachman’s bulk and made her lose control. Behind them in the dining room she could hear the rattling chain of the chandelier as it swung off its moorings and crashed to the table. Men shouted and screamed.

  Trune was just turning to see what had happened when the dining room doors were flung open.

  “Trune, what the hell is going on?!” Lupiere shouted, his eyes wild with fear. He was covered with food and wine, and behind him she could see the chandelier shattered on top of the once beautifully laid table like a crystalline octopus washed up on shore.

  “Nothing,” Trune snapped. “Stay in there.”

  He yanked Tesara from the coachman’s grasp and dragged her toward the stairs behind him. They halted at the bottom of the stairs. “What are you doing?” the coachman snapped.

  “He’s here because of her. He’ll surrender because of her.”

  The coachman rolled his eyes and handed him a long-handled pistol. “Take this and follow me.”

  The blood welled along her cheekbone and dripped into her mouth. She didn’t have a hand free to wipe her face, and she could tell it was getting into her hair. She stumbled just enough to keep Trune from going as fast as he meant to, and he cursed and pulled her. Then, when she went to her knees as if in a faint, he swung around over her and cocked the pistol, putting the nose of the gun against her temple.

  Tesara went very still, the cold metal shocking her to her bones. Trune shouted up the stairs.

  “Listen! I have her! I’ll shoot her unless you come out now!”

  The shout rang through the house. She wondered if Yvienne heard it or if she were already on the way out, hiding in the dumbwaiter and pulling herself down hand over hand.

  The charge expelled in the fall of the chandelier had only sharpened her power. Her hands felt thick again, increasing in energy. Tesara focused on the runner on the stairs, faded now, its pile worn by thousands of steps over decades, and saw for the first time that the pattern was of waves, alternating with suns, and dolphins bounding over all.

  Waves. Waves of light, of water, of wind. It was very peculiar, what was going on in her head. That was why she had affinity for light and water. She had only to pull the waves where they needed to go.

  She gathered the waves now, and with a strange zipping sensation the runner began moving beneath her, causing the woven waves to slide over the stairs. It was the most extraordinary thing, pulling at the runner. It slid down from beneath them starting at the top of the stairs, gathered speed, and knocked Trune off his feet like a fast-moving tide, tumbling them at the bottom of the stairs, knocking the air out of her lungs.

  When she could stand, she saw the coachman was barely conscious and was groaning, his face pale. Trune, on his hands and knees, patted around for his pistol. It was just out of reach and she made a supreme effort and kicked it out of his way. It slid across the parquet floor to land by the front door.

  She heard someone upstairs and looked up, just in time to see Yvienne dart across the landing at a dead run and then slide down the banister toward her, riding it sidesaddle. She jumped off just before she reached the newel post, and aimed her pistol at Trune.

  Still on his knees, Trune went quite still.

  “Damn you,” he grunted. He winced, his arm at a very strange angle.

  “Yes,” Yvienne agreed. She glanced at Tesara and nodded at the pistol by the door. Tesara hurried over and picked it up.

  The dining room doors, obediently drawn closed by Lupiere, opened up again and a timid man peeked out. It was Parr.

  “Trune?”

  His eyes widened when he saw the wreckage. Yvienne turned and pointed her pistol at him. Parr took the hint and closed the doors again. Tesara found a walking stick in the umbrella stand by the front door and put it through the door handles. It wouldn’t keep them for long, but it would have to do.

  Together they trussed the coachman and Trune, using drapery cords and a few lace doilies as gags. With the two subdued, Yvienne knelt down in front of Trune. He looked wild-eyed at her over his gag, and Tesara knew he wanted to shriek and threaten them.

  In a low, rasping voice, Yvienne said, “I have what I need. I have the proof. I know how you’ve swindled plenty of others out of their rightful trade. When you get free, and I know you will, leave town. You’ll want to leave before this hits every doorstep in the city.” She brandished several pages of accounting entries in his face. “Understood?”

  His eyes grew crafty but he nodded.

  “One more thing,” Yvienne said. She pulled out an official looking document with several seals and the Guild mark. “Sign this.” She untied his right hand and shoved a wetted pen into it. If looks could kill, Tesara thought. Trune gave Yvienne a mute look of stubbornness, and let the pen drop. Tesara raised her hands, still fat with power, the crippled left hand as lethal as the right. His eyes flicked from one hand to the other.

  “Oh yes,” Tesara said. “Even more powerful than you can imagine.”

  Trune remained still for a moment, his eyes slitted, and then he groped for the pen and scrawled his signature. He ground out something through the gag that sounded like, “You’ll never get away with this.”

  Tesara and Yvienne looked at each other and snorted. Yvienne capped the inkwell and they tied Trune back up again. The coachman groaned again, starting to come to. The men in the dining room began hammering on the door. It started to press open against the walking stick. Tesara and Yvienne took one look at each other, and ran for the door.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Yvienne took Tesara’s hand, wincing at the electric shock that went through her, and led her across the street, plunging them both into darkness. When she judged they had gone far enough away from the street, and dangerously close to the cliffside that plunged straight onto the ocean-swept rocks below, she stopped. She hung her small satchel onto a branch, and stripped her jacket and threw it into the air. They could just barely see it float out onto the air, drift onto the wind, and then fall into the water. Yvienne did the same with her neckerchief, waistcoat and linen shirt, then rummaged around in the bushes. She pulled out a dress, shook it out, and stepped into it, shrugging it up to her shoulders. She glanced back at Tesara, who was standing stock still.

  “Help button me?”

  That brought Tesara out of her trance. She stepped forward and with shaking hands pulled the back of the dress together. Little pinpricks of electricity ran up Yvienne’s spine with each touch of her sister’s hands, but finally, as if Tesara had gotten them under control, the pinpricks faded.

  Yvienne grinned in relief. The feel of her sister’s hands on her back steadied her. They had been buttoning each other up from the time they were very small. She turned around and caught Tesara’s hand.

  “Did he hurt you?”

  Tesara raised a hand to her cheek. “Yes. But it will pass.”

  “He’ll pay.” He’ll pay and pay and pay, Yvienne thought. She would make sure the news followed him wherever he tried to land.

  “Good. What now?” Tesara said.

  “You go home. I’ve one more thing to do tonight.”

  “Are you sure? Yvienne, he’s dangerous. He’ll call the constables–”

  “No, he won’t. He knows he needs to flee. By morning, the whole town will know what he and the Guild are guilty of.” She grinned again, and now it was out of n
ervousness rather than an expression of any real joy. She grabbed her sister by the shoulders and gave her a small shake. “Go home. Don’t sneak – go right into the crowds at the bottom of the Crescent and follow the street lamps home.”

  “All right. But I’m sitting up until you get home.”

  It would be a long night for her, Yvienne knew, she couldn’t tell her sister that. She grabbed her satchel, checked the pistols, and put them back in the satchel. The papers she rolled into a tube and lifted up her skirt, stuffing them into her britches.

  Tesara gave her a quick hug, and then walked quickly back out onto the street. Yvienne watched her go with a sigh of relief. In a few minutes she would be among the throngs carousing along the Mercantile, and despite the drunks and revelers, she would be far safer than in Trune’s clutches.

  After assuring herself that her sister was safely away from the Crescent, and the Mederos house showed no signs of agitation or alarm, Yvienne went off in a different direction, back up into the crooked mews behind the great houses along the row.

  It was harder climbing the wall over into the next garden in a dress than in trousers, but she managed it, mostly by being ruthless about tearing the simple material. If anyone stopped her she could pretend to be a wayward servant girl; if she were caught in her boy’s clothes there would have been rather more hell to pay. So, the dress was an unfortunate necessity.

  With the exception of an alert dog and a few distant shouts from passersby on the front street, she made her way in the darkness without incident. There were no streetlamps here, except for one or two of the houses whose owners felt that darkness was a breakdoor’s friend. Perhaps they had something there, thought Yvienne, as each time she encountered a dim pool of light it ruined her vision and she had to adapt all over again.

  She was shivering with sweat in the cold air by the time she reached the small shed at the back of a low-slung outbuilding. How fitting, she thought, that Five Roses Street had turned out to be so close to her old home, although it could have been worlds away for all that the old Yvienne would ever have stepped foot in it under normal circumstances. That was why it had been so difficult to find. It took a great deal of time poring over old maps of the city before she finally identified it. This part of the Crescent was rundown and disreputable. The fashionable people who lived in the elegant townhouses probably didn’t even know this street existed. Here the roofs sagged and were falling in, and the houses were half sod and half brick, all tumbled down where the brick had loosened.