by Fonda Lee
On top of his extreme ire over Jerald, Kaul Sen had been furious to learn of her involvement with the Espenians. “At least whores only sell what belongs to them!” he’d raged. He’d never spoken to her in such a way, had always been kind and approving toward her even when he was stern. Only a few years out of the Academy, she’d been young, arrogant, and disaffected, and not thought her actions to be harmful. Jerald, when he came to understand her family’s position, had introduced her to some other Espenian military personnel who were eager to ask her questions.
At first, they were simple questions that Shae knew the answers to or could discover easily through the clan’s connections. The Espenians were keen to expand their political and economic influence, but they were uninformed about how things worked on Kekon. They wanted to know: Which clan leaders comprised the board of the KJA? When did they meet and who held sway over the jade export decisions? Who on the Royal Council was responsible for military spending? How could they secure a meeting with this person and what sort of gift would be appropriate to send?
What they were most interested in, however, were their enemies. Ygutan—less advanced, but with vast land and population and growing military strength—was the one rival the Espenians seemed to fear. Even here, on a small island so far away, they were on the watch. They wanted to know what investments Ygutanian companies were making on Kekon. How much jade the clans believed was being smuggled to Ygutan through the black market. Could Shae ask around and find out why a certain supposed Ygutanian businessman was on Kekon? Where was he staying and who was he meeting with?
The Espenians were constantly appreciative. She did not need the money they gave her, but Espenians always paid for favors so they were not indebted; that was their way. Shae was more impressed by the student visa they agreed to arrange for her so that she might study abroad. An Espenian education was something few people on Kekon had; it would be even more impressive than graduating at the top of the Academy, would set her above and apart from her brothers. In the meantime, she was helping ignorant foreigners do business in Kekon, and in truth, she took a secret pride in it. It was something outside of the clan that was hers entirely. Information and relationships that belonged to her, not her grandfather, or her brothers, or Doru.
“How can you call yourself a Kaul, you selfish idiot girl?” her grandfather had demanded. “Anything you tell the foreigners might be used against the clan.” The Torch had wielded all his considerable influence, had made angry phone calls to the Espenian ambassador, who gave apologetic assurances to Kaul Sen that his granddaughter would not be approached by anyone from the Republic of Espenia’s military or intelligence services again. Jerald was shipped back to Espenia, and Shae, burning with the indignity of Grandda swooping in to set her right, had followed him. She’d been a fool, but sadly, even fools were entitled to their pride.
Shae returned to Janloon feeling calmer and more rested, but also determined to rededicate herself to the job search and find meaningful employment as soon as possible. There was really nothing, she mused, that motivated her quite so much as the abiding fear of becoming like her mother. If she had her own work to occupy her, she wouldn’t spend time the way she spent it on the bus ride back to the city, speculating on what Lan and Woon would do with the damning financial information she had furnished them, or wondering when the Mountain would try to kill Hilo again.
She got back to her apartment and groaned aloud to discover that she’d left her keys on the kitchen counter at her mother’s cottage. She was locked out of her place.
Shae left her bag sitting in the hallway by her door and went over to her neighbor Caun Yu’s, hoping to use his phone to call the landlord. No one answered when she knocked. There was a pile of flyers in front of the door that suggested Caun had been absent for several days. She went back outside and climbed the metal fire escape stairs, intending to force a way back into her own apartment, but upon passing her neighbor’s window, she stopped and stared.
Caun’s apartment was almost empty. It was clear that no one lived in it. There was a small television on the floor and a telephone sitting on top of the television. There was a sleeping bag and a couple of cushions on the floor, but nothing else—no furniture, no clothes, nothing on the walls, no sign of Caun himself.
Shae began to tremble with suspicion and outrage. She pushed open the window and clambered into her neighbor’s apartment. It was laid out almost exactly like hers. She walked into the kitchen and found that the cupboards were empty except for a bag of peanuts and a sleeve of crackers. The fridge contained only a few bottles of soda. Caun had supposedly been living here for as long as she had—nearly four months—but he had never moved in.
Shae went into the bare living room and sat down on one of the cushions to wait. She suspected it would not be long before Caun made an appearance, and sure enough, perhaps an hour later, the front door opened and the young man walked in, his accumulated junk mail gathered under one arm. He stopped in astonishment when he saw Shae sitting inside his apartment.
Before Caun could recover his wits, Shae got up and moved past him, shutting and locking the door. Turning around, she drew her talon knife and advanced. The young man backed up, licking his lips nervously, his eyes on the knife. His back touched the wall. Shae reached up with her free hand and pulled off the black skullcap Caun always wore. The man’s short hair was messy and flattened, and the tops of both ears were pierced through with jade studs. Not much jade, not enough for her to notice an aura unless she was touching him.
Shae took a step back and pointed to the phone. “Call him,” she said. “Tell him to come over here right now.”
Caun picked up the receiver and dialed, his eyes darting fearfully. Shae doubted it was her or her knife that made him anxious; it was his boss’s reaction he was worried about. “Hilo-jen,” Caun said after some minutes of being passed around on the other end of the line, “it’s Caun Yu. Your sister … she, er, told me to phone you. She’s holding a talon knife on me and wants you to come over here.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Shae caught a snatch of her brother’s laughter coming from the other end of the phone line. More words were exchanged, and then Caun hung up. “He says he’s finishing up something, but he’ll come soon.”
“Security, was it, Caun-jen?” Shae said. “You work in security. In a rather boring job, if I recall. One you’ve been hoping to get out of soon.”
“I didn’t mean it in that way,” Caun explained, reddening. “It’s not that I think you’re boring. It’s just that keeping watch over you isn’t all that exciting, you know.”
“No, I don’t suppose it would be.” Her sudden odd sense of hurt and amusement came out as a cold smirk. “And here I was, starting to think all our meetings were because you were working up to hitting on me.”
“Touch the Horn’s little sister?” Caun let out a nervous bark of laughter. “Come on, put the talon knife away. Don’t you think you’ve pulled it on me enough lately? It doesn’t seem very charitable, considering that I’m supposed to be protecting you.” Caun seemed to be in a surprisingly good mood. He was smiling broadly now, the hair freed from his skullcap falling into his eyes in an irritatingly handsome way. Shae suspected that Hilo’s reaction on the phone had reassured Caun that he was not in as much trouble as he’d feared, and now he was looking forward to the end of this undesirable assignment.
Shae sheathed her knife. “So you’ve been camped here, following me around.”
“I’m supposed to watch you when you’re out and about.” He nudged the sleeping bag on the floor with his foot. “I used to slip out the window in the evening and be back in the morning before you left, but now the Horn says I have to be here whenever you are.” Caun backed into the kitchen and came out with the sleeve of crackers and two bottles of mango soda. “Do you want some? It’s all I have, I’m afraid. Or we could go wait in your place instead.”
Shae gave him a dirty look and Caun shrugged, opening his
soda.
Hilo arrived perhaps twenty minutes later. He knocked on the door and called, cheerily, “Shae, you haven’t hurt poor Caun Yu, have you? I told him there were risks involved with this job.”
When Shae flung open the door, her brother stepped inside, smiling, and made to give her a hug. She shoved him back violently. “You’ve had me watched and followed all this time,” she hissed.
Instead of answering, the Horn straightened the shirt Shae had rumpled and turned to Caun, shaking his head. His voice turned harsh. “Gods in Heaven, this was the easiest job a Finger could get, Caun. Where and how did you fuck up?”
Caun’s smile vanished at once. “I … I don’t know, Hilo-jen,” he stammered. “The doorman called to say she’d returned from Marenia. I came straight here, but she got into the apartment and was waiting for me when I arrived. I’m sorry I failed you.” The young man bent into an apologetic salute.
Hilo sighed deeply, looking around the bare apartment. “It’s hard to fool my sister for long, but you should’ve done a better job of it. Go report to Maik Kehn—I’m sure he could use you in the Docks. You might even get a chance to earn some green over there, if you concentrate harder on not fucking up from now on.” He opened the door in dismissal and Caun exited quickly with his eyes lowered. Hilo did not lose his stern expression, but he gave the Finger a single pat on the back as he passed, and the young man glanced up with a nervously grateful expression. In one unfortunate instant, Shae’s perception of Caun transformed. Her friendly, attractive next-door neighbor was just another one of her brother’s many underlings. She was bothered by how much it aggravated her that Caun did not even spare her a parting glance as he left the room.
Shae wheeled back on Hilo. “Stay out of my life.”
“You’re flattering yourself, Shae. I need every Finger I have right now. You think I wanted to waste one of them on guard duty over you? I told Lan it was your choice to live here without jade and you could godsdamned take care of yourself, but after what happened to Anden, he insisted that you be protected. Don’t blame me.”
“Lan told you to set a guard over me?” Shae was taken aback. Hilo having her watched made her nearly speechless with ire, but she had never known Lan to be anything but prudent and well-intentioned. Some of her anger diffused into uncertainty. “What happened to Anden?”
“Gont Asch snatched Andy out of Summer Park on Boat Day, took him to Ayt, and made a show of trying to turn him while offering us a sham alliance to make and sell shine in Ygutan with them. They gave Andy back, but they made their point. They shook us up, and they insulted Lan. He turned them down flat. So they tried to take me out of the picture, and here we are.”
Shae shook her head. She didn’t want to admit to being unfair to either of her brothers, particularly Hilo. “I didn’t know about Anden. No one told me.”
Hilo gave an incredulous and condescending snort. “What do you expect, Shae? You came back to Janloon, but you’re living out here jadeless like you want nothing to do with us. You made me search you out in a hotel and then treated me like a stranger. You haven’t gone to visit Andy, you haven’t seen any friends from the Academy. You didn’t even go out of your way to come over and pay a bit of respect to Tar when he was in the hospital. You’ve never once invited me into your place, not even now when we’re standing in the apartment next door. What’s that supposed to mean, huh?” There was true bewilderment and hurt in his voice. “What are you even doing these days, anyhow?”
Shae felt her temper rising anew. “I spent weeks doing that work for Lan, remember? And I’ve been applying for jobs. I have interviews coming up.”
“Interviews,” Hilo repeated with dripping disdain. “For what? You’re going to work as a suit in a bank? Why? I don’t understand you, Shae.”
Shae’s face burned. “I don’t need your advice, Hilo. Or your protection.”
“No, you didn’t, never before. But now we’re at war with the Mountain, and you’re still acting like you’ve nothing to do with any of it. You’re ignoring that you’re a Kaul.” Hilo advanced, his face tight, his voice edged with a vexed desperation. “I’ve got news for my tough little sister who thinks she’s too good for her family. Lan won’t come out and say it, but I will: You can’t be an ordinary person, Shae. Not in this city. Not in this country. You don’t like being kept in the dark, secretly guarded and treated like some helpless woman? Well, you put yourself there.”
There had been a day, almost ten years ago, Shae remembered, when she and Hilo had squared off, spitting fire as they’d done many times before, and realized at the same moment that they were both wearing jade now and could fatally harm each other. They had stayed themselves on that day, and it was perhaps only this memory, and the knowledge that Hilo was wearing a great deal of jade and she carried none, that kept Shae from launching herself at her brother now.
“Say whatever you want to Lan,” she said, her voice cold to hide all emotion, “but I don’t want to see any of your men around my apartment or following me, ever again. Risk your own life how you like, Hilo—but leave me alone to live mine.”
She caught a glimpse of her brother’s stricken expression as she pushed past him out the door. She remembered, only at the last minute, that she was still locked outside of her apartment, but too proud to be seen struggling to get inside, she left the building and sat in misery at a tea shop down the street until it was dark.
When she returned, Hilo was gone, but the landlord was waiting for her, holding her bag and a spare key. “Kaul-jen said to make sure you returned home safely, miss,” he said, saluting her solicitously. “I must apologize profusely for not realizing who you are. Please, from now on, if there is anything you need, you should call me directly.” As he unlocked Shae’s door, he turned over his shoulder and inquired, “Are you sure you’re quite comfortable here? I have another property, a new one, only ten minutes away, run by my son-in-law, where the units are much larger. The rent would be the same for you, of course. No? Well, don’t hesitate to let me know if you change your mind. My family and I have always been friends of the clan.”
CHAPTER
28
Deliveries and Secrets
Anden had a bad feeling about the errand the Pillar had sent him on. It was simple enough; Lan had phoned him to inquire when his next free afternoon from the Academy would be. He wanted Anden to come see him. Could he please stop by a certain address on the way over and pick up a package and bring it to his cousin?
Anden agreed, of course, but this was now the second time Lan had asked him for the same favor, and that seemed odd. The Pillar had any number of subordinates he could send to pick up parcels. For him to ask Anden once might have been random convenience. Twice made Anden suspect he’d been singled out for the task.
The address was for a walk-up apartment just down the hill from the Academy at the edge of the Crossyards district. When Anden rang the doorbell, a man in baggy camouflage pants and a yellowed muscle shirt opened the door. “You again?” He had green eyes and might have been Espenian, though he spoke Kekonese without an accent. Anden couldn’t decipher either the graffiti-style tattoos on his arms or the jangling music coming from the interior of the apartment. It was not particularly uncommon to see foreigners in Janloon, and becoming less so all the time, but encountering them always caused Anden some discomfort; he knew that must be how he looked to those around him. So he did not greet this man with anything beyond a polite nod.
“Wait here.” The stranger closed the door, leaving Anden standing awkwardly on the landing. A few minutes later, the door reopened and the man handed Anden an unmarked white padded envelope. Anden took it and zipped it up inside his schoolbag. Lan had told him to keep it out of sight, not to open it, and not to tell anyone about it.
He rode his bike to the transit station where he caught the bus to the Kaul home. That was another thing—there were faster methods of delivery than a student with no car. Anden could only conclude that the Pillar wa
s trusting him with a confidential task he didn’t want anyone else in the clan to know about. He would’ve been flattered, but instead he was worried. Lan had never asked him for anything before, other than to do well at the Academy. He didn’t think the Pillar would involve him in a secret errand for the clan unless he had no one else he could trust to do it.
On the bus, he reached into his schoolbag and felt the envelope, trying to guess at what was in it. It was well cushioned, but when he pushed on the bubble wrap, he could tell there were small, hard objects inside.
He got off the bus and walked ten minutes to the gates of the Kaul estate. The guard waved to him as he went straight through and into the house. “Hello?” he called in the foyer. Kyanla called back from the kitchen, clattering dishes. “Anden-se, is that you? Lan-jen is in the training hall.”
Anden wandered past the Pillar’s study, through the tidy courtyard, and rapped on the door to the training hall. Lan slid the door open. He was in a loose black tunic shirt, trousers, and bare feet. It was strange to see him looking so casual. It made him seem younger, the way Anden remembered him from before he’d become the Pillar. “Anden.” Lan stepped aside, smiling. “Come in.” Anden slipped off his shoes and entered the long, wood-floored room. Lan slid the door closed. “Do you have what I asked you to pick up?”
Anden swung his schoolbag off his shoulder and took out the padded envelope. As he handed it over, his fingers passed close to Lan’s and he flinched. He still wasn’t used to the difference in his cousin’s aura. He knew he was more sensitive than the average person—most people could not sense jade auras unless they were trained Green Bones wearing jade themselves. To Anden, the new jade Lan had won in the duel made his aura seem incongruously sharp and shrill, as if it had been taken up several psychic octaves. It didn’t suit him.