“Better now.”
“That sort of thing happen often inside the walls? Some sort of weird sorcerer dropping people with a hard stare?”
“No, he’s pretty unique. I should thank you. I understand you throw a mean rock.”
“We’re meant to be friends, right? The enemy of my friend and all that. He certainly looked ready to give you some serious trouble. You ever hunt?” Kay shook her head. Amos continued, “Sometimes, with dangerous predators, a group of hunters will deliberately wing an animal. Hurt it. Then follow it when it heads back to its den. That way they learn if there are others there, waiting to take our children in the night. During some of the uglier days at the Fellocks,” he looked up, “that was one of the rougher spots on the northern front, we’d do the same thing to the Winden scouts. Put an arrow in their arm from a distance. Watch which way they turn once they think they’re out of sight. I figured a little rock to the head might shake up the magic man and he could take me to his house.”
“And then you waited there? Anything interesting?”
“A messenger showed up. Looked official but I couldn’t tell you what the uniform means. Left a few minutes later, headed west.”
“Anything else?”
“No. No comings or goings. I figured you were probably wondering where I was so I came here. I could show you the magic man’s house but I don’t know the names of the streets or neighborhood.”
“We might get around to that.” She rose, walked over to the bar. “What did Gillis tell you to do?”
Amos gave a nod at her look and she poured two glasses of gin. “Pretty much what you’d expect,” he said. “Help you as best I can. Dig my way in close. Steal all your contacts with our gold. Make you fall in love with me. Mostly just get the information on the council and figure out what the Farrow can do to influence it. They are losing their minds out there. You have any idea what it’s like for these guys? They go from ordering armies in the tens of thousands, everyone hanging on their every word, to fighting over the tiniest scraps of power, crammed together in a refugee camp. There’s already been bloodletting in the highest ranks, the ones who are supposed to have their act together. War dogs locked in kennel, not even given the chance to fight for their dinner. They gotta beg for it. It’s ugly and it’ll get worse. I’m being straight with you. I can be straight. I like this gig. I’ll throw some more rocks if you want.”
She handed him the glass. “We’ll definitely get around to that.” She took her seat again. “Tell me. What it’s like. I heard the latest wave is changing things. Maybe not for the better in Gol eyes.”
Amos took a drink, grimacing either at the harsh gin Kay favored or the sentiment. “They'd like to have you think the later they arrived at camp the bigger heroes they were. It’s not true. All the real Farrow heroes are dead. The northern front was just as brutal as the west. Difference was we weren't totally routed. We held our lines. They didn't. And they act as if the only war was to the west. And we don't say much cause why piss on the memories of everyone they lost by pointing out the story that kept them going all the way across Farrow in harried retreat was bullshit. Or at least beside the point. Only point was our home being lost and our people getting killed. So you got the northern front soldiers, the western front soldiers, every other kind of divide you can imagine, fighting to get some measure of respect in a place where there’s not enough to go around.
“And don't get me started on the rift between the easterners and westerners. We act like the east was full of cowards, even though they predicted exactly what would happen if we engaged the Winden the way we did. They were right but our story wouldn't allow for that. So we ignore them. And they walk around almost gleeful, so glad to be right, like you get the sense they feel validated as they scrounge for garbage to eat. The noble beggars. It's like they were born to be trapped in righteous poverty, fucking seers.
“In case you can't tell, it's not one big happy family out there in New Farrow. Only thing preventing us from killing each other is there's little taste for blood after the war. But that would change if the food really runs out. There's no faith in the leadership, part of the reason Alban runs such a terrible meeting. Everyone meddles in every affair. At least with so many voices around the table we can't mobilize or agree on a direction so we don't do anything stupid. We don’t do anything. We end up waiting and right now that seems like the only real thing we can do that doesn't sink our odds at survival.” He raised his glass in a sarcastic cheer. “Beautiful fucking country you’ve got here. Any chance you all are going to share more than five square miles of it?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Kay said. “I can tell you that the Dynasty has solved the too many voices around the table issue.” She explained the structure of the council and the vote. She got up and refilled their glasses when she finished. “So you going to help me sniff out the council? Maybe throw some more rocks if I need? Steal my contacts and make me fall in love with you?”
“Count me in.”
“It’s that easy?” Kay asked.
“It’s that easy. The guy who couldn’t get through the gate is back on guard duty. What’s to guard? No one wants what we have aside from a bunch of gold you guys are giving us a miserable exchange rate on.”
“Can you get more gold if I need?” Kay was thinking of the bag lying buried under the fire, wondering whether it would be worth trying to dig up.
Amos looked at her a long time, his easy-going manner diminished. He spoke more slowly. “I can, but if you are planning to run with it, that’s going to have a serious impact on our friendship. That gold isn’t just the about the ego of a few men like Alban. There are a lot of innocents out there. What we do might be important to them. If you’re not planning on helping us, just tell me now. We don’t have time to waste.”
She was tempted to tell him she would never run. Tell him that the day she had to leave Celest was the day she died, but it would be a mistake. Alban and the other Farrow already knew their threat of outing her as formerly Keara the Bug was effective at keeping her in line. No need for them to have that idea reinforced. She thought for a moment before answering. “I saw the camps. I know it’s not just Alban out there. I’ll do what I can. As for you,” she gestured at his empty glass, “can you hold your liquor? Rumor puts Farrow soldiers high in that regard.”
When Amos nodded, Kay swiveled her chair, turned to the safe at her feet behind her. As she retrieved a few stacks of gold coin, she said, “Then go to the Bosun. Take them this gold. They’re headquartered at a joint in the Lagoons called The Bear and Flower. Ask Abi to get you close enough to point it out. Maybe get something to eat on the way. You won’t want an empty stomach for this. Walk in, hand this stack to the bartender, and say your plan is to drink as much as that will cover. He’ll give you a bottle to start. Go to a big table. Put your back to the door and start drinking. As soon as you see some Bosun checking you out, start pouring for them.
“There was a lean cat at the fights. Not the boss. The boss is a woman they call Madame Cora. She runs the show. Most of the Gol gangs have a matron like her. But I doubt you’ll get to see her. If you do a good job, you might catch this lean cat. Their street operative. Drink with them. They’ll rotate in shifts, keep you going. They’ll be curious why you’re there. Play it however you think best. Just keep going until you pass out. Where you wake up will tell you how well you did. You wake up under some bench, you didn’t impress. Or worse in the alley outside. If you wake up in one of the guest rooms, that’s better.”
“Why the Bosun?” Amos shifted forward and pocketed the gold.
“They’re not dealing with you guys for nothing,” Kay said. “They’re betting on an outcome. I want to know why the confidence. And, if I’m honest, I don’t really know where else to send you. You don’t know anyone else and no one knows you. I already stick out, if a full-blooded Farrow is trailing me I’ll only stick out more.” She cocked her head to the side and shrugged. “Not the worst a
ssignment you’ve ever gotten, I’m sure. Go tell Abi. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
As he stood up, Kay reached out and grabbed his sleeve. “Amos, listen, this is important. Don’t ever say the words New Farrow again, inside the walls or out. That needs to be scrubbed from everyone’s vocabulary right away.”
He nodded and walked out, shoulders rolling. Kay leaned back in her chair, tossed back the rest of her drink, head still aching. It was all she could do to drag herself over to the sofa, where she promptly fell asleep.
Chapter 10. The Harbor Grey
The old man. He leaned over, always the same. The same old, cracked face. Missing teeth. But eyes so wise they seemed sad. A thick finger, jabbing her in the chest. “I see it,” he said in a voice too loud for a pair of shapes hidden in the gutter, hoping the Home Guard wouldn’t find their home for tonight. “I see it and it’s broken. Got to get that fixed, Keara.”
“Fix what?” she asked in her child’s voice. Desperate for answers and still naïve enough to think someone had them. She hadn’t found them in the orphanage, hadn’t found them in the flames. Maybe they’d been hiding with an old man in a gutter this whole time.
“That spark. It’s all askew. Never set right.”
Just as Kay was opening her mouth to ask how it could be fixed, there was a loud voice that sent chills down her spine. A voice of authority, intolerance. Alban’s voice. “Stand up the two of you. It’s past curfew.” They’d been found. Tonight would be spent in the shed, or worse.
Kay rose, trembling, but Alban wasn’t there. Neither was the old man. Something had changed. The street, normally a pattern of worn black cobblestones, was made of a smooth paper. Kay knelt and touched it. A familiar material. It was the same paper as the matches she always carried back when she’d roamed the streets of Ferris. A single sheet of the thick black material ran wide and straight between the tall buildings of Celest. She looked up but the sky was blank, a mirror for the black street. No Fire Eye to guide her to safety.
The air smelled of sulfur. As Kay straightened, there was a ripple and suddenly the street was made up of endless matchbooks, black and flat, thousands upon thousands of small white tips visible, waiting. The buildings too, just more matches. Kay’s fire lust rose within her. This place would burn gloriously, flames high enough to lick the skies.
A man was next to her, seated at her desk, which was outside in the center of the street. He was faced away, opening her safe at his feet. Kay turned to him, at once angry and violated as he casually poked through her things, but she was distracted by excited voices as a stream of children passed. The children from the orphanage. They passed another man. As each child passed, he poured a bucket of lamp oil over them. The smell of the oil mixed with the sulfur of the matches. It was powerful. A single spark and the children would burn. She couldn’t be that spark.
Kay looked back at the man sitting at her desk, fear in her eyes. He’d turned around and was holding up her bracelet, marked for each child she’d helped save. As she watched he removed a knife and began carving into the thick leather, peeling away the marks. He looked at her and said, “Can’t have this one. She must stay lost.”
“Oh, no,” she said. “Oh no, oh no oh no.” A single paper lantern was falling from the sky, drifting to the street of matches, its small flame fluttering in the wind. Kay ran towards it, right in the midst of the children, laughing and playing, oblivious to the danger. As she reached for the lantern, to catch before it hit the matches at her feet, at all their feet, she realized her hands were on fire. She held them in front of her face, panic in her chest, then crammed them into her mouth to quell the fires and woke up.
…
A glass of gin or seven might be in order. Kay was shaking, sitting up on the sofa in her dark office. Something was still not right with her head, the attack of the Fire Creep still not shaken off. She wondered how long it took burns to heal when they were inside of you.
She struck a match and lit a small lamp, both the match and the smell of the lamp oil giving her an unsettled feeling. They were speaking to her in a language she’d hoped to forget. Calling her like the Fire Creep’s flame had. She was slipping. The bug was returning. The problem was the Fire Eye. This was the time of year that she was meant to recharge. Whatever healing the Fire Eye had given her was not endless. She needed to renew it, and this year she wasn’t being given a chance. The eye would close on its schedule. And maybe if she hadn’t found a way by then, she’d have to spend the whole next year fighting the bug. And maybe she wasn’t strong enough. Maybe she’d be lighting fires on a street corner before the next Fire Eye. Caught with matches and hung or locked in a shed to dig at the ground until her fingers bled. Maybe more would die. Fires that left good Farrow dead. She’d finally fulfill Alban’s plans for her, just ten years late, and wreak havoc on Celest.
She needed the Fire Eye. Needed to see it, but more importantly, needed to find a way out of this predicament, out from under Alban’s threat. If she were exposed, she would be exiled. Without the Fire Eye it was just a matter of time before she became Keara the Bug again, before she lost her battle with the fire lust. If not this year then the next. She couldn’t survive anyplace else.
The old man in her dream was a memory, not a fantasy. She’d encountered him one night back in Ferris. When she was at her lowest, on the streets running around with matches, setting everything she could on fire. That night it had been raining and she was left helpless, cold and hungry, unable to calm herself by feeding her need. She’d found a spot in a low gutter and he was already there, speaking quietly to no one when she arrived. He’d taken one look at her and pegged her as a firebug. He said he didn’t see many girls with it, but he’d seen the bug. Said that firebugs always get edgy in the rain. Feel trapped. When she’d agreed, he said some of them, not all, have something inside of them. A spark. Said she did, but hers was broken. Eventually she’d moved on. Too much attention she didn’t want, his sharp eyes seeming to see inside of her wet, shivering frame.
She’d never known what to do with what he told her. But she took to calling herself Keara the Spark in her head. Better than Keara the Bug. She imagined herself as some sort of hero. A sad fantasy to pass the days she’d run amok in Ferris before Alban and Ewan tracked her down and put her in the shed. A few days after that, she was exiled.
Kay moved to the window at the back of her office. She parted the curtains and looked up. The Fire Eye was above. She stared at it for a long time and felt it easing her soul. The troubling dream and the memories it surfaced began to drift away. She closed her eyes, imagining the warmth of the Fire Eye washing over her through the darkness. Then she opened them and saw a man standing in the middle of the street, looking up at her.
It took her a moment to recognize Yamar, Ban Terrel’s operations man, without his uniform. The rest of the street was empty, just Yamar staring up at her expectantly, standing with his legs spread, hands behind his back. She raised her hand in a soft wave. Yamar jerked his head to the side and then began walking towards the lit door of a nearby tavern. The message was clear. She was meant to join him.
Kay strapped on her belt with her baton and jars of pearl ash and demonlord pepper, threw her cloak over her shoulders. She spared a glance at the mirror by the door. After running a comb through her hair, she looked tired but otherwise okay. She locked the office and went down the stairs. One street over, and she was at the tavern.
The place was well lit and active. Kay was there often, sometimes with Abi and Joah. It was called The Harbor Grey. Yamar was standing at the bar, back to the door. He said nothing as she took the spot next to him and ordered a gin. He was drinking whiskey, a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth.
She waited him out, and eventually Yamar spoke. “Have you found Leah Jordene?”
“Not yet. Maggie wasn’t with the kitchens.”
“And?”
“And I’ve got people looking for her outside the walls. I’m looking too.”
/> “Ban Terrel asked you to keep this quiet.”
“It is,” Kay said. “A few trustworthy people are looking and even the most well-informed among them don’t know it’s Ban Terrel who’s looking.” There was a pause. “Has Ban Terrel traveled to Farrow ever?”
He turned and looked at her. “I’m not here to give you new information. Ban Terrel told you what you need to know. I’m here to find out your results. And, given you don’t have any, I’m here to press you to get to fucking work. How fucking hard is it to find one person?”
“It’s only been two days.” Kay was annoyed at being leaned on, but it was a standard part of her job. As was pretending it had never happened when she inevitably found the missing child.
“What’s your usual recovery time?”
“Nothing about this is usual.” When he didn’t respond, Kay continued. “Does she have any scars? Any marks? Any tattoos?”
“She’s twelve. I doubt she has any tattoos.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know. All you gave me was two names and an age. Do you have any idea how big that camp is?”
“No, I don’t. And I don’t care.” Yamar finished his drink, turned to her. His hand had strayed down to his swordbelt. “It’s not a good time to be of mixed-blood, Kay. A word from Ban Terrel could have you outside the gates. So quit fucking around. Find her. If you can’t get it done tomorrow, I suspect we’ll need to diversify the way we attack this problem.” Which meant they’d hire someone else and she’d be in a race. “And if you haven’t found her by the day after that, you might find yourself in the camps, begging for food with the rest of the Farrow scum.” He was holding his chin high, looking down at her. “I’ll be back tomorrow night.” He walked off.
Kay faced the bar, listening to him walk away. She sipped her drink for a few moments, counting to about ten in her head, and then Joah slid up next to her at the bar.
The Fire Eye Refugee Page 7