by Brent Weeks
It was agony not to be able to see anything, but Teia kept down, and in a few more seconds, the door squeaked open and not just the old woman but another woman as well walked out of the shop past Teia.
“What you figure they’re on about this time?” the younger woman asked.
Teia vaulted through an open window into the shop and with light, quick steps, darted up the heavy stairs. The large room upstairs was packed to the rafters with raw wool, but the door to the roof was bolted and locked.
“Jofez?” a man’s voice called out, apparently having heard her steps. “You up here?”
Oh, blackest hell!
She heard footsteps on the stairs and moved behind one of the stacks of wool. The man hadn’t brought a lantern with him, but neither had she, and her eyes weren’t accustomed to the darkness. She’d frozen up before and let fear stop her from dilating her pupils consciously. What if she always did that? What if she was destined to fail when it really mattered? What if—
Teia closed her eyes, let out one breath, and opened them again. She felt the stretching as her eyes dilated open, wider, wider to good night vision and into sub-red.
The warm blob of a man standing on the landing at the top of the steps came into the soft focus that was the best you could get from sub-red. Hottest at the face, hot everywhere skin was bare, duller everywhere clothes covered skin, except groin and armpits.
She tried to circle opposite the man, but in staring at him rather than paying attention to the darkness around her, she stubbed her foot against the wooden base beneath a stack of raw wool. It made a dull thunk.
“Jofez?” the man repeated, stepping closer.
Sub-red wasn’t good enough here. With speed she didn’t know she had, Teia relaxed her eyes further and drafted a paryl torch, but the paryl light didn’t cut all the way through the heavy wool. Useless.
Come on! Her desperation lent her will, and the paryl light sharpened and stabbed the way through edges of the wool stacks. It illuminated them only dimly, but it was enough for her to make out the figure stepping forward mere feet away from her. She wended her way through the stacks carefully, able to make out every detail of the ground easily, not making a sound now.
“Melina, if that’s your damned cat again, I’m gonna kill it. Scares the hell out me all the time, doesn’t even catch rats.” He continued grumbling and made his way down the stairs. “What the hell is going on out there?” he asked, finally hearing the whistles.
Then he was gone.
Adrasteia breathed. She was almost out of paryl, so she let the light die out.
She didn’t have much time. This was a dead end, so she had to move. She navigated her way through the stacks until she found washed and bleached wool by smell and touch, and then grabbed some and scrubbed her hands. She had no mirror, and no idea of exactly where she had blood on her, but she’d have to do the best she could quickly. She tucked what she’d used deep into the pile—maybe they’d blame the cat and think it had killed a rat here. Sorry, folks.
Then she stripped off the boys’ clothing she’d stolen and rubbed her face and chest and arms with the clean back of the tunic, hoping she was cleaning off all the blood. She pulled on her dress in the darkness, fumbled with the laces.
Hurry up, Teia. Get moving.
She debated leaving the bloody clothes here, but it might only be minutes before someone came upstairs with a lantern, and if they put things together, the guardsmen would immediately start asking if anyone unusual had been seen leaving the shop. Someone in the neighborhood would say they’d seen a discipula, and the search would be quickly narrowed.
So she was going to have to carry bloody clothes—damnation!—right under their noses. She folded the clothes as tightly as she could, pulled off her hat, stuffed the clothes inside it, and walked downstairs, trying not to give away the riot inside her chest.
No one was in the shop, but quite a few other shopkeepers and passersby were walking toward the alley to see what had happened. Teia scanned herself for blood. It looked like the dress was clean—she’d worried that blood soaking her shift might have wicked through the dress, but as far as she could tell she’d been lucky. She glanced around for a mirror. There was none in the shop.
With her heart in her throat, she stepped back over the window frame and caught a glimpse of her hand—there was blood under her fingernails, and rimming every cuticle. Both hands.
Oh hell.
She stepped out into the street, slipping behind the old woman. The younger man and woman had already walked into the alley and left her to mind her shop.
Glancing over her shoulder, Teia almost bumped into another store owner who was standing in the street, looking torn between minding his shop and going to see for himself. “They say it’s a murder,” he told Teia.
“Orholam bless, that’s awful,” she said. She meant it. A wave of emotion rose up from the depths. She swallowed hard, clenched her fists and jaw.
Not now, Teia. Not. Now.
“That sort of thing doesn’t happen up here,” he said. “We’re good people here.”
She made a sound of agreement and kept moving. He barely noticed her go.
It was terror to walk against the flow of the curious, knowing that looking over her shoulder would make her look guilty. She heard someone running. “Make way! Make way! Watch coming!”
She kept walking. A sharp whistle blew twenty paces behind her.
Don’t run. You look like a helpless little girl. He won’t tackle you; he’ll grab your arm. Then you counterattack. If you run, he tackles you. With his weight against yours, you’re dead.
The whistle sounded again, almost right in her ear. When he grabs your arm, turn with it, bring your elbow to his head to stun him. Then run. Two blocks to an underground gutter. Figure it out from there.
Then, from the pounding footsteps, she realized there wasn’t one guardsman, there were two. Two? Her plan wasn’t going to work for two.
She froze.
The two guardsmen ran right by her.
“Watch coming! Make way!” one of them bellowed. They ran on, and were swallowed by the evening crowds.
Within another block, everything resumed as normal, the crowds unaware of the death so nearby. Teia made her way to a fountain in a market, where some of the vendors were already closing up. She sat on the edge and trailed her fingers in the water as if idly. She sat up, looked around for anyone watching, and rubbed her fingernails on the folded tunic.
“Whatcha doing?” a little boy asked her. He was irritatingly cute. One of the merchants’ boys, no doubt.
“I’m a drafter,” she said. “Begone or I’ll set you on fire.”
The boy’s eyes widened. She faked a lunge toward him, and he bolted. She rubbed her other hand quickly and stood. She had to keep moving, had to get rid of the bloody clothes.
A few blocks away, she found a large mud puddle. She pretended to stumble and pitched the folded clothes into the middle of the puddle, then stepped on them. Mud stains over bloodstains. She pulled the caked, dripping clothes out and put them back into the hat distastefully.
It didn’t look like anyone even noticed.
A block later, she threw away the clothes and hat in a rubbish heap. She circled a few more blocks to make sure she wasn’t being followed, stopped at another fountain and scrubbed her face and hands. Satisfied, she finally headed back for the Chromeria.
No one stopped her. No one knew. She’d gotten away with it. She even still had the letters. Her mind wasn’t ready to start wrestling with what had just happened, though.
Coming back to the Chromeria was like entering another world. A world without murder, without shadows that sprang to life. A safe world. She crossed the Lily’s Stem and headed toward the entrance of the Prism’s Tower, where her room was.
She was almost to the door when she saw a man who looked a lot like Kip, leaning against the wall, flipping through playing cards as if memorizing them. As if there was nothing
strange about it.
He didn’t look up.
“Kip?” she said. “Kip!” She ran over to him and threw her arms around him. “You’re alive!”
He didn’t return her embrace, and for one moment she had the terrible thought that this wasn’t Kip after all. She let go of him, stepped back. He did look different: he’d dropped probably another three sevs, his broad shoulders emerging more and more as his fat receded. His jawline more pronounced, face harder without the baby fat to soften it. But it was Kip. Something else was different about him, too. She’d thought she’d seen him in town—and she had. And suddenly fear took her by the throat.
“I just arrived. I was so excited to see you,” he said. There was no joy in his tone. “This isn’t how I pictured this.”
A weight dropped into her stomach. It was hard to breathe. Guilt raced all over her face. Kip saw it.
“Kip.” The word came out barely above a whisper. It was hard to breathe. “Kip, I’m a slave. You don’t understand what that means.”
“You’re not a slave.”
“How long did you follow me?” she asked. He couldn’t have followed her for long without her noticing, could he?
Kip’s expression flickered from looking like a puppy you’d kicked and a hard man, hiding his wounds. “You should probably change that bloody shift before anyone else notices it.”
She panicked, and set off rapidly, but his long gait kept him with her easily. When had he gotten so tall? Of course he hadn’t been able to follow her all the way from the city. What had he seen? Maybe he’d followed long enough to see her steal the clothes. Bad but not damning, and he’d seen the blood, worse, but still not damning.
On the other hand, if he had seen everything—from a clear vantage—he would know she wasn’t a killer. If he’d seen almost everything, he might think she was.
And what was the cost of telling him? You’re a slave Teia, not a fool. What does it mean? Think!
She got in the lift, where there was another discipulus with them, so Teia was spared having to come up with more lies.
The question wasn’t, what am I doing, the question is, what are they doing? There wasn’t one thread here, there were two.
As she and Kip stepped off the lift, her breath caught. So simple. Everything she’d stolen for Lady Verangheti—actually for Lady Aglaia Crassos, though she hadn’t known that then—had been metal so she could see it. But everything had also been easily identifiable. She’d thought it was so she would know what to steal. It wasn’t.
They’d been keeping everything she stole so they could blackmail her later—it was all proof that she was a thief.
Kip grabbed her arm painfully and pulled her around. She was suddenly aware of how big he’d gotten. Muscle was filling in everywhere the fat had been, but so slowly that none of them had noticed, until now, when he must have been starved for weeks to lose so much weight.
“Teia, dammit, tell me the truth!”
It wasn’t fair, she thought, how boys do that. How one second they’re big children, and the next second they can tear your arm off.
Looking up into her friend’s face—no, her master’s face, still, despite everything, still her master until those papers went through—she felt something inside break, but it was sweet; it was honey dripping from a broken honeycomb. He knew. She had to tell him everything and hope for the best. Even if he recoiled, even if he ran away, she wouldn’t be alone with this burden anymore. The very prospect was light and hope.
Kip seemed to realize how hard he was holding her arm, and he dropped it. “You get in a fight or something?” he asked.
Teia’s heart started beating again. He didn’t know. Relief rushed through her in waves.
He scowled, and she saw that he knew he’d botched it.
“I need to change, and we need to have this conversation somewhere where we can’t be overheard,” she said. In control once more, buying time, getting a little space to think.
Surely she wasn’t the only one who would be interested to learn that Kip was back. Surely spies would be reporting to everyone in power that he was here. Surely at least the White and the Red and the commander of the Blackguard would hustle as soon as they learned Kip was here. How long did it take the spies around here, anyway?
Then again, it would be best for Teia if she made it to the lavatories before meeting any of the servants of the most powerful and interested people in the Seven Satrapies.
“This will go better for both of us if I can get cleaned up first, Kip,” she said as she hurried.
She saw Gavin’s room slave Marissia coming from the direction of Kip’s room just as they reached the girls’ barracks. Teia kept her head down. “I’ll be five minutes,” she said as she ducked inside. “Maybe ten.”
There were no girls in the barracks. Thank Orholam for small mercies. Most were out studying or working or at dinner—which reminded Teia that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. She closed the door behind her, and then waited, listening.
“Kip,” Marissia said, her tone constrained. “I’m delighted to see you alive. You’re needed upstairs, immediately—”
“I’m sorry, but I’m busy—”
“—at an emergency meeting of the Spectrum. It’s not a request, Kip. You can come with me and we might straighten this out, or you’ll be seized by the Black’s watchmen and probably beaten, and the Red will get what he wants. What are you doing wasting time with a slave? You should have reported to the White immediately. Pray Orholam your foolishness does not cost us lives.”
“I just got here not ten—”
“Now, Kip.”
For one stupid moment, Teia wanted to go out there and slap Marissia’s face. How dare she talk to her friend like that? Slave? Slave? You’re a slave yourself, you stupid—
Teia leaned close to hear how Kip would respond. The opening door smacked her in the cheek, stunning her, though it didn’t hit hard.
“Don’t think you’ve escaped notice, caleen,” Marissia said quietly through the crack in the door. “Why haven’t you filed your manumission papers? What game are you playing? For whom?”
The door shut, and footsteps receded, and Teia was left alone swimming with an anvil.
One thing at a time, she told her panic. You’re still covered with blood, stupid. That first. She went to her bed and opened her chest and grabbed a clean shift. She went to the lavatory, poured water into a basin, and looked at herself in one of the mirrors.
Checking quickly to see that no one was coming, she stripped off her dress. Seeing the splash of blood across the front of her shift, darker where it had dried, but still livid up at her neck where her warmth and sweat had kept the gore liquid, she had the sudden urge to tear it off, to weep, to vomit. That man, the look in his eyes, that knowledge that he was dying and there was nothing he could do—
She took a deep breath, steadied herself against the basin.
Careful not to smear blood against her face, she pulled the shift off. She stopped her first instinct: to plunge the shift into the water and try to clean it. It was blood. The stains wouldn’t come out, and it would leave the water a bloody mess. Instead, she looked at herself for any evidence of blood on her own body. She dipped the hem into the water and cleaned her neck, between her breasts.
Orholam have mercy, she had blood in her ear. She couldn’t get it off.
Her stomach convulsed, but she held back the vomit. Slowly, meticulously, she dipped another clean portion of cloth into the water and cleaned her ear, behind her ear, her cheek. She checked her hands once more. Cleaned under two fingernails. She folded the ruined shift carefully so that none of the bloodstained parts were visible, toweled off with the hand towel, and pulled on her fresh shift.
She tried to smile at the mirror. Weak.
It was the best she could do.
Now to dispose of the shift—the last direct evidence of a murder that could be tied to her. The shifts were numbered on the back so the laundry slaves cou
ld return them to the appropriate girls. Teia tore the shift and ripped out the number, which was harder than she expected. Just a small square of cloth, not even as wide across as her thumb, and thin. She popped it in her mouth and swallowed it.
She stuffed the shift into the bag for menstrual rags and headed to Kip’s room. She opened the door carefully, her eyes wide to paryl, certain she would find that damned man inside again. There was no one, no traps, but there was a folded square of paper on Kip’s dresser. Teia approached it slowly, certain it hadn’t been here when she left.
It read: “T., As promised.—M.S.”
Had this been here when Marissia had checked the room? Teia’s throat tightened again. Orholam, what would she have done if Kip had been with her when she came in and found this? The weight of the secrets was suffocating.
Opening a letter from Murder Sharp was like handling serpents. Teia picked it up carefully, saw that there was only paper inside, and leaned back as she opened it.
It was her papers, the deed to her very body. Signed, everything in order. Ready to be filed.
Teia walked downstairs, waited in a line for a few minutes, and handed her papers to the clerk. He checked and double-checked everything, and then talked with an older clerk, who gave him a key. The man came out with several fat coin sticks. He counted them out for Teia, and had her sign a document stating she intended to join the Blackguard, then handed the coin sticks to her.
“Congratulations,” he said. “You are hereby released from all oaths of loyalty to any other than the Blackguard and the Chromeria.” He smiled at her and patted her hand. “Perk up, why don’t you? You’re free.”
Teia had achieved what she’d yearned for above all else, what she’d sought for years, and she was richer than she’d ever dreamed, but she’d never felt less free in her life.
Chapter 20
Karris took the spy following her on a merry chase through the worst neighborhoods of Big Jasper. She’d walked through the poverty a thousand times, and never felt nervous, but today was different. Without the aegis of her Blackguard garb, she felt oddly vulnerable. She didn’t like it. In fact, she hated it. She nodded to shopkeepers she’d known for a dozen years, and they barely responded. They didn’t recognize her when she was wearing a thobe.