Reign of Beasts

by Tansy Rayner Roberts

  Velody drew him inside. ‘There’s soup if you want it.’

  ‘Always.’ Crane sat at the table, stretching out his long legs as Velody busied herself with fixing a bowl for him, with bread and oil and herbs. ‘Any sign of Ashiol?’

  ‘He went south with the Duchessa on some diplomatic mission, but they’re back now. He’ll find us when he’s ready.’

  The Duchessa had recently returned to the city to preside over the sacred games, and they all assumed that Ashiol had returned with her, though no one had seen hide nor hair of him.

  ‘Good for him. I mean, he’s neglected his daylight life for so long.’

  Velody sighed. ‘I don’t like giving up like this. But it’s not like any of the Creature Court is begging for my help. They chose Garnet.’

  ‘They’ll regret that, if they don’t already.’

  ‘I can’t help that, either. I can’t march in there and — what, challenge him to a duel? They don’t want me!’

  She sat near Crane, enjoying his proximity. She had missed him. The Macready – Delphine circus of fighting, making up and canoodling in corners was tiring to witness, and Rhian didn’t feel here even when she was physically present.

  Velody missed Ashiol, too. However tense their relationship had been, there was the certainty of him and her, linked by the Creature Court. Part of her even missed Garnet — the man she had met in that other Tierce, the man she had brought home, if not the man he had become once he was here. There was an emptiness in Velody’s life where the Creature Court used to be, and no amount of dressmaking could fill it.

  ‘You’ve lost more than I have,’ she said to Crane.

  He wasn’t wearing his steel sword. Macready didn’t, either, although they hadn’t given those up to Garnet. They belonged to another life, and were apparently best kept in the cupboard under the stairs.

  Crane set his soup spoon down. ‘As long as you still have time for me.’

  ‘Always,’ she said. ‘Do you know what you’re going to do next?’

  Macready had been working some shifts at the dockyards and would often disappear for days at a time. Velody was pretty sure he was drinking, though he worked hard to hide it from Delphine.

  Crane hesitated. ‘I’ll think of something.’

  ‘Do you want to stay here? The nests don’t work any more.’

  ‘I know they don’t. Velody, I’m not your responsibility.’

  ‘Of course you are. Garnet can take away your swords, but he can’t take anything from me. Like my obligation to look after you, for example.’

  ‘Don’t you understand?’ Crane said in frustration. ‘I don’t want to be your obligation. I want …’

  Oh. That. Velody tried not to react awkwardly, but her shoulders stiffened as she realised what he was trying to say.

  Crane saw it, he had to, but he pressed on anyway. ‘I love you. I don’t expect you to feel the same — but that’s how I feel. I don’t want you to see me as some stray you have to feed and house. I want to be something better than that in your eyes.’

  She reached out and touched his hair in the old way.

  ‘You can be anything you want,’ she said. ‘You’re free of it. This should be the beginning of your life, not the end.’

  The Creature Court had given them nothing tangible. Just loss and danger and bloodshed. But this daylight life they had now seemed no better. None of them had the hang of it yet.

  Crane nodded. ‘I’ll find something on my own. But thank you for the offer.’

  The fact that she hadn’t responded to his declaration of love hung between them. But Velody couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge it.

  ‘Thank you for the soup,’ Crane said finally, pushing the bowl away. ‘I’ll come by in a day or so, try to catch up with Macready. If that’s all right?’

  Velody nodded. ‘You’re welcome here any time, Crane. I really have missed you.’

  He smiled sadly. ‘That’s all right, then.’

  Livilla had transformed herself into the princessa of the Haymarket quite successfully, with the lambs as her court. Topaz loved the fact that it was her own strength, her fire, that was protecting Livilla and the lambs from those who thought they could order them around.

  From a position of power, Livilla had been benevolent, granting Garnet the Haymarket rooms below her own, on condition that no one came up to the balcony without her permission. She was, it turned out, the mistress of diplomacy, managing to preserve her own power without making Garnet look weak to the rest of them. Livilla evidently enjoyed everything that went along with being the Power and Majesty’s consort, and saw no reason to give that up.

  Topaz was still figuring out what it meant to be a salamander. She’d never heard of them before. The other lambs loved to practise shaping and unshaping into their creatures, but none of them could do what she could — shape into one large creature or many small versions. They were all one or the other.

  Livilla never answered when Topaz asked about it, just acted all mysterious. Topaz was starting to suspect that she didn’t have the faintest idea.

  She stared at herself sometimes, when she was alone in the room she shared with Bree. There was a long mirror propped against one of the walls, with a crack in the corner. Topaz would stare at her body, trying to figure out how her firm, brown skin could change into all those lithe, scaly little legs and tongues. When she shaped herself small and then big, it felt so right that it filled her head with crazy-making joy. It was better than singing on the stage, better than clean sheets, better than the taste of ciocolata melting on her tongue.

  Better than anything.

  The lambs had all adapted to being in service to Livilla — it was just another role to play, and they got more rehearsal time than they were used to. Niloh and Zeb got into it most, bringing stolen food and other gifts from the city above in attempts to please their new mistress.

  Topaz rarely went up above. Why should she? There was nothing up there but people and things. This was their home now. The lizard part of her liked it underground, the dark dampness of it all. She craved sunshine, but it was winter and there was hardly any to be had, so better to stay down here in the dark.

  Seven days before the Kalends of Saturnalis, Niloh brought Livilla a flagon of hot coffee she’d pinched from a stall vendor while Zeb distracted him by pretending to steal a handful of chestnuts. Livilla smiled at both of them like they were sunshine and light. She allowed them to pour her a cup, then called Topaz over.

  ‘Take this to Garnet, with my compliments,’ she said in a low purr, handing Topaz the mostly full flagon.

  It was always Topaz whom Livilla sent to Garnet with messages or gifts. Topaz reckoned she didn’t trust him not to snatch any of the other lambs and hand them straight over to the Orphan — to Poet.

  There had been many gifts: many little tokens of food or drink. All props adding to the show that Livilla was subservient to the Power and Majesty, instead of holding him at bay with her powerful fire-lizard. There was no reason why this gift should be any different. But it was. Topaz could tell. She hadn’t seen Livilla add anything to the coffee, but there was a brightness in her eyes, an excitement that was out of place.

  That was when Topaz knew she was being sent to Garnet as an assassin.

  She carried the flagon carefully down the stairs, her feet heavy, and knocked on Garnet’s door before entering. Perhaps he would be asleep and then she wouldn’t have to …

  ‘Come in, little firetrap,’ he called in a merry voice.

  Topaz kept her eyes mostly downcast as she entered the room. She glanced up briefly to see that Garnet was naked in bed, his skin shockingly pale against dark green sheets. A demme shared the bed with him, but she lay with her face to wall, body held stiffly as if she couldn’t wait to leave.

  ‘A gift from Lord Livilla,’ Topaz said politely.

  She was a mask. She had always been a mask. She could act as if this were any other token of Livilla’s ‘respect’.
<
br />   ‘Another crumb from the table of our landlady,’ Garnet said in one of those voices men liked to use when they were pretending not to be as cruel as they were. ‘Is she not kindness itself, Kelpie?’

  The woman in his bed shrugged one shoulder and said nothing.

  ‘Sit up, sentinel,’ Garnet said sharply.

  Kelpie sat up. She didn’t look right. Something about her eyes. Topaz had seen beaten women before — the stagemaster in the place where she was before the Vittorina Royale had been a right bastard to the columbines, leaving them blue and streaky all over when he was in a drinking mood. The sentinel had that look, though there wasn’t a mark on her.

  Garnet took the flagon. Topaz couldn’t help wondering how it would happen, what it was, how fast it would be.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘Cups, woman.’

  Kelpie slipped out of the bed, looking more uncomfortable with her nakedness than anyone around here ever did. She found a cup and returned to the bed with it. Garnet poured for himself with great ceremony, eyes on Topaz.

  ‘My mother always made the best coffee,’ he said conversationally. ‘She was a cook, you know. Head cook of a fine manor house. The Baronne himself said she was a saint in the kitchen. He liked to start his day with a small cup of coffee prepared by her hands. There’s something about that smell, the way it infuses a kitchen.’

  He handed the cup to Kelpie without looking at her. ‘Drink.’

  I am a mask, I am a mask, I am a mask. Topaz didn’t want this. She had no problem with offing this vicious cove, but how could she let a demme, another of his victims, die from it?

  Garnet smiled, and Topaz knew then that she had failed, she had let something slip. Her face had given it away.

  ‘Now,’ he commanded.

  Kelpie looked at the cup and then up at Topaz, and oh saints and devils, she knew, too. She knew there was something about that cup. Quick as a ferax, she threw the contents down her throat, swallowing hard.

  Topaz wanted to scream, but it was all too fast. She bobbed her head, taking her leave.

  ‘Wait,’ Garnet said in a low, threatening voice.

  Kelpie was shaking, and at first Topaz thought it was fear, but then her face twisted up into an ugly mess and she fell to the ground.

  Topaz ran. She ran and ran, feet pounding up the stairs. She was so scared she changed into salamanders halfway up, leaving her dress behind as she scampered up the balcony and into her room where she slid miserably under the covers, shaking and shuddering more wildly than Kelpie had.

  She was a murderer.

  Eventually she changed back, and cried so hard she almost threw up her guts onto the pillow.

  Livilla came later, her hand stroking Topaz’s short hair. ‘Is it done?’ she asked quietly.

  Topaz hated her and loved her all at once. She shook her head tightly. ‘He gave it to —’ and then she was crying again, so hard she could barely breathe.

  ‘Ah,’ Livilla said, sounding mildly regretful, ‘he doesn’t trust me yet. That’s worth knowing.’

  She patted Topaz as if she were a well-behaved pet and went away again, the smell of perfumed smoke lingering in the air.

  17

  Fortuna; seven days

  before the Kalends of Saturnalis

  Delphine was stuck being the good demme again, because Macready was falling apart. He never said as much, did his best never to show her any weakness at all, but she could tell. She was an expert on falling apart.

  He stayed over less frequently, and when he did come around, he smelled like a brewery. Sometimes he’d be gone already in the morning. It wasn’t the job exactly — he shrugged it off when she asked about it, like it didn’t matter what he was doing. The point was, he wasn’t being a sentinel.

  She couldn’t help wondering if he wouldn’t come back to her at all if she didn’t share a house with Velody; that somehow he could still pretend he was here to protect her if he was sharing a bed with Delphine.

  They were hardly making love now, except sometimes when he fumbled for her in the middle of the nox, and then she had to bite her lip not to complain when he buried his face in her breasts, stomach, like he was trying to dig his way inside her and never let go.

  When he wasn’t here, she still felt smothered. She’d done a cack-handed job of looking after people her whole life, and this wasn’t what she had signed up for. The memory of how Macready had believed in her when she was so empty tightened around her throat like a rope. Obligation. Duty.

  This nox she sat up waiting for him. It was stupidly late, and she needed to go out early in the morning to buy the right linen to braid into Serenalia wreaths, but it had to be done. They had to talk. Had to end this.

  She heard the back gate creak, and stood at the window to watch him cross the yard. He had his own latchkey now. When had that happened?

  She waited, but he didn’t come up to her room. Eventually she padded downstairs herself, her bare feet making no sound on the stairs. She could see him sitting at the kitchen table, and at first she thought his companion was Velody, and the old jealousy rose up inside her, that even this, even trying to break up with him, had Velody smack bang in the middle of it. Then the woman moved her head and held a hand out to him, and it was Rhian.

  Macready let his head drop to the table, utterly despondent, and Rhian put her arms around him. Rhian, who couldn’t bear to be touched. Macready’s shoulders were shaking. Was he crying?

  Delphine held her breath, wanting nothing more than to go back upstairs and forget she’d seen them. But then she felt the unmistakeable presence of the Creature Court close by. One of the many joys of being a sentinel. Sometimes she’d been able to feel their presence with perfect accuracy, and other times they’d sneaked up on her without a whiff of animor. Now there was one of them out there, not Velody, dangerously close. From Macready’s and Rhian’s reaction, they could feel it, too.

  Delphine stepped into the kitchen and took some grim satisfaction in the guilt and embarrassment that crossed Macready’s face as he and Rhian broke apart. He dashed one hand quickly over his eyes.

  ‘Who is it?’ Delphine said in a low voice, keeping this strictly business. ‘Can you tell?’

  ‘Garnet,’ said Macready. He made for the door. ‘You two stay here.’

  ‘You’re just as vulnerable as we are,’ Delphine said sharply, and then wished she’d bitten off the words when she saw the look on his face. ‘I’m not porcelain, you know,’ she added, which was slightly better.

  ‘Stay here,’ Macready repeated, sounding more like his old self than he had in ages. He darted out into the nox.

  Delphine waited, not looking at Rhian, and when she heard Macready’s cry her heart almost burst into pieces.

  ‘Mac!’ she yelled.

  It was raining. The kind of cold, bleak rain that told you there was snow in the mountains nearby. The wetness soaked through Delphine’s skimpy robe as she ran out into the yard, to the alley, with Rhian behind her.

  ‘Macready!’ she screamed again.

  For one horrible moment she couldn’t see him, and then he lurched through the rain and the darkness with a body in his arms. Kelpie, it was Kelpie. Was she dead?

  They got her inside and laid her out on the kitchen table.

  ‘What happened to her face?’ Delphine said in alarm.

  Kelpie was barely breathing, and her face was like puckered grey silk. Her body went into a seizure, jerking wildly on the table.

  ‘Get Velody,’ Macready ordered.

  Delphine practically flew upstairs, dragging Velody’s quilts off the bed. ‘Get up, we need you!’ she cried.

  Velody came without asking questions, and, as soon as she saw the state of Kelpie, went for the cupboard under the stairs to fetch Delphine’s steel dagger from the blade collection.

  ‘The Creature Court don’t have an immunity to poison, do they?’ said Rhian. She paused in a really creepy way, as if listening to something inside her head. ‘They don’t.’


  ‘Velody’s blood will still make her stronger,’ Macready said frantically. ‘She’s more likely to survive this.’

  Velody nodded. ‘We have to try.’ She sliced open her wrist, letting the blood well over the blade.

  It was wrong. They were all wrong.

  Delphine’s hand lashed out, knocking Velody aside. ‘Don’t.’

  ‘We don’t have much time!’ Macready protested. ‘Look at her.’

  ‘Yes, look at her,’ Delphine said, sure now that her guess was correct. ‘Look at her skin, Mac. She’s practically glowing.’

  The greyness of Kelpie’s skin had a metallic tinge to it. Her eyes, staring unseeing at the ceiling, gleamed in a familiar way.

  ‘Oh, saints,’ said Velody, holding her slashed wrist to her chest as if afraid the blood would leap into Kelpie’s veins. ‘It’s skysilver. Someone fed her skysilver.’

  Macready blew out a shaky breath. ‘That’s why she’s still alive. It would have killed a King … or someone with King’s blood in them. Feck, if you’d given her your blood …’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Delphine said, more snarkily than she intended.

  ‘So what do we do?’ Macready demanded.

  Rhian sighed. ‘We wait. She’s just going to have to sweat it out. There’s nothing we can do except hope.’

  The rest of the nox and the day that followed were utterly miserable. They took turns sitting by Kelpie, mopping her brow and arms with wet cloths, trying to stop her hurting herself when she went into seizure. Her fits grew less intense as the day went on, but perhaps that was just because she was getting weaker.

  They moved her to Velody’s bed, and her skin felt warmer, more mortal, though she still shook wildly from time to time and cried out in her sleep.

  Days passed. One morning, Delphine went in to take Macready’s place and found him slumped exhausted in a chair.

  ‘You need more rest than this,’ she said impatiently.

  ‘I’ll be all right,’ he muttered.

  She thought disloyally that he preferred this — that Kelpie being sick was an emergency that made him feel alive again, made him feel useful and complete. However tired he was, he had seemed more himself these last few days than for the whole of Fortuna.