“Why the hell would you do that?”
Opie shrugged. “I’m bored. You’re bored...not gloomy. It’s the best way to be un-bored.”
Then he turned and strolled away. They walked in mostly silence, weaving back towards the Glitter. Opie didn’t say much, too busy leaving a trail of cigarette butts in his wake. He didn’t look back to see if Roland was following, too content with sucking stick after stick of tobacco into his lungs. Judging by the way his hands shook as he reached for another, Roland suspected they were more nefarious than mere tobacco.
“We’re going through the front entrance, just because I think it’s amusing.”
Roland glanced around, they’d come past the edge of the Glitter, the streets cobbled and clean. They were neatly placed in purposefully tiled stone, whereas behind them, the Sludge consisted of broken up pieces of what was once cobble, but was now mostly dirt.
“It’s so pretty here,” noted Opie. “Doesn’t it make you want to smash all their pretty windows? They all have such fancy glass. I find it so inviting.” A majority of the building in the Sludge did not, in fact, have glass. Glass was an expensive commodity to install in the windows of a home, but within the past couple of years it made its way steadily into the Glitter. Up in the castle, construction was still underway to install it throughout, though Marius hardly was bothered in rushing the matter, and there were a great many windows at the castle.
“Here we are!” Opie halted before a door, black with shiny varnish and a gold-rimmed window. He flung it open, ignoring the host who merely looked upon their arrival and went back to his seating charts.
Roland’s brows raised as he took in the clientele of the bar. They were all rich, young denizens of the Glitter. He even recognized some of them as the daughters and sons of the nobles at court. They were all here, laughing, tiny glasses before them. In the center of the table was a contraption like a beaker in a lab. It was full of black liquid. The elixir steadily it dropped in beads, hitting the little glass tub above a small candle. As the liquid heated, it transformed, turning a bright, violent green. When the tub was full and the decanter empty, a small golden knob was turned and the concoction flooded out, sprinkled into the little cups they all held eagerly beneath the spout. It was meant to be consumed warm.
“Is this a fairy bar?”
“Aye, the Quiet Lady,” said Opie, nodding to the title written in cursive on the wall. Beneath the sign, the tenders of the bar were all smart, attractive young people, dressed cleanly in white collared shirts, dark velvet green vests buttoned with gold.
They all ignored the two thugs coming through, arms to the teeth with weapons, Opie still smoking. Not even the children of nobility looked up. If anything, they purposefully avoided looking over at all. It made Roland suspect they’d been here enough to know who else walked through the door. Perhaps it was all part of the appeal.
Opie sauntered by, flinging open a slender door which had the look of a closet; only, when he opened it, it was clearly not.
Opie descended the dark cellar steps, gesturing for Roland to shut the door, which he did.
Opie paused at the bottom, considering Roland. The ember at the end of his cigarette turned his usually pale grey eyes red and orange. It made them so shiny, the pupils so dilated, Roland realized he could see his own reflection quite clearly. It unnerved him.
“Luther,” he said ignoring Roland as he tensed. “You should know, whatever game you’re playing with Killian, whatever deal you think you struck, it is void the moment I decide to kill you.” Roland merely raised an eyebrow, though his hands were seconds away from his weapons.
“And why the hell should I be scared of you, mad dog?”
“Because, Roland—”
Roland stared at him in surprise.
Opie’s smile around the smoke was a switchblade of white teeth. “Madness lets me see—and I see you.”
Roland considered grabbing for his sword and slaying this man on sight. But Opie was quicker and with some unseen device, revealed a door, spilling light into the small space.
The shout and holler belonging to the din of drinking was sharply cut through by the smell of blood and heavy perfume.
“Welcome to Blood Alley,” Opie declared, stomping out his light in favor of a new one. He gestured for Roland to go ahead of him. His eyes were twinkling. “Now, let’s get shitfaced, my liege.”
Chapter 21
Tiana would’ve cared for nothing more than to be safely stowed underneath a table somewhere where no one could find her for days, clutching green fairy and seeing its blissful visions of dancing colors with absolutely no cognitive thoughts of her own. In her fantasy, nothing unpleasant could pop the bubble of a good dousing of fairy, but this was all it was, a fiction, and it simply wasn’t in the cards for her.
She’d had to dress with the emergency stash in the wood, too paranoid and keyed up to trek to the Trough for her things. The shoes were about an inch shorter, and the leather armor was less padded than she’d gotten used to wearing. And, of course, she didn’t have the contacts. She hardly expected to see Roland, so she hardly cared.
Asha tracked her down as soon as she stepped foot in the Glitter, relief echoing across her face like a wet blanket on a blazing fire. She didn’t ask where she’d been, didn’t say anything at all about the university, or her father, or anything at all. Merely jerked her head back in the direction of the Glitter.
“Pene wants to talk to you.” “Yeah, well I don’t bloody want to talk to Pene,” Tiana groused but followed all the same. They didn’t enter through the Quiet Lady, though it was the direction Asha nodded in, curls bobbing about her tapered ears. Instead, they traced through the city, leisurely keeping pace, aware of the eyes on extra watch. It had been a long while since Killian de Rossi wasn’t spotted prowling the nights or soliciting bards in bars for a song or two for his merry band of degenerates.
“You’d think they’d have their own business to keep their eyes to,” she growled, shooting a lone finger at a gangly group of Hounds Teeth loitering in one of the alleys, pausing in their mugging of a sharp-eyed woman. She was blonde, lumped with fabric, and utterly pissed off. She ripped the package one of them had managed to snatch from her.
“Oi! Piss off, I’ve seen you. Get!” snapped Tiana. “Or I’ll sick Asha on you.” Asha obliging cracked her fingers, catching the light in a great show of drama so it gleamed off the jeweled set of her brass knuckles. They were rubies in the settings, a present from Tiana long ago, which looked quite a bit like blood.
Wisely, they got.
“You alright?” Tiana asked, feigning amusement. “Whatcha got that has the dogs so keen, comrade?”
The girl glowered, said nothing, and darted away.
Tiana scoffed. “So much for gratitude.”
“Want me to find her and make her say thank you?”
Tiana snorted, grateful for her old friend. “Only if you can fit it into your schedule.”
“I could make time,” Asha shrugged, though she’s resumed walking, eating the ground with her wonderfully long legs. Asha cleared her throat, something she did when she was gearing up to probe in the manner of personal questions. “You okay, Killian?”
Did Asha mean because her boss hadn’t been around the night before, or…?
“Just tired,” muttered Tiana. “I fell asleep in the library yesterday afternoon and piss all if I woke up and it was the next day.”
Asha did her the dignity of not looking at her or opening questioning the lie. Tiana didn’t care frankly if she believed her or not; she just hoped she swallowed it and forgot. They could chalk this night up to exhaustion. Her father might not even ask.
Tiana blew out a breath she hadn’t even known she’d been holding. Asha jumped down the final five steps they needed to descend to get to one of the other entrances to Blood Alley. They skirted alongside a disgustingly, sludge-filled canal. Which, incidentally, was the same canal which blessed the Sludge with its name.
For good reason. A glance into the foul waters stagnant at her side inspired a rush of affection and a wrinkled nose. It had been a long time since anything ran smoothly in the waters cradled between the streets of Lower Adalin.
Nothing ran smoothly. That was a reality of this life. Yet, things could be forgotten, overlooked. Perhaps her father wouldn’t even care. That might very well be a reality. It wasn’t as if she’d missed a night where she had an appointment with him. It wasn’t as if it had been a tribute night, where she would go to her childhood home and dump all gatherings in his lap. Of course, it wasn’t the full haul; it was merely ceremonious.
“Did the Don say anything about last night,” she asked Asha casually as the woman pulled open the heavy metal door which led into a sewer maintenance tunnel which hadn’t been used for such in its entire life. Tiana pretended she didn’t notice her friend’s mouth tip down.
“He hasn’t said anything.” Which didn’t mean he hadn’t noticed.
Red League couldn’t lie, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t withhold.
If Tiana could, she’d repeat the story of her library snooze to Asha until the woman was convinced it was her own name, but it hardly seemed worth the effort, and it had already felt like a poor lie by the time it was out.
And if she fed the lie of exhaustion to her father? It’d backfire. She’d become Killian full time, he’d insist she pull out of school, if hadn’t checked already she was even attending there.
This is more important, Killian, he’d said once upon a different time. This is family. This entire legacy; it’s ours.
And if I don’t want it? Killian, the real-Killian had asked, demanded, spat.
Phillipe de Rossi’s eyes had narrowed. He didn’t answer, and as far as Tiana knew, they’d never spoken of it again.
As they made their way through a long cleared out sewer tunnel, now full of all manner of posters, some lewd, some genuine, others a bit of both, Tiana asked, “Where’s Opie?”
“Probably pissing on something.” “Has he been any better the last couple of days?”
“No.”
And that was when Tiana realized Asha was mad at her and as Asha began to open the final door, a splinter of light invading their scant darkness, Tiana slapped a hand against the wood and pushed it shut. And held it.
Asha halted, following Tiana’s arm up her forearm, her bicep, her shoulder, and finally to her face, which, without the contact lenses, made Tiana feel assured she was looking right into her. For a panicked moment, she was scared her oldest friend would see past the half-assed makeup—and could sight the bags beneath her eyes. But if she did, Asha gave no inclination of it.
“Do we have a problem, Madame de la Cario?”
“No,” Asha said with the least amount of emotion Tiana had ever heard in a living person. Which of course, just pissed her off, because she could clearly see the rage burning in her friend’s yellow eyes.
“You just lied to my face,” Tiana said coldly. “Think about what you’re doing, little cricket.”
“And what of your lies?”
Shock rippled through Tiana, but she refused, absolutely refused to show it.
“Careful,” she warned.
Asha hissed, lips breaking apart to bear her teeth, which she refrained from doing as little as possible, her canines sharpened to near lethal points—fey points. Asha never spoke of her life before she came to Adalin, but enough probing had brought the one simple fact; she didn’t know or care what she was. She only knew what she could do. She could read things, feel their pulse and she could see in the dark like a cat.
“I told Opie you thought us fools. He believed you were waiting to tell us, to let us know and were biding your time.”
“It’s good to know you and Opie speak of me in the comfort of your own home. Pray, tell, what it is you talk about?”
“We know!” She was glaring now and Tiana, knowing it was ridiculous, was shot through the chest with a nostalgic thought of childhood. Of Asha’s riled temper, of her flairs of rage, of the sheer hatred she had of being thought of as stupid, merely because she was quiet.
It had been one of the reasons, as children, she and Killian had hated each other fiercely. Killian thought himself brilliant and superior, believing Asha was dumb as rocks—a hick from out of nowhere, found in a pit of children’s fights where men bet money on the last one standing. He’d laughed at Tiana when she came home, nose bleeding profusely and dried brown on her pretty lace dress and Asha trailing behind her. The little street urchin wore a sack of hewn fabric she’d been sitting in for weeks, her hair matted and straight in old blood and dirt. When she’d finally let Tiana wash it, after she’d demanded for days, Tiana thought Asha’d been more surprised by the vicious curls which sprung up after it’d dried than she had.
“Stop lying to me,” her oldest friend said after some time of silence. She sighed and Tiana felt a bit bad, too lost in her own thoughts to say anything. “I know I’m your second, Killian, and that doesn’t mean I get to know everything, of course not. But I thought I was also your friend, I thought you trusted me. My allegiance is to you.” And not to your father.
And Tiana was grateful for that. And maybe that was why she said, voice a tad raspier than she meant, “One day, I’ll tell you everything, Asha. I will. Even if you don’t forgive me for it.”
She looked up into her friend’s face, which was shadowed and dark, though her eyes were still bright.
“Unless you really did kill Tiana, there isn’t much I wouldn’t forgive you for,” Asha said slowly.
“What is it that you and Opie do know?” she asked curiously, sliding her hand off the door. Asha didn’t reach for it right away.
“We know Opie drank prince Roland under the table two nights ago.”
If she weren’t exhausted emotionally and physically, she’d’ve hawked a laugh.
“And how did you find that out?”
“Opie followed him.”
“From where?” asked Tiana suspiciously.
“From the castle, where else?” Her eyes flickered to the door and Tiana chuckled and dropped her hand. Asha opened it a moment later. “Why is he with us?”
“I find him amusing,” she said. This was not entirely a lie.
Asha appeared to turn this over. “I stand by what I said—we’d make beautiful damn babies. Could you imagine? My eyes, his hair?” “Exquisite,” Tiana agreed and for a moment, forgot about everything else and just grinned with her oldest friend.
Chapter 22
“Opie, what the hell is he doing here?” Asha hissed, ripping Opie around on his stool to face her. Roland glanced over his shoulder at her, but she didn’t acknowledge him. Her eyes were two narrow slits.
“Calm down, Asha. Just a bit of fun.” “He can’t be here.”
“Why not? He’s a prince. Methinks he can go anywhere.” He looked sideways at Roland. “Can’t you?”
She stared at him. “Are you high?” She looked like she was going to hit him—make his face look even more fucked up.
Opie shrugged. “So what if I am?”
“Tonight is so not the night, Opiate.”
“Oooo, full names.” He waggled his eyebrows at Roland. “Scary.”
Asha reached out and pinched the swollen bruise beneath Opie’s eye. Opie shrieked inhumanly high.
“What the fu—”
“If Killian sees him—”
“Too late,” said Killian, eyes flicking to him briefly before back to Opie, amusement on his face, irritation in his eyes. “What have you done now? You know the goddamn rules. No fresh meat at the market. Especially princely tenderloins.”
“So Asha spat us up?” Opie asked, wincing as he touched his cheek gently. “Wish I’d been there for that. Ya’ll do all the fun stuff without inviting me.”
“I would’ve found out sooner or later.”
“Yeah, and so would’ve we,” he snapped, an unusual sign of annoyance coming from Opie.
“Keep it together, Opie,” said Killian lowly. “Or you’re benched.”
“I don’t like your tone, Killer,” said Opie. He stood from his stool and bumped chests with Killian, whose eyes narrowed. “Why is it you’re always giving me shit? I sit like your loyal doggy. I don’t question what you do or how you do it—not like Asha does. Hell, I don’t even ask you all the questions we all want to ask you; like why we dress you up before we go out, why we have to pretend there isn’t something sneaky going on with you.”
“You’ve got a lot of questions,” the mobster said smoothly.
“Yeah, and I’m asking for some truths,” said Opie, hands shaking. “Tell us some truths, Killian!”
In a flash of a second, Killian’s gun was up, m-mod glowing, and level with Opie’s head. The bar went nearly silent. Even the fighters in the pit seemed to be only lightly slapping each other.
“Are you questioning my loyalties?”
Opie glared at her.
Asha had her arms crossed, expression blank, though her worry was sparkling in her eyes.
Roland got up from his seat, hands up, “Look, guys—”
And then the gun was on him. So were de Rossi’s eyes. They were blank, black, and it made him breathless. There was a thread in his thoughts, a likeness in this man’s face…
“Shut the fuck up.”
Roland stared at him. He stared right back.
He thought about reaching for his own weapon, he thought about making a run for it, hell, he thought about unmasking himself and arresting this idiot right on the spot. This time, it was inexcusable. De Rossi knew exactly who was on the other end of his weapon.
“Killian.”
Opie sank onto the stool at the bar, Asha went rigid, and de Rossi’s finger tensed on the gun.
“I’m busy, my Don,” Killian said coolly, not even glancing back at the man who had walked through the crowd and without saying a word, they’d split around him as if he were a god. There was grey streaking his dark hair and the broad nose was clearly matched in his son. Other than that, they hardly looked alike, aside from the paleness of their skin.
Deception: Rogues of the Red League, Book 1 Page 15