The Thorn of Dentonhill

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

“I’m just trying—”

  “To pull some University coin to your streets,” Veranix said.

  “Hey now,” the boy said, drawing himself up, trying to make himself look taller than Veranix. “Most you Uni kids don’t know what they can find over by Violet.”

  “I’m sure,” Veranix said. “But the real question is, do the Rose Street Princes or Hallaran’s Boys know you are trying to push into their territory?”

  “What you know about it?” the boy said. He scowled and gripped Veranix on the shoulder, pushing hard.

  Veranix instinctively slapped the boy’s hand away. “Just what I see and hear. I go into Aventil enough to recognize the usual faces who do hassles and shakes. And they never push to Violet. I don’t know what gang you and your cousin are in—”

  “Knights of Saint Julian,” said the boy proudly. His hands went into his coat pockets as he glowered at the two of them. “We’ll be running the Uni gates in due course, so you all better learn some respect.”

  Veranix presumed the boy was getting ready to pull out a knife. It would be a stupid thing for the kid to do, but street gang kids always did stupid things.

  “Veranix,” Delmin said nervously, “Why don’t we just . . .” He trailed off, and looked around them. Everyone on the street was minding their own business.

  “We’re going over to Rose Street now,” Veranix said, pointing down the block. “If you want to follow us, maybe into the Turnabout, you can tell everyone how they need to respect the Knights of Saint Justin.”

  “Saint Julian, mate,” the boy said, his eyes narrowing in anger.

  “Right,” Veranix said. “Shout that over on Rose Street.” Veranix grabbed Delmin by the coat and pulled him around the corner.

  “Sweet blasted saints of every town!” Delmin swore. Veranix noticed his friend was pale and covered with sweat. “What the blazes were you doing, trying to get us stabbed by a ganger?”

  “Please,” Veranix said, looking back behind them to see the kid wasn’t following them. “That kid was already off his block. He wasn’t going to stab a student in the middle of the street in broad daylight. The RSP and Hallaran’s Boys would hit back in Saint Julian territory hard.”

  “How . . . how do you know this sort of thing?” Delmin stared at him. “I grew up in Maradaine, and I don’t know what which gang would do to who and why.”

  “You grew up on the north side,” Veranix said, walking down Rose Street. “Stately houses and tree-lined walks around the Parliament house.”

  “It’s not all like that,” Delmin said. “And you grew up on a merchant caravan, even farther away.”

  “Right,” Veranix said quickly, remembering what Delmin believed about his past. He unconsciously glanced over to the window of the apartment over the postal depot; the apartment his parents lived in for only a week. Absently, he wondered who lived in there now. He shook off the thought, turning back to Delmin. “But we live right off of Aventil, and I pay attention to what’s going on in the neighborhood.”

  “Is it just me, or is the neighborhood getting more dangerous?” Delmin asked.

  “It’s you,” Veranix said. He looked down Rose Street, filled with clubs and taverns. The street was narrow, a handful of carriages crammed in single file heading east toward Waterpath. All the shops and houses here were brick, stone, and plaster, nothing higher than three stories. Sunlight reached the street in this neighborhood, unlike Dentonhill, and that warmth and brightness extended to the residents. Along the walkways were several makeshift stands with brick stoves, where locals grilled meat and dished out soup for a few ticks, all of them greeting passersby with a wave and a smile.

  Aventil was a decent neighborhood. The Aventil street gangs weren’t organized, beyond agreeing that Fenmere’s crew shouldn’t cross into the neighborhood, nor were they particularly dangerous. They would pick pockets, hustle, and burgle. Sometimes they would aggressively support the neighborhood, pushing people into giving their business to specific vendors, and then shake their favored vendors for a share of the profits. Despite that, they mostly stayed away from flat out bullying and extortion. They would muscle in on brewers to control the sale of beer or cider, but they didn’t touch dangerous drugs like hassper or effitte, stuff that shredded people or ruined lives. Only bosses like Fenmere trafficked in trash like that.

  Aventil was a neighborhood where people lived, and the gangs treated it like their home. They gave their neighbors a measure of respect. That included the University. It was well accepted that a student who had had a little too much beer could stumble back to campus without worrying about getting his head cracked open.

  “So, are we going to the Turnabout then?” Delmin asked.

  “Pff,” Veranix said. “We’d be neck deep in Rose Street Princes there.”

  “They don’t care for Uni boys going in there, right?” Delmin said.

  “Please don’t try and speak in their lingo, Del,” Veranix said. “It really sounds pathetic coming from you.”

  “Don’t be a jerk, Vee,” Delmin said, snickering. The color had returned to his face, and he was looking relaxed again.

  “Besides, unless you want strikers and beer, there’s no point going to the Turnabout.”

  “Right,” Delmin said. He grinned. “So it’s the R&B you have in mind.”

  “Absolutely.”

  The Rose & Bush was a tavern, aptly named for being at the corner of Rose Street and Bush Lane. Like most buildings in this part of town, it was made of rough-cut limestone and dark painted wood.

  The people in the Rose & Bush were a mix of students and neighborhood locals. It was a crowded mash of wooden tables and bodies. Shouts and laughter filled the air. Oil lamps hung from every post and the fireplace blazed, filling the place with warm light and warmer air.

  Delmin pointed over to the fireplace, where there were still a few open tables. Veranix nodded and went over, while Delmin headed over to the barman. On his way to the table, Veranix dodged around a game of darts, almost disrupted a card game, and accidentally knocked a buxom neighborhood girl into the lap of a fellow student. He took a seat at the table. Instinctively he checked his pockets to make sure no fast fingers had found their way in there. That was all too common at the Rose & Bush.

  Delmin came over with two mugs of cider. “Lamb stew and sausages all right?”

  “Perfect. Great,” Veranix said. He took a long drink of cider.

  “I’m telling you, Vee, you have to be more careful,” Delmin said. “You’re lucky that Alimen likes you.”

  “Embarrassing me like that means he likes me?” Veranix asked.

  “Yes,” Delmin said. “Anyone else would have gotten demerits for falling asleep.”

  “No, no. You should hear him in any of my practicals. ‘If only you had the grasp on theory that Mister Sarren has. If only your sense of numinic displacement was as finely tuned as Mister Sarren’s.’”

  “Trust me, Vee. My practicals are worse. Sensing numinic displacement is the only thing I do well.”

  “Alimen is always on me to do it better.”

  “Because he likes you. He’s grooming you for Lord Preston’s Circle.”

  “I guess they want their money’s worth,” Veranix joked. He knew it was true, though. Lord Preston’s Circle was paying for his education, with the pledge that he would join once he finished his four years of schooling.

  “At least you have a Circle lined up,” Delmin said sourly. “You’ve got nothing to worry about along that score.” Delmin didn’t have any Circle as a patron, and had no prospects for recruitment yet. Veranix was surprised to hear him being bitter about it, though. Veranix had never heard of a magic student not getting a Circle invitation after receiving their Letters.

  “And you have no obligations,” Veranix said. He tried to make it light, but it came out as a snap, and Delmin noticed.


  “Nothing wrong with obligations, Vee. Or stability.”

  “I didn’t say that—”

  “You do know how lucky you are, right? For Professor Alimen to find you . . .”

  Veranix stopped listening, knowing that Delmin was about to recount what he believed Veranix’s history to be, the well-rehearsed lie that Veranix told whenever anyone asked him about his past. Delmin and almost everyone on campus believed his family were Racquin merchant caravaners, that he had lived his life traveling the highways of Druthal before coming to the University of Maradaine. The lie was close enough to the truth that it was easy to maintain. His mother was Racquin, they did travel the highways. Only Professor Alimen and Kaiana knew the truth, and they still didn’t know everything.

  “Maybe you’re right,” Veranix said. He glanced over to the corner of the pub and saw one of his obligations watching him.

  Delmin drummed his fingers on the table and looked around. “Where is the server? I’m starved. Aren’t you?”

  “Always,” Veranix said. The joke around U of M was that magic students were always hungry and always skinny, but no one personified that more than Delmin. Veranix needed to eat, though, since he had done so much magic in the last day, and he knew he had more ahead of him tonight.

  “I’m going to hunt him down,” Delmin said. “Another cider?”

  “Please,” Veranix said. Normally, he would chide Delmin for being impatient, as he had hardly given the server enough time to deliver their meal, especially in this crowd. This time, however, he was glad Delmin was getting up, because he had noticed Colin on the other side of the room.

  Colin, a seedy-looking young man in a threadbare cloak, sat alone at a table in the corner. People at the tables around him looked nervous, only occasionally glancing at him, as if each time they hoped he would be gone. When they did look, their eyes went to the tattoo on his right arm: a rose over a crown. Everyone in the pub knew what that meant: he was a Rose Street Prince. The Rose & Bush was part of the Princes’ territory, but they rarely went inside. If anyone in the pub really knew about street tattoos, they would have noticed the crown on his arm had a single star. He was a street captain.

  If anyone was really looking at them both, really paying attention, they would notice that Colin and Veranix had the same eyes. Their noses would match, too, if Colin’s hadn’t been broken two or three times. Their fathers had been twins, so it was only natural that, as cousins, they would have some resemblance.

  Colin kept his eyes down, paying no one in the place any mind. If anyone in the bar looked at him, they would have thought he was muttering into his beer.

  Anyone but Veranix. Veranix was looking right at his lips.

  You hit the fish cannery, didn’t you?

  Even just reading his lips, Veranix could tell that his cousin was annoyed.

  Veranix let a slow, soft breath escape his lips, then lightly shaped the breath with magic. No professor at U of M taught him this. The hard part wasn’t shaping the breath, it was making the magic so quiet that no one else would notice it. The only other mage Veranix knew in the Rose & Bush was Delmin, but there could be others. Even if only Delmin noticed, he would ask why Veranix was doing magic in the bar. Delmin was very good at sensing numina shifts, so doing magic behind his back was especially challenging.

  The breath took shape and flew across the bar to his cousin’s ears.

  “You knew I was going to, Colin. Did it draw any heat?”

  Of course it did. Colin mouthed the words so hard he spat in his beer, but he didn’t look up.

  “How did it even come back to Aventil?”

  Didn’t just come to Aventil, I hear. Went all around. Word is Fenmere is on fire with rage.

  “Over a cannery back office? I only took a few papers. Most of it is meaningless.”

  I think it’s the insult that anyone dared touch his stuff.

  “His problem. I’m glad he’s angry.”

  He might not care who is responsible, you know, and just lash out.

  “Well, I’m hitting him on the Inemar side tonight, so he won’t look this way.”

  Tonight? In Inemar?

  “He’s got a—” was all Veranix had a chance to respond with when Delmin sat back down, dropping a plate of sausages and bread in front of him.

  “Stew’s coming,” Delmin said. “You all right? You look like you’re dozing off again.” Veranix snapped his attention to Delmin.

  “Right, yeah,” Veranix said. “Just need food, I guess.”

  “I’m sure,” Delmin said as he dug in. He leaned in and whispered, “Blazes, I can tell you’re tired. You’re causing numina swirls. Eat up and focus.”

  Veranix looked over to the table in the far corner, but Colin was already gone.

  Chapter 4

  THE NIGHT WAS unseasonably cool as Veranix slinked in the shadow of Almers Hall. The waning white moon was still nearly full, and the blood moon was a little over a quarter lit. The grounds of the campus were bright enough that he didn’t want to risk being seen running across the lawn. At this hour, few people would be watching, but the ones who would be were prefects. He didn’t need any trouble from them right now. Rellings had done a lights-out check at ten bells, which he had never done before, and then another check at eleven bells. After that, two fourth-years got in his face and told him to cut it out and let them sleep. Veranix had crafted an illusion of himself sleeping in his bed, and hoped it would be enough to pass if Rellings looked in his room.

  Shadows and bushes kept him hidden all the way to the carriage house. The door was open a crack. Quietly he slipped inside.

  “I can’t believe you’re going out again,” Kaiana said. She was sitting on a bale of hay, reading a book by the weak light of her oil lamp. She didn’t even look up at Veranix. “Aren’t you exhausted?”

  “I caught a couple naps,” Veranix said.

  Kaiana absentmindedly pushed a bundle toward him with her foot. He picked it up and unwrapped the clothes and gear from it. He stripped off his uniform and got dressed.

  “New shirt?” he asked her, taking a moment to examine the maroon pullover before putting it on.

  “The other one stank of fish, so I burned it with the refuse. Same with the pants. The rest were salvageable.”

  “Kaiana!”

  “I’m not your washer woman.”

  “I don’t expect you to be. But . . . you were supposed to give that money to the church.”

  “And I did, most of it. A few crowns went into covering your expenses. That isn’t wrong.”

  Veranix shook his head. That wasn’t right. “You shouldn’t be doing that. If we need money, I have the living stipend of my scholarship.”

  “Which isn’t that much. There’s nothing wrong with spending a little of Fenmere’s money to fight him.” She sighed. “Is this really worth it tonight?”

  “The notes gave me a time tonight, and a specific dock. It has to be an effitte delivery.”

  She looked up from her book, her eyes wide. “You really think so?”

  “It would have to be, wouldn’t it?” Veranix buttoned up his dark leather vest. “What else would be coming by boat in the middle of the night?”

  “How much do you think it’ll be?”

  “No clue.” Boots and gloves on.

  Kaiana’s dark eyes narrowed. “Burn the whole boat.”

  “Maybe,” Veranix said. “I’ll have to see.” He hung his quiver and bow over his shoulder.

  “Veranix—” she said, her voice rising. When it came to effitte, her temper was as hot as Veranix’s, and with good reason. Her father lay up on the fifth floor of the Lower Trenn Ward, eyes open with no spark behind them. Veranix’s mother was in the same place, but she was blameless, force-fed effitte until she was an empty shell. Kai couldn’t say that about her dad, his brain burned out from years
on the effitte hook.

  “Kai, you know I want that junk off the streets as bad as you do. But I need to see what’s really happening before I—”

  “I know,” She picked up his belt and staff. “Here.”

  “Thanks.” He strapped the belt on and took the staff from her. “Don’t wait up.”

  “I never do,” she said, smiling slightly. “Get out there.”

  He went back out the door, and with two quick jumps, he was on top of the campus wall. Crouching, he eased some slow and quiet magic into his legs. With that, he was off, bounding toward the river a block at a time.

  The Pellistar Docks were up north in the Inemar district, near the Little East, along the riverbank between the Great Maradaine Bridge and the Upper Bridge. It was out of Fenmere’s territory. He might have an iron grip in Dentonhill, but his influence waned sharply on the other side of Oscana Avenue. That suited Veranix well. Whatever Fenmere was up to at Pellistar Docks, he wouldn’t be able to do it in the open, and he couldn’t send too many of his goons without the Inemar bosses noticing. Or Constabulary, who took their jobs a little more seriously in that neighborhood.

  That also meant Veranix had to cross through ten blocks of Dentonhill. His magical method, bounding from rooftop to rooftop, was fast but unconventional. If anyone happened to be looking up, it would draw notice. A few witnesses, and a few threatening questions from Fenmere’s men, and someone might trace him back to the University. Veranix didn’t need—no one needed—for Fenmere to muscle in on the campus. Despite that risk, Veranix decided he needed speed more than caution tonight.

  A few more jumps and he was in Inemar. He had heard no shouts, cries, or gasps, so he presumed he had gone unseen.

  Inemar was the oldest part of the city; a few of the buildings were nearly two thousand years old. The neighborhood was crammed and crowded, mismatched buildings pressed together, tiny alleys leading nowhere. The streets still had plenty of activity, even at this hour. Including the occasional green and red coats of the city Constabulary.

  One of the church towers rang a bell. One bell past midnight.