Nevin grabbed one of the knives from off the floor and hurled it at Veranix, piercing deep into his shoulder.
Veranix cried out. He forced himself to stay on his feet, forced his arm to move despite every muscle screaming at him. He had to focus through it, get control. He could feel the rope, right outside, a few feet away. The cloak gave him just enough of an edge, enough extra push on numina, he could try once more to bring the rope to him. Letting it go when he swung in was just sloppy.
Nevin had the other knife in his hand, and dove in to deliver a killing blow. Veranix reached out the window, pulling with as much magic as he could gather, and grabbed hold of the rope.
In an instant, the rope came rocketing into the room, and wrapped itself around Nevin, midair in his jump. Almost without thinking, Veranix flung the man out the window. A moment later, as the rope coiled back in his hand, he heard the dull thud of a body hitting the cobblestones.
Veranix slumped down to the floor. After taking a moment to compose himself, he got up again, stumbling over to the wrecked table. He picked up a shirt of Nevin’s, discarded on the floor, and tore off a strip of it. Then he pulled the knife out of his shoulder. Blood started flowing out of the wound. With a little hint of magic, Veranix willed the strip of cloth to wrap around the wound, binding tighter than he could have managed with one hand.
He looked around the apartment for the first time in earnest. The place was a mess, mostly due to the fight. Up against one wall was a dresser that hadn’t been damaged. Veranix opened the drawers. He searched through each one, finding only clothes and other personal items. In annoyance, he slammed the last drawer shut, hearing a distinctly metal thud. He pulled the drawer out again, taking it completely out of the dresser. Nestled in the empty space was a metal box.
Veranix took the box out. It was locked shut, but a touch of his finger and a crackling whisper of magic took care of that. Inside the box were quite a few silver coins, and even more exchange notes. Veranix didn’t count it, but he figured it was a few hundred crowns in all. There was also a small leather-bound notebook.
“Blast,” Veranix muttered. This was a good find, but it wasn’t enough. “Where’s the effitte?”
“He never keeps it here.”
Veranix spun around. A woman—really barely more than a girl, even though her face had the cracked and weathered look of age—was lying in the bed, naked save for the blanket, which didn’t cover anything. Veranix was surprised he didn’t notice her before.
“It’s not here?” Veranix asked cautiously.
“Never more than a taste.” She stumbled to her feet. She looked dazed and disoriented, too unaware of herself for any modesty. “In case someone tries to rob him. Heh.”
“Right,” Veranix closed the box. He couldn’t decide where to look, finally settling on watching her feet, so he could see if she attacked him. The girl took a few steps before dropping down to her knees and retching. Whatever vile thing she had eaten earlier smelled like death coming back up.
“Right bastard he is,” she said, trying in vain to wipe her face clean. “Need more than the little bit he gave me.”
“You don’t need any,” Veranix said. He went over to her, trying to help her stand.
“You have any?” she asked him. “Building your own stash?”
“Not a chance,” Veranix said.
She threw up again. Veranix jumped up on the bed to avoid any landing on him.
“Come on, brother,” she said, reaching out to him. “Help me out, I can give you a taste as well.”
Veranix grabbed the shirt he had torn and cleaned her face with it. “I’ll get you some help. Come on.”
“You know someone who’s got some?” she asked. Her eyes half closed, she slumped on top of him. She was cold and sweaty. If he didn’t do anything soon, the fits would start. He didn’t want to see that again, not twice in one night.
“What’s your name?” Veranix asked. Without letting her drop down again, he pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her.
“Maxianne,” she muttered, almost asleep.
“All right, Maxianne,” he said. He touched the rope, and one end of it started to coil around her body. It held her in a gentle cradle, and she became as light as a feather.
“Oy! Constable!” yelled a voice from the street below. “Some tosser tried to kill me in my flop!” A shrill whistle followed.
“There’s irony,” Veranix muttered. He grabbed the box and his staff, and brought Maxianne to the window.
“Cold,” she murmured. Her body was shivering.
“There’s the one!” Nevin yelled from below Veranix. He was cradling one arm and limping. He had likely broken several bones in the fall. Two constables, in their crisp green and red coats, ran over from the corner.
“Never one when I call,” Veranix muttered. He willed the cloak to shroud him and the girl.
“I just saw him!” Nevin yelled. “He was right there!”
Veranix sent the free end of the rope up to the top of the building, and then pulled himself and Maxianne up to the roof. As bruised, broken and bleeding as he was, he still felt strong magically. He couldn’t waste any more time. Maxianne was shuddering, and he was sure it wasn’t just the night air. Pulling in as much numina as he could muster, he took a running leap off the roof, and soared southward.
The Lower Trenn Street Ward was a large stone monstrosity sitting on the southernmost point of Aventil neighborhood, a remnant of a fortress from over a thousand years before, when the city itself ended where Waterpath now ran. Over the centuries, it had served as a garrison. It had been the home for generations of dukes of Maradaine. It had been a prison, had held the royal treasury, and had even been a great library. It had then been abandoned, a hiding place for the city’s most wretched, a place of crumbling decay in every sense.
Only for the past fifteen years had it been the Ward, a hospital and asylum for those same wretched. It was as good a place as it could be, given that the duke and the Council of Aldermen gave it barely enough crowns to keep operating.
Veranix pounded on the great wooden door, having laid Maxianne’s unconscious body down on the stone steps at the entrance. After a few minutes, a young doctor came to the door, carrying just a candle for light. He was at best only a few years older than Veranix, wearing a leather smock over his shabby clothes. He looked down at Maxianne, then back up. Veranix stayed in the shadows, only letting himself be seen enough so the doctor would know he was there.
“What happened to her?” he asked.
“Effitte,” Veranix said, “Probably been doing it for years.” The doctor crouched down, opening her eyes and holding the candle close to her face.
“Still get too many of those. Was she talking at all?”
“Some,” Veranix said. “Her name is Maxianne.”
“You bothered to learn her name before you rolled with her,” the doctor said derisively. “And you brought her here afterward. You should put your name in for a saint.”
“Not like that,” Veranix said. “A dealer had used her and left her. I just found her.”
The doctor looked up at him and gave a begrudging grunt of approval. “You should have called a Yellowshield.”
“Didn’t think there was time.”
“I meant for you, friend.” The doctor pointed to his shoulder.
“It only looks bad.”
“I know what bad is—”
“Tend to her!”
The doctor pressed his hand to her head. “Not much fever. She has a chance. But if her head isn’t gone, she’ll just go get another taste once she’s on her feet.” He picked up her limp body and draped it over his shoulder.
“Maybe so,” Veranix said. “But she deserves to get on her feet.”
“Why should this buzzed doxy deserve that, friend?”
“Th
ey all deserve it, doctor,” Veranix said. He opened the metal box and took out the journal. He closed the box and tossed it over to the doctor. “That’s a bit of what the Ward deserves. Use it well.”
The doctor opened the box, his eyes going wide when he saw the money inside. “Hold on, friend!” he called, but Veranix was already gone.
Veranix knew he was hurt, that he shouldn’t waste any time, but he was already at the Lower Trenn Ward. He couldn’t help but climb up to the fifth floor and look. With a few painful leaps, blood oozing from his shoulder, he was outside the iron-barred window.
There were too many beds, cramped next to each other in the large hall. Even with candles burning throughout, he couldn’t see all the way to the other end of the room. It seemed the beds went on forever, full of oblivious, insensible people.
Many of them lay with their eyes open. Some were sitting up, or even moving around. None of them spoke.
His eyes went to his mother’s bed. She was sitting up, staring vacantly at the other side of the room. Her hair had recently been cut down to nothing. Veranix forced himself not to be angry about that. She had always kept her hair long, in the Racquin tradition, braided down her back. Wigmakers bought hair from the Ward, especially from these patients, and it helped keep the place running. He still hated seeing it.
What he hated most was seeing her so still. She used to have such grace, her every muscle used to move in such fine-tuned perfection. If any part of her mind was still in there, trapped without voice or words, it must be screaming over the soft lump of nothing her body had become.
He wanted to be able to go inside. To hold his mother’s hand and tell her he was there. It didn’t matter that she wouldn’t be able to speak or even squeeze his hand. She would know he was there, he was certain she would know.
He didn’t dare. Colin had made it clear—painfully clear—that Fenmere had eyes on her. Anyone visited her, Fenmere would know. Fenmere had kept her alive almost three years in this state as bait, just to see if there was anyone out there to catch.
For all that time, Veranix had been waiting. He couldn’t stand waiting much longer.
Veranix bit his lip to keep from crying. He turned away, not being able to bear seeing her for another moment. Tears pouring down his face, he climbed up to the top of the Ward, and launched himself toward home.
It took the last of his strength to get back to campus. His makeshift bandages had soaked through with blood, and his thoughts were hazy. He was barely able to stand when he reached the back window of the carriage house. He rapped lightly on the window, not for the sake of staying quiet, but because it was all he could manage. The window opened, Kaiana’s face full of anger as she hissed at him.
“I can’t believe you actually—oh blessed saints!” All her rage melted away as soon as she saw him. Veranix nearly fell over, but she grabbed him, her powerful arms pulling him into her room.
“You should see the other guy,” Veranix managed to say. Then everything went dark.
Chapter 10
THREE MORNINGS IN a row now, Fenmere had woken up to bad news. This morning it was waiting in his front parlor. He was going to have to dress properly to greet this problem. He rubbed his eyes and pulled himself out of the bed, pointedly ignoring the outstretched hand of his manservant.
“Set the main table and offer breakfast to our guests, Thomias,” he told the servant. He went over to the chamber basin and relieved himself. “Have Gerrick and Corman join us at the table as well.”
“Very good, sir,” said Thomias, who had moved over to the wardrobe.
“Be about that, then,” Fenmere said. “I’ll dress myself.”
“As you say, sir,” Thomias said. He gave a small bow and took the basin as he went to the door.
“And Thomias,” Fenmere called after him, “serve the Imach coffee instead of tea.”
“Of course, sir,” Thomias said. He left, shutting the door behind him.
Fenmere growled to himself as he took out a red silk shirt from the wardrobe. These people needed to be reminded who he was, what he could do. Napolic coffee and Turjin silk would drive it home. He laced up the shirt, and took out the matching vest, his fingers fumbling with frustration as he clasped its gold buttons. He had to force himself to calm down before he went over to the mirror to comb any tangles out of his beard. His hands still shook with rage as he picked up the comb—pure walrus ivory from Bardinæ—and he could barely manage to use it.
“Get a hold of yourself,” he muttered to his reflection. “You are Willem Fenmere, and no one messes with you.”
He stared into his own eyes and said it again. He kept saying it until he believed it.
Fenmere came down the stairs to his dining room, where his guests had already begun breakfast. Only four seats at the end of the long table were being used. On one side were old Gerrick and Corman. Corman was a brains and numbers man, but he was also big and broad shouldered. Fenmere never used Corman as muscle, but he looked the part.
On the other side were the mages from the Blue Hand Circle, Fenrich Kalas and Lord Sirath. Kalas dressed the part of a gentleman, with his dark hair and mustache groomed a little too neatly. Kalas always gave Fenmere the impression that he was playing a role, deliberately putting on a mask of how he was expected to behave around “normal” people. Lord Sirath was an impossibly thin man. Fenmere had known more than a few wizards, and they were always skinny, but not like Lord Sirath. His skin looked pale and stretched, almost colorless, and his dark eyes were deep sunken into his head. He didn’t look so much like a man as a walking skeleton, save for the bright shock of red hair, which he kept long and unkempt. Unlike Kalas, Lord Sirath never bothered putting on airs of any sort.
Both the mages were eating voraciously, though Kalas was doing it with a sense of manners. Lord Sirath was like a wolf feasting on the deer he had just felled. Gerrick and Corman watched them eat in transfixed horror. Gerrick had pushed his own plate away.
Fenmere steeled his nerves and approached the table.
“Lord Sirath,” he said brightly as he approached. “I’m so pleased you could join us this morning.”
“Mmm,” Sirath grunted. He grabbed the loaf of bread sitting on the table and tore off a hunk with his bare hands. “You fix it?”
“Fix it?” Fenmere asked, sitting at the head of the table. He waved a finger to one of the butlers, who came and poured a hot, steaming cup of the Imach coffee. “By ‘it’ you mean . . .”
Kalas pointed his fork at Fenmere. “What Lord Sirath means is, have you recovered the items he has paid so handsomely for? And the answer is, no, you have not.” Fenmere bottled up his stewing anger. He did not like Kalas’s tone. He did not like people pointing anything at him, even forks.
“No, we have not,” Fenmere said. He sipped the coffee with deliberate slowness to control his feelings. “Unless there’s been developments in the night that I’ve yet to be informed of, Mister Gerrick?”
“No, sir,” Gerrick said. “Not in terms of recovering the stolen goods.” Fenmere caught a glance from Gerrick that told him other things did happen last night, and they were not good.
“We have had very good dealings with you in the past, Fenmere,” Kalas said. “Thus we counted on you to be able to handle these items with the level of delicacy which they require.”
Fenmere smiled pleasantly at his guests. “A snag. A minor one, to be sure.”
“A pest!” Lord Sirath rasped. “A thief!”
“That he is, Lord Sirath,” Fenmere said. A butler came and brought over his plate. “But we do have certain assurances with this pest, and this merchandise.”
“It is not merchandise!” Kalas snapped.
“No, of course not,” Fenmere said.
“But our thief will not realize that,” Corman said. “Given the unique nature of your . . . goods, he can’t possibly understand what he
actually has. In all likelihood, he will try and sell the things he stole, and any fence who tries to move the items will inevitably lead back to us.”
Kalas scowled. “Presuming he is local to this neighborhood.”
“We do have influence outside of Dentonhill,” Corman said. “We are pushing our contacts. Everyone knows that no common thief will get away with stealing from Willem Fenmere.”
“Common, hmm,” Sirath said. He stabbed a fork into the sausage on Gerrick’s plate and shoved it into his mouth.
“We will take care of him,” Gerrick said cautiously. “We have our own talent for this sort of thing.”
“Talent, indeed,” Sirath said, while chewing on the sausage.
“Yes,” Fenmere said. “Believe me, Lord Sirath, we will look in every bramble for this particular thorn.”
Kalas had finished his own meal, and was using a spoon to scrape all possible remnants off the plate. “We are anxious to see the results of your search. We did try searching ourselves, tracking the items by our own means. Unfortuntately, the trail became . . . muddled.”
Corman leaned in to Fenmere. “The incident at Saint Polmeta’s.”
“I’m aware.” Fenmere said. “We have taken care of the mess there.” Kalas’s boys had torn two priests to ribbons, and Fenmere had convinced one of his men at Constabulary to pin it on Francis, who was already too dead to complain.
“Thank you for that,” Kalas said. “After everything you have done, we’d hate to decide you were of no use to us.”
Fenmere wanted to slap Kalas in his smug, hollow-cheeked face, but that wouldn’t do. “I would remind you, Mister Kalas, you came to us for this delivery because you had failed in your own attempts to smuggle it into Maradaine. Multiple attempts. Let alone everything else we do for you.”
“Speaking of,” Corman said, “our books do show you have been delinquent in payment for our latest delivery of, the . . .” He faltered, as Sirath was staring hard at him, baring his teeth.
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