Steelhands

by Danielle Bennett

  “You’re not thinking of leaving now?” Luvander asked, looking aghast. He glanced about the room, then cleared his throat. For a moment, it seemed as though he’d forgotten he was speaking in front of an audience—and that it was up to us to represent Adamo’s training to the best of our abilities. “In fact, allow me to rephrase that: As the senior member of the Dragon Corps in this room, I forbid any of you to leave this haberdashery until otherwise notified of your freedom. Do you follow?” To me, he added, “How was that? Did it sound very Adamoesque?”

  No matter how grave the danger, at least he was still capable of making himself laugh. By now, I knew better than to give him any such encouragement.

  “Do those orders apply to all of us?” Laure asked. Her face was slowly losing its angry red coloring, and she seemed somewhat more composed than she had been before. It reminded me of a calm day in the countryside, just before a downpour. “Or only them that actually signed up for the corps in the first place?”

  “All of you, I should think,” Luvander said with a sniff. “Excepting, of course, the illustrious Margrave Royston, who will no doubt very soon regret having come to inform us of our situation when he is implicated in our nefarious dealings. How many exiles will this next one mark, Margrave Royston?”

  “At least you didn’t call me Mary Margrave,” Royston said, rubbing at the back of his neck the way Adamo did when he felt uncomfortable, with a toothy smile that was so far from any of Adamo’s habits I had to wonder why they were friends at all. Adamo had never explained the matter to us, and it seemed rude to pry. “So I suppose we’re getting friendly, aren’t we? Since you are so clearly about to ask a favor of me.”

  “For Adamo’s sake,” I said, ever the diplomat these days. “The letter is the stupidest thing I could have written. It implicates all of us, and if for some reason they should search my apartment …”

  “If I am exiled for my pains,” Royston said, “and not imprisoned, or worse, I sincerely hope the rest of you are there to suffer along with me.”

  “Think of it like a vacation in the countryside,” Luvander suggested.

  Margrave Royston cringed. “Please, do not mention that,” he said, voice pained. “Just give me the address and I’ll be off on this madcap errand.”

  I did as he asked, writing the address down on the back of a caterer’s business note card he had with him. He left immediately after that, and only the four of us remained in Luvander’s kitchen.

  “Don’t worry too much,” I told Laure, as Luvander took off his apron and moved in the direction of his shop. “Where are you going?”

  “To open the store, of course,” Luvander replied, “so that no one thinks anything is amiss. If you want, you can go upstairs. There’s a game Ghislain sent with very dirty illustrated cards, which I’m sure will make the conversation among the three of you quite interesting.”

  “Well,” Toverre said, after Luvander had breezed out of the room.

  “He’s used to another kind of people,” I explained. “Like he said before—we really are lucky Rook isn’t here. However uncomfortable you feel now, that would make things a thousand times worse.”

  “So now we just wait, is that the idea?” Laure asked darkly. I could tell by her expression that was her idea of a terrible plan, and while I knew it was our only one, that didn’t mean I had to like it, either. Every mission needed a bit of reconnaissance, but since I was usually the man conducting it, I felt all wrong just sitting there.

  “I suppose we do,” I confirmed.

  No one suggested we look into whatever lewd card game Luvander had mentioned. The mean-looking clock that made such awful sounds on the hour chimed unexpectedly, making us all jump again, but other than that, no one spoke. Toverre poured himself another cup of tea, then began to polish the handle of the teapot with his napkin; soon, he moved on to one of the saucers, and he was eyeing my stained gloves with a distressed expression. Finally, before his eyes popped out of his head completely, I forced myself to be the first to say something.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, managing not to comment on how the others would’ve torn him apart if this had been the Airman.

  “They’re going to stain if you don’t soak them,” Toverre said all at once. He’d been holding it in for a long time, it seemed. “I know a few tricks. Would you mind terribly if I tried to clean them?”

  “I don’t see why not,” I said. “You couldn’t possibly make them any worse.”

  “Oh, but I could,” Toverre told me, sweeping them off the table and heading to the sink. “Not that I will, mind you, but it is possible.”

  “Can’t believe you’re thinking of a stain at a time like this,” Laure muttered.

  “What better time to think of a stain?” Toverre asked. He began to pump the water into the basin, and Laure rolled her eyes but chose not to argue with him.

  Over the duration of time that followed, I discovered something that might have been perfectly obvious to the others all along: I was complete shit at waiting.

  I’d checked the clock at least fifty—probably closer to a hundred—times when the door connecting the shop and the back room finally opened. The sound of Luvander chatting with a group of customers filtered in, then was cut off abruptly when Royston entered, shutting the door behind him.

  He held a white box in one hand, wrapped with one of Luvander’s garish ribbons, and he looked extremely put out.

  “The sly dog made me buy a hat,” he explained, dropping the box onto the table and loosening his scarf. “There was a group of customers, and I know why he was doing it, but the damn thing cost thirty chevronets and I don’t even have a ‘lady friend’!”

  I wondered if I could have guessed, when we were first introduced, that Luvander would make such a shrewd businessman.

  “Never mind my considerably lighter wallet,” Royston continued, fishing some papers from his pocket. “I did as you instructed, and I tried not to read your personal correspondence—though if I had, it would be all you deserved for leaving incriminating documents lying around. Apparently there’d been another visitor for you not half an hour earlier. But,” Royston added, looking like a satisfied cat, “he wasn’t as persuasive with your landlady as I was. She didn’t let him in, despite the fact that he threatened to come back with some of the Esar’s men. I suppose we’re lucky I got there before they did.”

  “Thank you for retrieving them,” I said, somehow not as relieved as I could have been. I didn’t like the idea of anyone’s returning to my room with the Esar’s men. Especially since, if Royston hadn’t brought me those letters, I might well have been the next ex-airman arrested.

  That, at the very least, would have made for an interesting letter to Thom.

  “Something else you want to say?” Laure asked, even though Toverre tried to hush her seconds later. “I don’t mean it like an insult. You’ve just got a look like you’re not quite telling us everything. One of my cousins used to get it when he was sick—that was how you knew to clear the room before he spewed.”

  “Delightful,” Royston said, though he did look a little as though he was going to be ill.

  I wished Luvander was with us, so that he might conduct the conversation better than I was currently handling it. But I wouldn’t get very far on simple hopes, or so the proverb about wishing in one hand and shitting in the other went. It was actually a phrase Rook had told me—see which hand fills up first, he’d said—and, like all things Rook had passed on, it had stuck, in its own way.

  “There is more,” Royston said, after he’d taken a moment to catch his breath. “It’s part of the reason for my delay, actually, and I do ask your forgiveness. It seems you’ve all been very patient in my absence. It’s merely that the route to your apartment took me directly past the Basquiat, and there was a dreadful commotion out front. Wolves, carriages parked all around, and Margraves shouting in the streets. Lady Antoinette was there—it was she who caught my attention, though I’m not certain if
she meant to. When a velikaia is in great distress, she is able to project her thoughts without intending to, and anyone with a Talent will pick up on it. Her voice—her Talent—is particularly distinctive. It has a signature, if you will.”

  “This a story or a history lesson?” Laure interjected.

  “Laure,” Toverre hissed, looking scandalized.

  “No, she’s quite right; I talk too much when under stress,” Royston said, taking a moment to collect himself. “I have a habit of getting caught up in my own words; feeble as far as excuses go, but if you’ll forgive me once more—it’s been an extremely trying day. Shall I get straight to the point?”

  “That’d be nice,” Laure said. She’d taken the reins of the conversation in exactly the same way Adamo would’ve done, if he’d been there with us. “Who’s Lady Antoinette?”

  “Are you serious?” Royston asked.

  “She’s one of the Esar’s closest confidantes in the Basquiat,” I explained, to make the potentially long story short. “Until very recently, their friendship was what allowed him to work closely with the magicians at all.”

  “And yet since the end of the war, we’ve been on thinner and thinner ice,” Royston concluded grimly. “What I managed to glean from Antoinette, once I’d calmed her down enough that I could be assured she wasn’t going to injure any of the guards in the middle of the street, was that our Owen wasn’t the only man arrested today.”

  Abruptly, I felt my heart begin to pound in my chest. Whatever was happening in Thremedon was a threat I’d never been trained to combat. I’d been raised among the country nobility, and though there had certainly been intrigue and politics enough there, the consequences had never been so dire. You’d lose an extra guest at dinner parties—and that was the extent of your punishment for a bit of gossip that reached the wrong ears. I felt as though I’d been dropped into a game where I knew only half the rules and understood none of the consequences of losing.

  In the corps, it had always been my duty to scout ahead, so that I could recommend the best angle for my comrades to attack. For the first time in a long time, one of my friends was in hot water, and I hadn’t the faintest idea about how to approach it. I hadn’t even been able to warn him a storm was coming.

  “They were arresting Margraves?” I asked finally.

  “Two Margraves and a Wildgrave,” Royston confirmed. “Normally I’d make a joke about Margrave Holt being taken in for his unconventional style of dog-breeding, but this hardly seems the time and place. Josette—Margrave Josette; you’d know her as one of the diplomats who got caught up in that mess in Xi’an—told me the Esar’s men have been questioning Lord Temur all morning. They haven’t arrested him yet, but I suppose the Esar remembered he was Ke-Han and decided to take some kind of offense at it. I honestly can’t tell you what’s happening, but I can tell you what Antoinette intimated. It’s as though he’s well and truly lost his mind to paranoia.”

  “All those people arrested, and us just sitting here,” Laure said, shaking her head. Despite the stern quality of her voice, I could tell from her body language that she was frightened. It didn’t seem fair for her or young Toverre to be caught up in all this when they were barely more than children. I was sorry for them and for myself, but I was sorriest for Adamo, separated from the rest of us, without the consolation of company and no doubt spitting mad about it.

  “If you’d like to charge out into the street and get arrested yourself just for acting mad, you’re more than welcome to do so,” Royston said sharply. Then he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry. That tone was uncalled-for. You merely reminded me … Stubborn heroics tend to bring out the worst in me.”

  “I don’t suppose you have any suggestions of something we can do?” I asked. It wasn’t an entirely unrelated question, since, from what I’d heard, Margrave Royston was considerably more well versed in dealing with the political dangers of being disliked by the Esar.

  Then again, the airmen had been in such trouble before. Only then, we’d had the power of the dragons behind us.

  “I do, but I’m not particularly fond of any of them,” Royston said, running a hand through his hair. He lowered his voice to barely more than a whisper—reminding me all at once that we were in the back of a busy shop, through which all kinds of people passed. Luvander was probably doing his best keeping them away from the door, but with a topic like this one, one could never be too careful. I only hoped some useful gossip was being imparted by his customers. “If it comes to it, I might have to ask you to use your position to make a plea with the Arlemagne diplomats, Balfour. I’m sure they’d be only too glad to help us oust our own Esar, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Now that is most certainly treason,” Toverre said, looking quite white around the eyes. He’d been silent the whole time, and I realized he’d taken all the silverware out of Luvander’s drawers to polish each piece individually with a napkin. “I may be from the country, but I’m not a total fool.”

  “It would be a last resort,” I reasoned, in part to soothe myself as much as Toverre. Nothing could be so dire that it would come to that— at least, I had to pray it couldn’t. “No one’s going to turn to the Arlemagne to solve our problems just yet. Especially not when we aren’t sure what our problems are.”

  “I’m pretty sure,” Laure said.

  “I believe he meant what official reason will be given,” Royston explained.

  “Actually, what I’m really wondering is: Why now?” I asked.

  No one had an answer for me though everyone was silent for a moment, trying to come up with one.

  “Asking the Arlemagne to help would be like sending an invitation to the Ke-Han to march over the mountains and solve our problems for us,” Laure said finally, sounding mutinous. “Bet they’d be pretty eager, now that we’re all so friendly with each other.”

  “Here is what I think,” Royston said, knotting his scarf about his neck. “No one should do anything until I get back.”

  “That’s funny,” Luvander said, passing into the back room. “I wanted to say that, too, but it seemed selfish. Never you worry, my darlings, only an hour left and I’ll return to you. I’ll see if we have the proper size for you back here!” he added, clearly calling out to one of his customers. “Don’t listen to your friend, either! Large heads are a sign of wisdom and sensuality.”

  He popped a funny little shrug in my direction, then he was gone, being sure to shut the door firmly behind him. In his wake, the horrid clock started chiming the hour. But it was as clear a sign as any that we needed to lower our voices.

  Luvander was subtle when he wanted to be; it was only surprising because he was so unsubtle the rest of the time.

  “You’re leaving?” Laure asked Royston, not allowing herself to be distracted. It seemed to me she hadn’t even noticed the clock. “But we haven’t decided what to do about Adamo yet.”

  “That is precisely why I am leaving now,” Royston explained, “before we come to a decision and I’m locked into whatever mad course of action two students and two airmen can dream up. An interesting alliance, I must say. Bastion help me, I honestly don’t know which is worse—if you drag me along with you, or if you don’t. I have a few things at home to set in order, no matter what happens. Besides that, I think I can convince someone to throw her lot in with us. Trust me; if things are heading south as quickly as they seem to be, we’ll need her on our side. I have to get to her before she formulates her own plan and does something rash, however.”

  “The way you talk, it sounds like everyone you know’s a complete idiot,” Laure said. At her side, Toverre continued polishing away. I was worried for the spoon in his hand, and for his fingers.

  “There is a very good reason for that,” Royston said.

  “Like attracts like, huh?” Laure asked.

  “If your friendship with Owen wasn’t proof enough of that …” Royston began.

  “Then I suppose we’ll be here,” I said, flexing m
y hands anxiously. One of the metal knuckles cracked loudly, and everyone looked in my direction. It was obvious—to me, at least—that I couldn’t return to my apartment. I didn’t know why anyone would want to bring the Esar’s men to my shabby little room beneath the elephants; it certainly wouldn’t be for them to get a decent night’s sleep.

  My not knowing why someone wanted to arrest me, however, wouldn’t make much of a difference when they did.

  Dear Thom, I began in my head. It would seem that I am writing to you from prison …

  “We will set this to rights,” Royston said, glancing in Laure’s direction. “I don’t make a habit of promising things I can’t deliver, but Owen’s tough, as I’m sure you know. He’s weathered worse than this before.”

  “Just don’t be gone so long this time,” Laure said, pressing her lips together tightly after she’d spoken.

  Toverre looked up as though he wanted to say something, then stopped himself.

  “I’m going to find out who has been taken, and why,” Royston concluded. “And it is going to be enlightening, I’m sure. Then I will—bastion help me—return to you lot and give you what information I’ve managed to gather. That is, unless I am arrested first.”

  “Sounds like a solid plan,” Laure said. I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, because her face was so grim.

  “I don’t suppose this is a very good introduction to Thremedon,” I said.