by Juliet Kemp
“I lied to no one!”
“Rubbish,” Marcia said sharply. “At the very least you lied to your father.”
“Ha! The old boy would have been delighted if he’d found out. I lied to no one. People deceived themselves, perhaps. People chose to read their own meanings into what I said…”
“Their own meanings? Deceived themselves? Daril, you deceive yourself speaking like that. You knew exactly what you were doing. You knew exactly what to say to bend people to your wishes.”
Marcia was suddenly aware that this was the first time they had been on their own together in a room since then. Beyond the main doors into the Chamber, she could faintly hear the sound of speeches, declamations. The Chamber was designed to amplify voices. No one in there would hear them out here. Still.
“You took advantage,” she said, more quietly.
“I did nothing of the sort!”
“I was sixteen, Daril! And half the rest of your little gang were barely any older. You talked us around, you convinced us…”
“You wanted to join me. All of you, you wanted what I was suggesting. You were in it too, Marcia. You can’t get away by pretending that you didn’t know what you were doing. You were old enough to realise what you were getting into. If you’d bothered to think about it.”
Marcia shook her head, resisting. “I was deluded.”
“You knew what you were about,” Daril insisted. His evident conviction twined into her guilty remembrance of those days.
“So is that your excuse for winding Cato into your plans this time, then?” she demanded.
“Cato can more than look after himself,” Daril said harshly.
“And what of your truth, b’Leandra?” Marcia demanded. “Can’t get your father to give you power the regular way so you’re taking it by force?”
Daril’s face was dark with anger. “You’re defending the Chamber, are you? As if this way of governing is perfection itself.”
“And you’ll be better?” Marcia demanded. “Don’t pretend you’re looking out for anyone but yourself. Daril, you removed the cityangel. You’re trying to get us into a war with Salina. Don’t claim you want what’s best for Marek.”
“I’m getting Marek out of a war. A war that your mother and my father are galloping towards. Do they want what’s best for Marek? I am going to stop that. I don’t want war any more than you do. With the cityangel’s power I can denounce that idiot plan, and Houses Fereno and Leandra with it. And about bloody time too, to knock them off their pedestals.”
It suddenly occurred to Marcia to wonder how it was, given the Salinas attitude to magic, that Urso was in the embassy at all? Her stomach dropped as she realised – Urso and Daril must have told Kia about the whole business with the ships. Well. That was something to deal with at a later date, if and when she was through with Daril.
“A war that Urso pushed them towards so you’d have an excuse to get into the embassy, no?” Marcia said. “Your hands are not clean.”
“I notice you’re not defending your mother,” Daril said.
“If you want change, this is not the way to achieve it,” Marcia said. “There are other ways.”
“So you’re happy to sit waiting for your mother to call you up, are you?” Daril said, one eyebrow raised. “Because I don’t see anything changing before then. And I can’t envisage you arguing all that strongly for change after that, either. You’ll be part of the system, by then. You’ll find a reason why it doesn’t need to change after all. But happily, it’s not likely you’re going to be in a position to do anything at all any more.”
“Wait until I get there and let me prove it,” Marcia said. “Hell, Daril, comply with your father long enough to be named Heir and you can be part of that too. I’m not saying we don’t need to change things. But this is not the way. And the cityangel.”
Daril waved a hand. “I’m replacing it. One is the same as another.”
There was a shiver in the air of the room, a sudden metallic taste like blood in Marcia’s mouth. Daril’s hand went to his wrist again, and his eyes brightened.
“Too late either way,” he said. “It’s happening now.”
Marcia’s stomach lurched. Reb and Beckett hadn’t been able to stop it? But she’d left them right there, surely… She took a deep breath. The whole point of her being here was to stop Daril if they couldn’t stop the ritual. Never mind that she had no idea how to do that. She had to try something. At the least, right now, she could keep trying to talk him out of it.
She shook her head, swallowing back nausea. “One is not the same as the other, Daril. I have spoken to the cityangel. The old one. There was a deal. Yours isn’t tied by the deal.”
“A deal which is out of date,” Daril said. “A deal which defends the current structure, just like you’re trying to do.”
“The deal didn’t just keep the cityangel out of politics, you idiot. It bound it to Marek’s best interests,” Marcia said through gritted teeth. “And it protected magic. Did Urso or Cato explain to you what’s happened to magic? Are you really sure you know what the hell you’re doing here?”
“Urso’s magic seems just fine,” Daril said, then narrowed his eyes at her. “If you’ve heard otherwise, you’ve been talking to another sorcerer – that washed-up bint over in the Old Market, then?”
Marcia fought back fury at hearing Reb referred to that way. “She defeated you last time around, Daril.”
“And yet apparently not this time,” Daril said. The prickling sensation in the air was growing stronger. “Funny that.” His eyes were bright.
He stopped, arrested by something Marcia couldn’t see, a sudden look of shocked horror sweeping across his face. He cried out, and grabbed at his wrist, going to his knees on the floor, bent over his arm in evident pain.
“What… ?” Marcia dropped to her knees beside him and grabbed at his wrist. The gold wire burnt her fingers and she snatched them away.
“That – the power, when Urso – something wrong, something wrong. Gods, it burns, Urso didn’t…”
Reb must have done it. Disrupted whatever was happening.
Daril’s wrist was turning red now under the wire. He didn’t – whatever was going on, she couldn’t just let him be burnt, not if she could avoid it. She set her teeth, wrapped her sleeves around her hands, and yanked at the wire twice, three times. Daril screamed, and it came away, stinging her fingers again. She flung it away across the floor.
She stayed there, on her knees, staring at Daril, his face now buried in his hands. They’d won. They must have won. Had they won?
And if they had – what in the name of the angel was she going to do with Daril?
EIGHTEEN
Jonas stared around the ballroom. Outside, the noise of the crowd was still going, and the light was getting on into evening. The chalk patterns were still there on the floor, but he could tell now that there was no power to them any more; they no longer had that faint not-quite-glow to them.
On the other side of the circle from him, Urso was out cold. Asa stood over him, a splintered chair in their hands. They were shaking slightly. They took a deep breath, then looked across at him, their eyes wide. He tried a tentative smile, and after a moment, Asa returned it. He didn’t even know what they were doing here. He’d expected them just to deliver the message, not to come back with Reb.
He blinked, and looked over at Reb. She was still on her knees, eyes fixed on the space where Beckett had been a moment before, muttering under her breath. The hand that wasn’t strapped across her body was foraging through her pockets. Sorcery. More damn sorcery. Cato, a few feet away, was also looking at the place where Beckett had disappeared. His head was cocked slightly to one side, and his eyes were thoughtful.
Something had happened, while they were in that circle. Something had changed, inside Jonas’ head. It felt like a door had opened onto a part of him he’d never known about. His flickers had only been a tiny porthole onto that. His skin felt like it was
vibrating, as though if he looked down it would be glowing like a night-fish.
He had no idea what he thought about any of it. He didn’t dare put a label on it, although he couldn’t help thinking back to what Cato had said, earlier, in that little room.
He looked over at Cato again, who seemed to have come to a decision. He backed out of the circle, keeping a careful eye on Reb, who seemed entirely engaged in whatever it was she was doing with the contents of her pockets, and walked around the edge of the room to Jonas.
“Time for me to be off, I think,” Cato said quietly, eyes flicking back towards Reb. “But – look. I can still take it away, if you want. If you want to go home, and you’re sure that you can’t do it with this in your head. But at this point, I have to warn you, it’s going to hurt like hell, and…” He exhaled, ran a hand across his face. “I don’t – I think you should be very certain that that’s what you want. Very certain.” His gaze was serious, and sympathetic. “But if you want to stay, if you want to keep what’s yours, born into you – well. I can teach you to use it.”
He smiled that charming smile, but this time there was something real under it, something that reached his eyes. It made him look like Marcia’s brother more than just superficially.
“You already have an in with the cityangel,” Cato added, that smile twisting sideways a little. “The new old cityangel. You could be a very good sorcerer.”
He glanced down at Reb again, and nodded sharply. He was away and out of the room before Jonas had finished processing what he’d just said.
He remembered, suddenly, the flicker he’d had back in Cato’s room, when Reb had broken in, just before he met Marcia. Him and Cato discussing something – something that had to be sorcery – together. He’d assumed that it was about his flickers, Cato explaining them, about to get rid of them for him. But maybe…
He could choose. That image could be Cato introducing him to sorcery. Or it could be Cato about to take his abilities away. He could be a sorcerer. Or he could lose it.
Reb and Asa seemed to come out of their dazes almost simultaneously. Jonas wondered whether Cato could have had something to do with that. Surely not? Reb swore, shook her head, jaw clenched, and got up. She went over to Urso and prodded at him with the toe of her boot. Asa set the remains of the chair down and came over to Jonas.
“I don’t – I don’t think I want to stay here,” they said. “Unless Reb needs us for something, I suppose. Can we just go home, Jonas? Back to the squats?” Their voice wobbled slightly.
“We should help sort that one out,” Jonas said, nodding at Urso. “But then – yes. Yes. I want out of here. And Asa – thanks.”
Their grin was a bit shaky, but they slapped him on the shoulder. “Couldn’t have done anything else, hey? Can’t leave a fellow messenger in the lurch, you know. Or a friend.”
A fellow messenger. Asa thought of him as being one of them, as belonging here.
His mother had been very clear that his flickers didn’t belong on board ship. The new thing that he could feel inside his head – that would belong even less.
Cato’s offer circled around his head. I could teach you to use it.
The ships would start leaving tomorrow. They’d all be gone in a week’s time. And yes, they’d be back again, but… he knew, really, that if he stayed now, that would be a decision in itself.
k k
Marcia knelt on the floor of the Chamber foyer, the grey marble cool under her knees. Daril sat on the floor, his head down on his knees, shuddering.
She’d always thought of Daril as old, experienced. Knowing what he was doing, even if what he was doing was a terrible idea.
Looking at him now, she remembered that he was only five years older than she was, and he wasn’t nearly as in control of everything as she’d always believed. Bad decisions, bad situation. What would she do, if she’d been dealing with his father instead of her mother? She let herself think of herself ten years from now, still trailing round after Madeleine and not allowed to do anything for the House, for herself. Would she, too, start making worse decisions?
Daril was right, to an extent. That was the other thing.
But that didn’t solve the question of what to do with him now. The faint sounds from beyond the main Chamber doors were changing. The session was coming to an end.
She could still drag Daril in there, swear a charge of treason against him there and then. For a moment, she could see it happening. She could envisage Gavin Leandra’s reaction, the shock of the assembled Houses. Legally speaking, it was the correct thing to do. He and Urso should both pay for what they’d done. (And Cato? She swallowed. She wouldn’t be able to protect Cato, and Daril would hardly be inclined to.)
But then what? What would happen after that?
She didn’t know what was happening, down at the embassy. It hadn’t worked as Daril had expected, that much was clear, but did that mean Reb had succeeded in whatever she was intending to do? And what did that mean for Beckett?
The she remembered, with a lurch of her stomach, how Daril had said that they’d been let into the embassy at all. He’d promised that, once he had some power, he would put a stop to it. He might even have been telling the truth. But in any case: he wouldn’t be stopping it, now, yet it still had to be stopped. At present, Gavin and Madeleine were still intending to confiscate these damn ships.
Bringing that into the Council Chamber might solve the problem. Surely sense would prevail; surely the Council would shout the idea down. But that would be to the detriment of her own House, as well as House Leandra; and, worse, it would surely cause catastrophic damage to Marek’s relationship with Salina, to have the whole thing publicly acknowledged. At present Kia apparently knew; but Kia had agreed to a solution which simply stopped the idea, without publicising it, suggesting that the relationship was still salvageable. If it was out in the open, formal Council business, Kia might have to react differently. Salina might have to react differently.
Worse, what if the Council didn’t vote it down? What if there were more people who fell into the trap that Gavin and Madeleine had fallen into? There was, after all, general resentment about the increases in the trading fees. And if this whole plan came out, it would also become public knowledge that the Salinas ambassador had allowed Urso to use the Salinas embassy to attack the Council, which would be guaranteed to further inflame bad feeling. Both Gavin and Madeleine, when they chose, were gifted speakers, from powerful Houses. Could they convince their fellows to back them? Marcia wasn’t sure she wanted to take that risk.
Not only that, but it seemed almost inevitable that at some point the matter of the cityangel would come up. The Upper City largely chose to believe that there was no such thing, but the Lower City would not react well. And what if Beckett hadn’t been restored? How would people react to that news?
Part of her still wanted to drag everything out into the light, to point out what had happened and how; but she could see, clearly enough, that it wouldn’t change anything the way she wanted to. If anything, it would solidify the current Council in their methods.
Which left the alternative. Managing this privately, behind House walls. Convincing Gavin and Madeleine to drop their idiotic ideas. She had Daril, who might not be Heir to House Leandra, but who was a candidate, and who had attempted to overthrow the Council; and the only other House Leandra candidate, Urso, was also in the whole thing up to his neck. She could use that – and her promise of secrecy about it – to put pressure on Gavin. He couldn’t risk letting both treachery and involvement in sorcery taint his House.
What about Madeleine? If she got Gavin to back down first, then the fact that Madeleine would be standing alone might sway her mother. Would Cato’s involvement, and the consequences if that came out, sway her at all? Marcia couldn’t believe so, much though she might want to; Cato’s disinheritance had been absolute, as far as Madeleine was concerned. The fact that Urso had been manipulating her, that might be relevant.
Marcia rolled a bead on her bracelet between her fingers as she thought. She had something against Kia, too. Something that she could use in negotiations. An improved deal for House Fereno with Salina. That might be enough to sway her mother. And the possibility of her Heir standing publicly against her; Fereno would look like fools, in public, if it came to that.
She sighed. It was a thin web, but she just needed to hold it together for long enough for the moment to have passed. Neither Gavin nor Madeleine could do this alone. In all honesty, Marcia couldn’t see how they could have pulled it off even working together. If she could break the links apart right now, neither would be able to put it back together, at least not immediately.
She looked down at Daril, still on the floor. He’d get off without paying for his decisions, and that rankled. On the other hand – a slow smile started on her face – now he would owe her one. And at some point, she would be able to collect.
Well then.
Two hard thumps came from within the Chamber – the Speaker calling the session to a close. Time to move.
“Daril.” He looked up, his eyes still wild. “Come on. Session’s done. We need to get out of here.”
She hauled him to his feet. He was still clutching his arm, but he came willingly enough, out of the Chamber and down the street to House Leandra.
“What are you going to do?” he said, halfway there. His voice was quieter than usual. “Swear treason against me?”
“I don’t think that’s going to help anyone,” she said. “What I’m going to do right now is, I’m going to talk to your bloody father.”
“He’ll disown me,” Daril said.
“Not if he doesn’t want his warmongering to come to light, he won’t,” Marcia said grimly.
Daril stumbled and would have fallen if Marcia hadn’t caught him. “But – why?”
“Your complaint is legitimate,” Marcia said. “Your methods were not. Your father is a manipulative shithead, and always has been. And now you, and he, and House Leandra, will owe me a favour. I will be back to collect, don’t worry.”