Full Fathom Five

by Max Gladstone

  Hence, the riot. The more Penitents, the greater her danger of being taken, but the less her danger of being killed.

  She waited in the confessional as Penitents cordoned off the street. The smell of cedar boards edged out the incense, sweat, and musk outside. A great shadow passed in front of the confessional door. She tried not to move, but could not stop shaking.

  The riot died. The Penitents moved on. Izza slipped from the confessional, crossed the recovering roil of the Godsdistrikt, and from there, unobserved, walked north and west into the Palm.

  The moon smiled down and she smiled back. She walked too fast, and breathed too deep. The whole world was velvet padded. She whistled to herself, an old tune from across the sea, a song she remembered a mother singing once. She wasn’t sure if the mother had been hers. There were so many mothers.

  The whistle shrilled in her ears. Some god sharpened the streetlights and the stars. The moon’s smile turned wicked. She hid behind a trash bin, gripped her ankles, and thought of Edmond Margot dead.

  A broken, tired man, far from home, a deserter of his people, deserted in turn by gods and muses. And anyway, others had died before this. Why weep for him?

  She did anyway.

  This surprised her.

  A while later she emerged onto the street, and moved north and west with dreadful purpose.

  She ignored crowds, drunks, and flower-draped tourists. Three skeletons in tie-dyed shirts stumbled past, drinking from silver flasks and singing God Wars songs. Soon the streets narrowed, and yards unfurled from the houses.

  She found the priest’s house dark, shuttered. She walked the block twice, casing it from every angle. Once in a while she heard a cry from within, a yowl like a cat would make, or else a person with bad dreams.

  Nick had been right: the house was warded. Cross the fence and Izza would wake the alarm. But the house next door was less secure, and in its yard grew those trees Izza didn’t know what to call, the ones like a buried chicken’s upturned claw. A limb of one such tree overhung the fence. The ward was younger than the tree, and rather than cutting back the tree, the contractor must have bent the ward around it.

  Izza climbed the claw tree and crept out along the thinning branch. Crossing the ward burned like a bath in cold iron. Spiderwebs of light and lightning spread around her. She pressed herself against the bark, always at least one patch of skin touching. She was one with the tree. The pain built, sharpened, vanished.

  She was through.

  Faint ghostlight flickered from the priest’s second-floor window: a nightlight, or a bedside lamp left on. Between that and the occasional moans, she might have suspected the priest was entertaining callers. But she heard only one voice, and the wind, and a creak from the branch beneath her.

  Now to find a way down, Izza thought before the branch broke.

  She landed hard on the lawn. False stars spun above, in front of the real ones. The limb of the neighbor’s tree now ended in a jagged line above the fence. So much for her clean exit. Fine. Revenge was best served hot, whatever Camlaander playwrights said.

  The priest bolted and chained her front door, but used a pushover of a key lock for the back: a rake of pick over tumblers and it gave. Izza locked the door behind her, and stood in the empty kitchen, breathing.

  This was the part she’d not thought through.

  She’d never killed before, not while meaning to anyway. She hadn’t brought a weapon, but the house offered all the arsenal she needed. Pokers, boards, pillows for suffocation, wrenches and pliers in a toolkit under the sink. This had all seemed so much simpler on the walk over.

  Of course it’s simple.

  Well, yes, but. When she held the pliers and imagined grabbing fingers and applying torque, she thought of her own fingers breaking. Same with the wrench. And couldn’t people breathe through pillows?

  She settled for a knife from the block on the granite counter. The big carvers felt unwieldy, so she chose a paring blade instead: sharp tip, sharp edge, balanced. She only needed a slice or two.

  She realized she’d been haggling with herself over knives for ten minutes. The priest killed Margot, or handed him over to those who did. Justice wasn’t some force in the air. Justice was something you do.

  She thought about Cat. The cop in her would not approve. But she wasn’t a cop anymore. And anyway: We’re the Lady’s children, and there’s nobody to help us but us.

  She hadn’t meant that when she said it. Thought she was just convincing Nick to help her with a few clever words. But she heard her own voice in her ears now.

  So.

  She climbed the stairs. The priest’s bedroom door was open, her bedside lamp on. The woman lay sleeping, twisted in cotton sheets, breathing rapidly through nose and mouth. Izza slipped out of her shoes and approached, soundless, over white carpet. The knife weighed no more and no less than any other piece of steel about so long and about so thin.

  How did you kill someone in bed? Izza hadn’t done this sort of thing before.

  She’d fought. She’d lived through war. She could figure it out.

  People get up, when hurt. They fight back. Even weak folk don’t die easy.

  Stabbing, then, might not work. Anyway, Izza couldn’t stab her from the bedside: the woman’s bed was the size of a small stage, built for two, and she lay in its center. From the edge, Izza lacked enough leverage to drive the blade in deep. No doubt proper killers knew how to deal with this.

  She climbed onto the bed.

  The mattress was soft as wet sand. The woman shifted, but did not wake.

  Izza climbed nearer on knees and one hand. She straddled the woman, pinned her arms to her sides, and raised the knife.

  The skull was hard. Breastbone too. The throat, though, the throat was soft.

  Stab, or slice?

  Her blade wavered.

  She remembered Sophie’s screams when the Penitents caught her. Remembered the Blue Lady’s dying breath. Remembered her mother, and her father, and the fire. The priestess at home, in the village square, and the sound of the knife across her throat. She’d never wondered how it felt to hold that knife, and now she would know. Dying, Margot had sounded like a draining bath.

  One death equals one death.

  Did it?

  Was this justice?

  What had she seen? The woman talked to Margot. Talked to the Watch after. A Penitent came, and killed. A chain of events. She imagined Cat asking her: Did you see this woman kill? Do you know she was at fault? Justice is like math: anyone can think she knows the answer, but not every answer is right.

  She’d gone this far to make sure of the death. Knife at the woman’s throat, all her weight ready to press down. Why not make sure of its justice, too?

  The woman trembled on the edge of waking.

  Izza touched the knife to her skin.

  Two black eyes snapped open. Swollen pupils sought and found Izza’s face.

  “Tell me,” Izza said, “why I shouldn’t kill you now.”

  43

  Not a woman, Kai realized, but a girl. Fourteen, maybe. Gleblander. Short cropped hair. Thin, gaunt, coltish, angry. Sharp big black eyes, brown skin. Sweat crusted. Brown ragged tunic. Wore a pearl on a leather string around her neck. Wiry legs clamped Kai’s arms to her sides.

  All these details tossed under utter panic. Half of Kai’s body tried to buck the girl off, and the other half to burrow into the mattress, away from the blade at her throat. She felt its tip as a coal.

  “Stop, or I’ll do it now.” The knife pressed further, and Kai felt her skin tear.

  Drowning sailors on the battered raft of her mind threw sacrifices to the adrenaline storm: snatches of poetry, school rhymes half-remembered, and at last, despairing, an image of a beggar girl on the sidewalk in front of Edmond Margot’s apartment. “You’re the girl from Margot’s place.”

  The knife kept still.

  “Tell me why you did it,” the girl said. Urgent, low.

  “Did what
?”

  The pressure returned.

  “He’s.”

  “Dead,” Kai finished, seeing the shape of her anger. “Margot’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Why did you kill him?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Don’t lie to me!” The knife danced over her skin as the girl’s hand shook.

  “I’m not. I’m not. Swear to whatever gods you want to name.”

  “You don’t know the gods I’d name,” the girl said.

  “I tried to save his life.”

  Shadow welled through the narrow slits of the girl’s eyes. “You went to the Watch.”

  “To protect him.”

  “They killed him.” Another coal puncture, below the first. Kai fought to keep still. The blade was too close and sharp for heroics, or for fear.

  Think. The girl thought Kai had killed Margot. She wanted vengeance. She could have killed Kai while she slept; either she was a hardened torturer, and kept Kai alive to suffer, or she didn’t want to do the work. She wanted to be talked out of it.

  Oh gods. This was a sale, then. Of a sort. Twilling’s acronyms and lists bubbled up unbidden.

  “You killed him,” the girl repeated.

  “I wanted him safe. I offered him shelter. He refused.” Technically true. “Can we just. I mean.” Step one: identification. “I’m Kai,” she said. “Can you tell me your name?”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not lying. Kai is my name. What’s yours?”

  Scales shifted and gears spun in the girl’s mind. Her face twisted. Hesitation. Sensible. An exchange of names was an exchange of power. Without names you filed other people into boxes: murderer, conspirer, betrayer, lover, friend. The knife at Kai’s throat would kill her, but anonymity would let the girl drive the blade home.

  “Izza,” the girl said.

  “I only met Margot twice.” The cuts on her neck burned when she swallowed. “He seemed like a good man.”

  “You killed him.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You sent a Penitent, and the Penitent did.”

  “I asked the Watch to arrest Margot, to keep him safe.”

  Izza’s weight settled on Kai’s stomach. “A Penitent strangled him to death.”

  She struggled to breathe. “Gods.”

  “Gods have no part of this.”

  “Penitents don’t kill people.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Penitents didn’t kill, but this girl wasn’t lying. Kai’d expected assassins, Craftwork or poison or knife, rough work in a back alley to make the death look like a mugging gone wrong. The Grimwalds were powerful, but could they subvert a Penitent? The concept barely made sense. “You’re serious.”

  “I am.”

  Step two: needs assessment. “You’re here because your friend is dead, and you want revenge.” She saw a drowning face in a deep pool. “You can kill me to make yourself feel better. But that won’t get you what you want, because I didn’t kill him, and I want to know who did as much as you.”

  “Tell me,” the girl said, through clenched teeth. “Everything.”

  Step three: the solution. “No.”

  “I will hurt you.”

  “You cut me, and I’ll tell you something, sure. Maybe I’ll even tell you the truth. Or maybe I’ll tell you what you want to hear, just to make the pain stop.” She could hear Twilling’s voice in her head. “I want to tell you what I know. If he’s dead, I want to help you find his killer.” And step four: the price. “But I need to know you’re not lying to me, first. Think about it from my point of view. I don’t know you. You might be lying. You might have killed him.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “I believe you.” She didn’t, exactly, but the girl didn’t need to know that. “But I need proof.”

  Izza’s lips thinned to a line. Kai closed her eyes and waited for the cut.

  It did not come.

  The knife lifted from her neck.

  “You walk with a cane,” Izza said.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ll walk with me instead.” She rolled off Kai’s chest, and waited by her bedside, knife out between them. “Get dressed.”

  As Kai sat up she felt a sharp-edged, rectangular piece of paper under her left hand. She palmed the business card and, when she risked a glance down, saw Ms. Kevarian’s name flashed in gold.

  44

  Kai wore a red shirt to hide the blood from her neck. She slid Kevarian’s business card into the pocket of her slacks as she tugged them on. Izza watched from the corner, knife at her side. Kai exaggerated her limp, leaning heavily on nightstand, dresser, wardrobe. She didn’t try to run. Even fully healed, she doubted she could have outrun this murderous whip of a girl.

  “Where do you come from?” Kai asked to relieve the silence. She didn’t think Izza would answer.

  “The Gleb,” she said.

  “Long way from home.”

  “What’s home?”

  Kai tried again as she buttoned her shirt: “How did you know Margot?”

  “He saved me.”

  “From what?”

  “From someone who was asking too many questions.”

  Kai left the button at her neck undone. “Let’s go.”

  “Put on a coat.”

  “It’s hot outside.”

  “Put on a coat.”

  She took a linen blazer from her closet. “Why?”

  “You’ll have my knife at your back. So you don’t try anything.”

  She pulled on the jacket, and limped toward the stairs. “Give me a hand?”

  “Use the rail.” Izza gestured down the stairs with her knife.

  “I might fall.”

  “Then you fall.”

  She descended slowly. Her knees buckled, but she kept her feet.

  She waited in her living room for Izza.

  The girl wrapped her arm around Kai’s waist beneath the blazer. The knife pressed up into Kai’s side. If she tried to run, the jacket might rip, but it might also pull Izza along—they’d both fall, and the knife could end up anywhere.

  She almost ripped the card in half then, and damn the consequences. Curiosity stopped her, and fear. If Ms. Kevarian saved Kai’s life, she’d expect payment. Besides, if this girl was telling the truth, she might need the Craftswoman’s help later.

  They stumbled four legged out onto the porch, and toward the fence. Kai sweat from the knife at her side as much as from the heat.

  “Where are we going?” she asked when they reached the street.

  “The poet’s place. East Claw. So you can see him dead. We’ll take the back roads.”

  “Are they safe?”

  “Let me worry about that,” Izza said, in a tone that meant she didn’t plan to worry much.

  They turned right, south, downhill, toward the ocean.

  Night birds whooped in the canopy. Izza burned at Kai’s side, a heating coil in the shape of a girl. Kai felt no give in her, no softness at all—bones and muscle, sinew and tendon. She had a springy gait, the kind of light step that never assumed solid ground beneath her feet.

  Down and into the city. Trees and spreading lawns gave way to plaster and brick. Izza turned them onto a side street Kai hadn’t realized was a street: a narrow alley so crowded with trash bins and old crates and chained-shut doors it seemed a dead end. Kai knew the island well; an hour before she’d have sworn she could navigate it blindfolded. But she lost herself as Izza turned them off the first alley onto a second, and then a third.

  “Are you sure this is the right way?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve never been here before, is all.”

  “Of course not.”

  Kai bridled at the assumption of that sentence, then realized the girl was only stating fact. Of course Kai wouldn’t know these alleys. She never needed them.

  “These are safe paths for you,” Kai said.

  “Yes.”

  “Safer than main
roads.”

  “Not everyone’s as lucky as you are.”

  They rounded a sharp corner and came to a chain-link fence. Izza stopped walking, so Kai stopped, too.

  “Can you climb this?” Izza said.

  “No. We could go around. Greenfrond’s over that way somewhere, I think.”

  “Too risky.”

  The girl had few good options. Use the main road and trust Kai not to shout for help, or take these back alleys at half speed.

  “I’ll pick the lock,” Izza said after a while. “You lean against that wall there.”

  “Okay.”

  “No one will hear if you call for help. And even if they hear, they won’t come.”

  “I figured.”

  Izza walked Kai to the wall, and slid out from under her arm. Kai lurched forward without support, but caught herself against the bricks. Logical: Izza didn’t want herself between Kai and the wall. Concerned even now that Kai was faking. Fair. She was, a little. Exaggerating for effect.

  The girl knelt by the gate’s lock. From a pouch at her belt she produced two metal tines, inserted one into the lock, twisted slightly, and inserted the second. The girl frowned at the lock like Mara frowned when working though a tense point of theology.

  Mara. Where was she? The Craftswoman might have lied, might be responsible for her disappearance after all—if she had disappeared. People worked late. People had accidents. Kai hadn’t been home for a month after her disaster in the pool. But if so, why couldn’t she find Mara in her nightmares? Why couldn’t Ms. Kevarian?

  And what did it mean, that the hospital nightmare wasn’t hers?

  The lock clicked open. Izza stepped back with a curt, professional nod. “Come on.”

  She helped Kai through, swung the gate shut after, and reached back to close the lock.

  “Polite.”

  “If the folks who own that lock see it doesn’t work, they’ll buy a better one. If I clean after myself, they won’t know I was ever here.”

  “If you tell them their locks don’t work, and show them ones that would, they might pay you. Even give you keys to them.”