Lillian hadn’t wanted to keep two houses at once, on an interim government salary that wouldn’t last past the upcoming election. Nor could she truly afford folk to run them. But while Damesfort was less badly damaged, and a necessary retreat at the weekends, she still needed a place in the city to sleep. Heating a bedroom in the house was cheaper than long-term residence at a hotel, even if the place depressed her. And with her schedule, and Jinadh’s, staff was a necessity.
Both the town and country houses had been given to mid-level Ospie ministers of some stripe or another. They’d redecorated, rearranged, sold off priceless antiques. The bottom floor of the house on Coral Street had been ransacked during riots, but the upper floors were still livable, barely. They’d had enough money to clean out the ground-floor library and put a desk in it, though the room was still empty of books.
The Ospies had scratched up every aspect of her life. But now at least she was in residence, and when she was settled and could afford it, she would put things right.
“How was your appointment with Ms. Higata?” asked Magnusson, taking her coat and briefcase.
Rinko Higata had been captain of the Sackett debate team when Lillian matriculated: a woman of unbending will channeled through poise as even as a perfectly weighted blade. She’d gone on to study law, and made quite a name for herself, but left Amberlough for Inorugara when the Ospies made Gedda … inhospitable. She was back now, and taking on charity cases.
“None, I’m afraid. I didn’t think she’d be able to help much, but at least she would have been free.”
All of Lillian’s assets had mysteriously evaporated after she fled Porachis. There were no records to prove it had all gone into Ospie pockets, but that was where she’d hoped to bring in legal aid. Rinko specialized in white-collar criminal defense and was a sorceress with financial paper trails, but where all evidence had been destroyed, she could not fit a wedge in.
“And the committee meeting?” Magnusson, a consummate professional even under budgetary constraints, produced a silver tray—slightly dented—and a glass of whiskey, neat. Filling the library might be an extravagance, but the bar was a medicinal necessity.
“A dogfight, as you might expect. Bihaz isn’t sure it’s a good idea to invite Makricosta to the dedication—thinks it draws too much attention back to … awkward rumors. Distracts from the solemn purpose of the event. And Miles is still arguing against the whole enterprise, though it’s a bit late now.”
“And Ms. Simons?”
“Honora?” Another school friend, who’d ridden out the Ospies playing nice and smiling at parties, giving what money she could spare to innocuous charities who funneled half of it to the Catwalk. “She apologized for Miles’s behavior very nicely once he’d left the room.” Lillian put away half her whiskey and sighed. “Bags packed?”
“And everyone else on their way for the weekend.”
“Shouldn’t you have gone and left Bern?”
“Ma’am,” said Magnusson. “I apologize if I overstepped, but Mr. Addas is likely to benefit from a footman’s services more than mine, with Ms. Wilce there to see to the house.”
“You wanted time to read,” she said, and was rewarded with a faint blush high on his gaunt cheeks. It was perhaps a trifle familiar, but adversity seemed to spawn that kind of thing.
Magnusson was a Geddan expatriate who’d married an Asunan woman early in his life and been widowed early, too. He spoke the language fluently and had been a boon to them; worth every cent they couldn’t afford when they arrived in Sunho. By the time they left they had been doing well enough: Lillian as the director of public relations for the Sunho offices of Camden Standard Trade, and Jinadh as the assistant culture editor at the Asunan branch of Siebenthal’s. Working themselves nearly to death, yes, but they could pay Magnusson to keep their house.
When the Ospies finally crumbled, he wanted to come back: he hadn’t seen Gedda in fifteen years. Lillian sympathized. And when Honora reached out to her about a position in the interim government’s press and public relations wing, she offered him the chance to come along. Siebenthal’s conjured up a post for Jinadh at the Observer, a paper they’d recently purchased in Amberlough City. He’d taken a pay cut but so far loved the work.
“The last train to Damesfort leaves in an hour,” said Magnusson, “though there’s one in half that time you might still catch.”
“If it’s running,” she said. The country’s railways were a mess, half of them bombed into uselessness. The Catwalk’s strategy of starve, divide, and conquer had been successful in the end, but left chaos in its wake. A fact that both leading ministerial candidates were dealing with in their campaigns. Frye as a piece of her platform, and Saeger as a perpetrator of the bombings.
Despite the upcoming dedication ceremony, the Catwalk weren’t heroes to everyone.
“Ma’am,” said Magnusson. “Before you go, there was a telegram while you were out.” He inclined his head toward the mail tray on the hall card table.
Makricosta.
They kept in spotty touch, but enough that she’d felt comfortable reaching out to him about the ceremony. The whole thing was more Honora’s line; Lillian coordinated press briefings, put together public statements for the interim ministers and governing council. Honora threw the kinds of parties that made the provisional government look like it knew what it was doing: luncheons, galas, charity breakfasts. Pomp could put a spark of confidence into anyone’s breast.
When the idea for the monument first came up for discussion, it was Honora who had cornered Lillian and asked, almost breathless, “Is there any chance of bringing Makricosta here? It would be like living history.”
And though she’d strenuously objected, on any number of grounds, Honora wore her down. Lillian owed her for the job, and hated to owe anyone.
Aristide flatly refused the first time—the telegram had simply read No—but the second time he’d nearly set the onionskin alight with ire, which she thought was progress. There hadn’t been a reply to her third telegram … yet.
The committee was breathing down her neck, asking when they could finalize the list of speakers and start to publicize the ceremony. She couldn’t put them off much longer.
Trepidatiously, she set aside her whiskey and slit the seal.
CYRIL IN DADANG STOP ARI GONE TO SEE STOP DIRECT CORRESPONDENCE GRAND LDOTHO HOTEL STOP D QASSAN END
The delicate paper crackled in the rush of her indrawn breath.
“Ma’am?” Magnusson’s shoes creaked as he shifted his weight, ready for orders.
Lillian had none. The balance of sounds around her shifted, so the hiss of a car through the rainy street roared in her ears, while Magnusson’s voice sounded leagues away. Her pulse slammed behind her eyes, hard enough to ache.
“Ma’am. Ms. DePaul.” Magnusson cupped her elbow, pressed a hand between her shoulder blades. “Are you all right?”
Unmindful of propriety or class divide, she clutched at his forearm. “A chair,” she said, and he led her to the telephone bench beneath the stairs.
“Bad news?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I don’t know.”
“A glass of water?”
“Where’s my whiskey?” she said, clutching the worn green velvet of the armrest. Her sweat stained the soft nap of the cloth. She lowered her palm and wiped it on her mackintosh, which she had not yet removed.
Magnusson retrieved her glass from the card table. Letting out a stale breath, Lillian forced herself to look again at the telegram. Cyril’s name in all capital letters, slightly smudged at the bottom of the y. Cyril was in Dadang. Cyril had been found.
She had given him up for dead years ago. There had been a brief flare of hope in Porachis, but then a long stretch of no news during which her own life had become too complicated to admit of a brother who was anything but dead. In the chaos of adjusting to Sunho, securing a marriage license and work permits, scouting for employment, and finding tutors and a school for Steph
en, she had not had time nor energy for anything but her old pedestrian grief. Now, guilt seized her, counting the years she could have been looking for her brother, years she should at least have hoped.
“Your whiskey, ma’am.”
She nearly jumped, but habit stayed her. “Thank you, Magnusson.”
“I don’t mean to pry,” he said, and let it hang.
What was she supposed to rotten tell him? The telegram gave her nothing. So Cyril was alive. Was he coming home? Was he sane? Healthy? In one piece?
“It seems,” she began, then shook her head. “I’ve had some news. I…”
Mother and sons, she was supposed to be on the train to Carmody in twenty minutes. What if Daoud sent her another message here?
“Can you stay here tonight?” she asked Magnusson. “Take the train up in the morning?”
“Of course,” he said, and though he ought to have been glad of the time to read, he looked more concerned than anything.
“Thank you. I need to send a telegram. Right now. I’m sorry, I know this is leagues below your purview. If Bern were here…”
“It’s quite all right,” said Magnusson, picking up the pen from the telephone bench and tearing a piece of stationery from the pad. “Go ahead.”
“It’s going to Cross-Costa Imports, Blatti Iynodib, Rarom third zone, Ibdassi. That’s Liso. Yes, you know. Attention Mr. Daoud Qassan. All further correspondence Damesfort, Carmody, Dameskill County, et cetera. Stop. Please be in touch with all new developments. Stop. Arrange radio call if necessary. Stop. My name. End. And if anything comes overnight—”
“I’ll forward it to Damesfort before I close the house. Or, if it comes late, I’ll bring it up.”
“Thank you.” She finally finished the whiskey, and it struck the bottom of her stomach like a depth charge.
* * *
The last train into Carmody got her to the station very late indeed. Martí met her at the bottom of the steps, looking about as beleaguered as Lillian felt.
“I’m sorry to drag you out at this time of night,” she said, surrendering her suitcase.
Martí bowed her head, less out of deference than to hide a yawn.
Like many other things, Lillian couldn’t afford a driver. But it was that or miss meetings depending on the whims of the railroad and the trolleys, both of which were still recovering from the Catwalk’s onslaught late in the Ospies’ tenure. Lillian had only taken the train tonight because Jinadh preferred to avoid it; Geddans still felt the sting of the Spice War, and some folk were sour over Gedda’s most recent entanglement with Jinadh’s natal country.
They needed the car at Damesfort anyhow: Martí was meant to fetch Stephen from school tomorrow. Lillian didn’t trust him on the train alone, after the letters they’d been getting from the head.
There’d been one on the mail tray nearly every week this term, ending with the blow that Cantrell would prefer if Stephen took some time away from school. More specifically, all of Leighberth term. Depending on his attitude, and his academic performance gauged by written and oral exams, he might return on sufferance after Equinox to finish out the year. If he failed the exam or—more likely—did not improve his manners, he was out of Cantrell with a black mark by his name, and lost his chance at many of the better secondary schools.
Run down from chasing worry’s tail, Lillian had fallen asleep by the time Martí brought them level with the front steps of Damesfort. She woke to the sound of the slamming driver’s side door and the pain of a kink in her neck. Warm light grew wider in her peripheral vision and she had to blink when she turned toward it. A familiar silhouette came into focus, already jogging down the steps.
«You’re here,» said Jinadh. He sounded relieved. Her schedule lately had required more last-minute changes of plan than she knew he preferred. And he was still adjusting to life in Amberlough; she sometimes caught resentment in his words, like the faintest trace of smoke on the wind. At least in Asu they had both been unmoored from familiar society. In Gedda she was on reasonably comfortable ground; he had no frame of reference, and it made him apt to snarl.
She climbed out of the car and stretched before dipping to kiss his cheek. “Have there been any calls? Cables?”
«It’s three in the morning.»
“I know.” She took a steadying breath of clean country air, and when she exhaled, it turned to steam. They had left the rain behind, and the skies over the estate were patchy with silver clouds. Bands of stars crossed the pristine sky.
“There has not been anything,” said Jinadh, as if saying it in Geddan would convince her more thoroughly. «Come inside. Come to bed. It’s freezing.» It was colder here than in the city, where the closely packed buildings sheltered most streets from the wind. Jinadh, born in the tropics, wore a flannel-lined dressing gown over a cabled sweater, and still shivered.
“You go,” she said. “I just want to pop into the library for a minute.”
He scoffed. «Don’t be ridiculous.»
“I’m not.”
Martí jumped at the hard turn Lillian’s voice took. Jinadh stepped back. «One night without this would have been nice.»
“I’m sorry.” She put her palm to her forehead, as if she could smooth her thoughts into order. Her marriage had not borne up well beneath the strain of yet another immigration and a badly mannered teenage son. This latest development would likely do no wonders for it, either. “I just don’t think I’ll be able to sleep. I had some news. Just before I left the city.”
“Work can wait a few hours, surely,” said Jinadh. “Please don’t ring them until morning.”
“It wasn’t—” She stopped herself, conscious of Martí moving bags, of Bern the footman hovering at the open door. “Later.”
That softened the irritation in his face to curiosity, which was worse because it was unfamiliar. «If you’re going to the library,» he said, and she resigned herself to company.
“Just leave the bags in the hall, Martí,” she said. “Get yourself to bed.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” Martí tipped her cap and dragged back out to take the car to the garage.
“You, too, Bern.” Lillian waved the footman off when he tried to take her suitcase. “I’ll deal with it.”
“Ma’am,” he said, and stifled a yawn.
«What’s going on?» asked Jinadh, close enough their shoulders brushed. Proximity encouraged her exhaustion and she sagged against him, nose in his hair. Hostility melted out of her as she breathed his scent. Her eyes prickled and she bit the inside of her cheek.
“They…” She had to take another breath. Caution sent her into Porashtu. «Jinadh, they found him.»
There was a beat, a moment where he didn’t know who she meant.
“Cyril,” she said, so softly only he would hear.
He stopped in the center of the hall and caught her elbow, turned her to face him. Their eyes met briefly and she faltered, so that by the time he had his arms around her she was choking on a sob she should have let out hours ago.
“Not here,” she said, cheek wet against his ear.
His hand tightened on her elbow and guided her deeper into her own family’s home, as if she had forgotten the way. She almost felt she had. Jinadh flicked the light switch just before they reached the library and plunged the front hall into darkness. The remnants of a fire burned in the library hearth, and the tufted leather sofa was warm. A crocheted blanket hung over one arm, mussed from recent occupancy.
“You were waiting up for me,” she said.
He shrugged. Then, sitting by her, «Tell me.»
«I don’t know.» She twisted the blanket in her hands, stretching the stitches. «I had a telegram, but it didn’t say anything. Only that he turned up, and Makricosta went to see him. It was three lines, Jinadh. That’s all. And my brother—» She put her hand over her mouth to stop the flow of words, because there didn’t seem to be another way. Jinadh closed his own over it gently, prising her chilled fingers from her chee
ks.
«If you need to go to him, you must. We can probably afford to send you. And I know I was very insistent, but Stephen and I can take care of ourselves during the holiday.»
“Oh, temple bells,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut so tightly she saw stars. “I can’t leave. The dedication ceremony, Jinadh. And the last months of campaigning. If I want to … I can’t be in Liso for that.”
She didn’t dare open her eyes after she realized what she had said; she could feel Jinadh pulling away from her.
Part of the tension that had simmered between them since their arrival was Lillian’s determination to install herself in whatever administration took the Cliff House. Her position with the provisional government, by its nature, would not last. She was well qualified to shill for the state, and it might help put a shine on the family name, which had grown a bit tarnished in recent years.
Former Catwalk strategist Opal Saeger, erstwhile right hand of Cordelia Lehane, had led the Amberlinian chapter of the Geddan Alliance of Theatrical Technicians for two terms before the rise of the Ospies, representing the sizable local union at national meetings. Political experience, to be sure, but in Lillian’s opinion not nearly enough to run a country on.
Saeger was young—younger than Lillian—and her rhetoric naive, which won her a strong following in the university crowd. Her political party, Forward Gedda, centered largely on social programs, leaving large swathes of domestic and foreign policy either unaddressed or thrown together in a confused jumble.
Industrial doyenne Emmeline Frye, former Nuesklend City alderman, already had Lillian’s vote. But Saeger didn’t need to know that. Lillian would take a press position under either candidate. Jinadh, who had been born into court politics and been greatly relieved to escape it, was not eager for Lillian to reenter the fray.
Even she was appalled at her reluctance to go to Liso. But it simply couldn’t be done if she wanted to stay on the radar as a potential appointee.
“I had Magnusson send a cable to Daoud, to say any news should come here. And anything that comes tonight or tomorrow he’s said he’ll bring along.”
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