Gabriel's City

by Laylah Hunter

  “Of course not.” Where would he have picked up a trade? He’s only barely started to learn to manage the family estate.

  Deirdre goes quiet, watching him again, and Colin takes a sip of tea to soothe his nerves. There’s definitely something floral in it, and he tries to distract himself with guessing what the additive is. It doesn’t really work.

  “What do you think I should do?” he asks at last.

  “I think,” Deirdre says, setting down her teacup and watching him as if she’s pronouncing a sentence, “you should go see Gabriel.”

  Tension unknots in Colin’s stomach, and then a moment later he’s angry with himself for being relieved. “What, so I can kill more people with him? He’s the reason I’m in this mess.” But that isn’t true, not entirely, and he doesn’t need Deirdre’s raised eyebrow to let him know he’s being an ass. “He’s mad,” he says next. He’s more certain of that. “He thinks I’m a dragon.”

  Deirdre nods. “He’s had a bit too much of the moon,” she agrees. “It comes and goes, and on his bad days, he’s barely seeing the same world as the rest of us. But he’ll watch your back if you’ve caught his fancy that much, and it’s true he knows better than just about anyone how to stay clear of Westfall’s boys.”

  “There must be some other choice. Someplace else I could stay until things settle. I—I could stay here, even. Not for free, I mean. I could pay you for—”

  “No. You couldn’t.” Her eyes narrow, and the room feels suddenly darker. “How many of my kinsmen work your father’s fields, boy?” Colin hesitates, and she spits. “You don’t even know.”

  “I never,” Colin says helplessly. “I don’t—”

  “Any kindness you get in this house is for his sake, not yours,” Deirdre says. “Were it up to me alone, I’d have no trouble leaving you to rot. But Gabriel’s taken a liking to you, and there’s little enough as makes him happy. I’ll keep you in one piece as a kindness to him, but I won’t help you to turn him away.”

  He should flee, make his excuses and leave and never think on this again. But then he’d be back where he started, a wanted man with no place to go. Perhaps just for a little while, until the guards find someone else to pursue and he can get a letter home to ask his parents for help . . . “I’m not sure I could find him,” Colin says. “I don’t know if I can find my way back to his . . . house . . . from here without a guide.”

  “You’ll likely not find him at home right now anyway.” Deirdre’s face smooths into calm again, and the feeling of a brewing storm eases. “He went off in a sulk of his own after you left yesterday.”

  The idea’s ridiculous—both that Gabriel sulks like a child, and that he’d do it over Colin. “Where should I look for him, then?”

  “The first place he goes when he’s upset,” Deirdre says. “The Lady’s house.”

  “The cemetery,” Colin translates. He’s had enough of people talking in tales and riddles.

  “The old one at the end of Cypress.” Deirdre nods. “She does look after him, unbelievable as it is to tell.”

  “I thought you, ah, your people believed in different gods,” Colin says, curiosity getting the better of him. None of his family’s house staff came from the north, so he’s never really spoken to any of them.

  Deirdre shakes her head. “My gods are far from here, and nobody has luck like Gabriel’s without some kind of help.”

  Colin frowns and sips his tea. “They say the Fates don’t play favorites.” It’s a proverb that’s always annoyed him, mostly because people repeat it when he wants to stay at the tables for just a few more hands, but it seems true enough.

  Deirdre snorts, a sort of small, private laugh. “Of course they do. No man wants to think a lady’s playing favorites when her favorite’s not him.”

  That surprises a little smile out of Colin in return. “No, I suppose not.” It would be grand for the Three to be real, to be at his side when he wanted them. He sets down his teacup. “How do I get to the Lady’s house from here?”

  “You head east,” Deirdre says. “Take Sparrow, that’s the next real street south of here, and follow that almost to the water. That’ll put you on Cypress—it’s the broadest street there is, this far down. You’ll not miss it. Then turn south, and just follow Cypress straight to the end. You’ll be there by midday, if you’ve no trouble.”

  “That almost sounds too easy,” Colin says as he rises from the table.

  Amusement flickers in Deirdre’s eyes, gone as fast as it comes. “You might not be completely hopeless after all. That’s with no trouble, and you, my lord, look like an invitation to all kinds of that.” She leans forward to tug at the stray lock of hair that’s come loose from Colin’s ponytail, too long and too light to be ordinary. “Trouble’s going to be quite interested in you.”

  Colin huffs in frustration, pulling away from her. “Can’t say that’s a surprise, after the last two days.” Maiden’s mercy, is that all it’s been?

  “Wait here.” Deirdre leaves him in her kitchen. He can hear her footsteps on the house’s creaking stairs, and he fidgets, looking around for something to hold his interest while she’s gone. The jars on her shelves have labels he can’t read, the letters all angles and straight lines without near enough difference for him to make out what they are. He wonders if it’s a personal cipher, or if the northlanders have writing of their own after all.

  When she comes back, she’s carrying a battered cloth cap, dull coal gray, like the one the Harwood stable boy wears when the weather’s cool. “You can give it back to him when you catch up to him,” she says as she holds it out to Colin. “And in the meantime, it’ll make you a little less of a beacon.”

  “Thank you.” He takes the hat, trying not to think too hard about the vermin that must be living in it. Between this and his torn, stained coat, he doesn’t think he looks much like heir to an estate anymore. He puts Gabriel’s hat on and tries to tuck his hair up under it.

  “You should cut it,” Deirdre says, which seems a bit much to Colin, really—he hasn’t had his hair short since he was out of nursery. “But that’ll do, most likely. Have you weapons?”

  Colin thinks of Gabriel’s ever-present knives. “No. I’d never needed them until the night I met him.”

  “Take what you left here, then.” Deirdre shepherds him into the front room. The brass knuckles are still sitting on the mantle. The metal is cold in his hand. “And take one last piece of advice, if you’ll have it.”

  “Of course,” Colin says. He’s not bound to follow it, is he? And she’s helped him so far.

  Deirdre looks him straight on, her eyes cold and gray as the sky outside. “Be the dragon,” she says. Colin opens his mouth to protest, and she raises a hand to still him. “It’s madness, true. But it’ll help you all the same. Gabriel didn’t take in some wayward lordling in a fancy pirate costume. You’ve more to you than that. Remember it.”

  The comment about his clothes makes Colin bristle, even though he thinks she meant for there to be a compliment in there, too. He makes himself take a deep breath and answer politely enough for a tale. “Thank you again for the tea, and for all your help.” He gives her a little bow, and she nods.

  “You’re welcome to both of them, Drake. Now go find Gabriel.”

  No wonder Gabriel thinks she’s a witch, Colin thinks as he sets out from her house. She’s not above twisting things to make her prophecies come true.

  To be fair, he could be fighting it more vehemently; he’s found what he thinks is Sparrow Street now, and is following its gentle incline toward the harbor. The day has stayed cold, the sun too stubborn to part the clouds, and the air feels thick like winter’s rain might arrive early tonight. Colin stuffs his hands in his pockets and walks faster.

  He finds Cypress with no difficulty, and parts of it are even familiar, the sunken cobblestones and ragged holes in the street, the houses he’d swear have seen battles, not just storms, to wear them down.

  At one of the cross s
treets, he pauses, not sure if he’s found Gabriel’s tenement house after all. A boy about his own age slinks out of the destroyed houses off to his left and looks him up and down with slow, calculating familiarity. It’s a stare that asks what he’s worth, what he could be taken for.

  Colin thinks of dragons, of bright blood pooling on dusty floorboards, and meets the boy’s stare without flinching. His lip curls back in a snarl, and he fits his hand into the shape of his weapon. He’s killed two men in as many days, hasn’t he? And they were more fearsome than this.

  The boy only smirks, and steps back casually, leaning against the wall to let Colin walk past. There’s more noise after that, as Colin keeps going south—shifting and settling sounds among the wreckage, as if more people are coming out of the shadows to watch him pass. The hairs stand up on the back of his neck as he tries not to turn around, tries to pretend he has no reason to worry. There are higher stakes to this bluff than he likes; he’s more than half sure the only thing saving him right now is the fact that each of his watchers wants someone else to try him first.

  He can see the gates of the cemetery up ahead now, half-open and rusted, black iron hidden by dead vines and drooping cypress branches. Colin clenches his fists and reminds himself not to hurry. He’ll get there just fine.

  Right before he reaches the gate, there’s a scrape of masonry and a clatter of stone, like someone moving in a hurry on unstable footing. He looks back when he’s halfway through the gates, and sees the street people slinking away, fading into the broken buildings instead of following him any further.

  Somehow, he doesn’t find that reassuring.

  Even without that ill omen, he’s not sure he’d be terribly at ease inside the gates. The ground is uneven, sunken in some spots, tombs leaning drunkenly as though the earth is trying to escape from under their weight. The granite is mostly covered by moss, and the memorial sculptures are weathered, limbs broken off and faces worn down to blank, empty stares. Nothing comes here to graze, so the grass is knee-high where it’s not crowded out by brambles or overshadowed by the spreading cypress trees. The remnants of a path, broken flagstones giving way to weeds, lead back past the first graves, toward the more elaborate mausoleums in the heart of the cemetery.

  It’s hardly the Lady’s house, unless there’s some particular monument in the back somewhere that’s grand enough to suit her. More like the Lady’s garden, all these wild things growing without restraint, feeding on the deaths of men. Colin edges down the path, looking for signs of life.

  “Gabriel?” he calls when he’s come around a bend in the path and can’t see the gate anymore. “Gabriel, it’s Drake. Are you here?” There’s no answer, and he’s starting to feel like this was a mistake. He should be too old for ghost stories, but the blank, water-stained faces of carved stone children unnerve him, and the street toughs’ refusal to follow him inside makes it worse.

  If he were more clever, he thinks, he’d be able to track Gabriel; he’d know how to catch the signs of a human passing, and follow them—and then what? He’d have Gabriel at bay when he didn’t want to be found, and that wouldn’t be any good either.

  A rustle of brush off to one side makes Colin start. Despite his better judgment, he looks for the greenish white of a trailing shroud as much as for the drab browns of Gabriel’s clothes. There’s nothing, only the slight movement of the brambles where a squirrel or a rat must have dived for cover a moment before. Gabriel’s stories are only that, Colin reminds himself. Nobody sees the Lady.

  All the same, he tenses at a new sound, this time a scrape of stone that no small animal would make. “Gabriel?” he calls again. “Deirdre sent me to find you.”

  Bits of gravel fall from one of the larger mausoleums, rustling into the grass, and Gabriel peers over the edge of its roof. “Drake?” he asks doubtfully.

  “Come down,” Colin says, looking up at him. “I’ve come back after all.”

  “Have you?” Gabriel sounds wary, like he doesn’t trust his own eyes and suspects a trap. He perches on the edge of the mausoleum, his knees drawn up in a crouch and his hands resting on them. “Are you sure?”

  Colin hesitates. Deirdre’s advice didn’t include the answer to questions like that. “Yes,” he says after a moment. “I’m sure.” He makes himself meet Gabriel’s eyes, since that seemed to reassure him before. “Come down from there, Gabriel. I can’t see you so well.”

  Gabriel makes a thoughtful noise, cocking his head to one side like a crow. “You really did come back, didn’t you? I thought maybe I was just having another bad time, but you talk like the real Drake.”

  “I am the real Drake.” A prickle of foreboding raises the hair on the back of Colin’s neck. That’s three times he’s called himself Drake, once to Deirdre and twice in the cemetery. If you tell the same lie three times, people say, then all of the Fates have heard it. “I couldn’t go back to my own kind,” he says carefully. “Because of the city’s guard. So I—I can stay with you for a while.” A little shiver wracks him, and he tells himself it’s just the chill air. “Until my people come for me.”

  “Ah,” Gabriel says. “Do you think that’ll take long?”

  Colin swallows uncomfortably. “It might. I don’t really know. This has never happened to me before.”

  Gabriel nods, silent for a moment, then pushes himself off the mausoleum’s roof to land on the grass in front of Colin. “Well,” he says as he recovers his balance, “I suppose you’ll need looking after, if you’re going to learn to live in the city.” He brushes his hands together, dusting off dirt that Colin can’t see.

  “Gabriel . . .” Colin hesitates. He doesn’t particularly want to ask, but he needs the answer: “You do know that I’m not really a dragon, don’t you? You know it’s fancy?”

  Gabriel glances at him for barely an instant and then drops his gaze. “I know sometimes I see things that aren’t what people think I’m supposed to see. And sometimes they get upset if I say so.” His voice is tight and unhappy. “You’re a rich man’s son, filthy and lost, somewhere you don’t belong. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “It’s what I needed to know.” Colin bites down on the urge to apologize. It was a reasonable question.

  “Right, then.” Gabriel nods decisively and straightens up like he’s feeling better, even if he still isn’t looking Colin in the eye. “You promised me sausages yesterday.”

  “I did.” Relief washes through Colin at the reprieve. “Come on, we’ve probably got a walk ahead of us before we get to anyplace we can buy sausages.”

  At the cemetery gates, Gabriel pauses and finally meets Colin’s gaze. “Still,” he says, smug and airy, “I like the dragon you better.”

  The next few days are blissfully less eventful than the first two. In the mornings, they go up to Market Street, and Colin does his best to look inconspicuous while Gabriel steals food—bread, apples, and once a soft, flaky pastry full of ground, sweetened nuts. By the third morning, Colin stops feeling guilty about not paying; his silver is disappearing much more quickly than he’d like as he pays for their other meals, which are more difficult to steal. Gabriel remarks on the voracious appetites of dragons when Colin keeps asking about the meat in the taverns where they find their supper; Colin realizes only then that it might be a luxury he’ll have to go some days without. They aren’t in the taverns only for food, either; sitting by the fire is free of charge, if they’ve bought food or drink, and the company’s less of a gamble than it is around the stray fire pits of Casmile’s south end.

  When Colin complains of the cold, after a night when he could see his breath on their way home, Gabriel takes that as a challenge. He leads the way on an expedition through the southern half of the city until they find an ill-guarded washing line, where he helps himself to another blanket. They boost their way up onto the roofs for a giddy, rushed escape that leaves them both laughing breathlessly when they collapse in a heap on a rooftop some dozen streets away, the damp blanket draped over the
m both like an odd-smelling woolen trophy. Colin’s stitches ache and itch, but it’s bearable. The air is crisp and sweet up here, and the sky overhead is a vibrant, glorious blue.

  The weather turns that night; Colin wakes at one point in the dark and listens to the drum of rain on the roof, the soft huff of Gabriel’s breathing, the slow drip of water into the weak floorboards beside the window. He misses the warmth of his own room, the ease of having meals ready when he wants them, the way he can make Anna laugh. But he’s been having quite the adventure, hasn’t he? And Gabriel never leaves him time to be bored. There’s always some new kind of trouble they can get into. The thought is a strange sort of comfort as he drifts back to sleep.

  By morning, the rain has stopped. When he opens his eyes, Gabriel is already awake, already sliding out from under the covers to find his boots.

  “In a hurry?” Colin asks sleepily.

  Gabriel nods. “We’ve a ways to go if we want to get there before it starts.”

  Colin scrubs the sleep out of his eyes and sits up. “Before what starts?” Sometimes he wonders if Gabriel imagines conversations they haven’t actually had, and picks up in the middle of them thinking he’s making sense.

  “The hanging,” Gabriel says. “It’s week’s end today.”

  “You’re keeping better track than I am.” That means it’s been six days since they met, since the night that Colin chose the wrong tavern in which to find a room and fell into Gabriel’s blurry reflection of Casmile like a boy in a nursery tale.

  Gabriel shrugs, as if that’s nothing to remark on, as if he hasn’t seemed more than half moon-touched for most of the week. “You’ve never had reason to keep count of the days, have you?”

  “And you have?” Colin reaches for his boots. “I haven’t seen you working an honest trade yet.”

  “We have so much in common,” Gabriel says, with a smile that looks so ordinary it’s disconcerting. “But the hanging’s as good a reason as any to keep track, isn’t it? My coin’s run out completely, and your purse is looking thin lately, too.”