Giddon blotted another tear.
“Hava?” he said.
“Yes?” she said, warily, not looking up from the map.
“You can talk to me.”
Her mouth went hard. “Bully,” she said. Then she pulled inside herself, that way she did when she wanted to pretend he wasn’t there. It wasn’t something she did with her Grace; it was just something she did. She turned and began walking.
“Wait,” Giddon said, taking her sleeve.
“Hey! No grabbing!” she said, yanking her arm away.
“Wait!” he said again between clenched teeth, for he wasn’t stopping her because of their conversation. He was stopping her because he’d just caught sight of someone in the square, someone he almost didn’t recognize, so strange was it to encounter her in Ledra.
“What is it?” said Hava quietly, understanding.
“There’s a pale, blond woman walking toward a staircase,” he said, turning to admire a fountain nowhere near the woman, “with a tall brown man in a long fur coat, you see? The woman is wearing a light yellow coat.”
“I saw her,” said Hava, who turned to admire the fountain with him. “So?”
The more Giddon thought about this, the stranger it was. “She’s an Estillan Graceling,” he said. “Her name is Trina. She’s one of the first people I ever led through the tunnels to Monsea. Last I knew, she’d found employment in a hotel in eastern Monsea, near the silver mines. So what’s she doing here?”
“What’s her Grace?”
“She can find hidden objects.”
Hava paused, giving a little annoyed shake of her head. “Be more specific.”
Giddon remembered the passage through the tunnels with Trina, who’d been quiet, almost aloof. She’d had no family. Nor had she shown much interest in the others who’d made up the escape party, until one of them had referred to her Grace as a party trick. Then her uneven eyes had flared.
“Say you’ve lost something,” he said, “like a piece of jewelry or a memento. Or say there’s something you want, but you don’t know where to find it, or even if it exists, like a starfish on a beach, or”—he used the example from the tunnels—“a seam of gold in the walls of a tunnel. As long as she understands the essence of that object, she can find it.”
“Could she find Bitterblue’s body?” asked Hava abruptly, and Giddon was undone again.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe? The ocean might be too deep.”
“Should we ask her?”
“Will you slow down?” said Giddon, who badly didn’t want to think about that yet. “First, could we figure out why she’s here?”
Together, with casual disinterest, they watched the woman and the man approach a deep blue building with gold trim, halfway up the staircase. Giddon realized, with another spark of recognition, that he also recognized the man. “That fellow was at dinner last night,” he said. “His name is Arni Devret. His wife, Mara Devret, is a politician. She was one of the more thoughtful people at the table.” In fact, Mara had deflected the conversation away from Giddon in the moments when Giddon had most needed to be left alone.
Outside the blue building, Arni Devret and Trina said their goodbyes. Then he entered the building and she walked up the staircase to the street above, on her own.
“I suppose Trina could stand before Bitterblue’s silver mines and know if they contained zilfium?” said Hava.
Chapter Eleven
Curiosity propelled them up the staircase to the building, which was tall and narrow, wedged between other businesses. A small sign on the wall read “Bank of Flag Hill” in elegant, gold-gilded letters.
“Shall we see what we can learn about Trina?” asked Giddon.
“On what pretext?”
“We want to walk to the Keep without getting caught in any more ambles,” said Giddon. “He can give us directions.”
“Weak, but acceptable, if it’s the best you can do.” Hava tried the door. “Locked.”
“Is there a knocker?”
“Here’s a bellpull,” she said, yanking on a thick gold chain that hung beside the door. “Oh, balls,” she said as the chain came away in her hand. Above them, sparks sounded, then a row of lamps whooshed into flame.
“Hava!” said Giddon, for what he knew was his third and last time.
“Listen, how was I supposed to know?”
“You can’t just yank at things in a strange city!”
As Hava shot him a look suggesting that this was the stupidest aphorism she’d ever heard, the door opened. Arni Devret stepped out, big and broad, with eyes that were mild like Bitterblue’s. Did everything in this city have to remind him of Bitterblue?
Arni knew Giddon immediately. “Giddon!” he said.
“Hello,” said Giddon in Keepish. “How are you, sir? I’m afraid we’ve lit your lamps.”
“Oh?” Arni said, glancing upward. “So I see.”
“I’m afraid we’ve also broken your lamps,” said Giddon, nudging Hava, who held the gold chain out to Arni.
“I’m sorry,” she said in Keepish. “I thought it was a bellpull.”
“Bellpull?” repeated Arni in slight confusion, his dark eyes touching the chain, then resting on Hava’s face.
“A chain you pull that makes a bell ring inside,” she said.
“Oh! A doorbell,” he said. “Think nothing of it. It’s the most natural mistake. You weren’t at dinner last night, but I believe you must be Hava?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Arni Devret. How are you feeling today, Giddon? Recovered from the water?”
“I’m well, thank you,” Giddon said evenly, wondering if everyone in Ledra knew about his near-drowning escapade. I’m going to ask the Council to send me someplace new, he told Bitterblue. Some corner of the earth where no one’s heard of us. Or maybe I’ll go home. To my real home, I mean. King Randa has accused me of treason. If he catches me on my lands, he’ll execute me. Should I go home?
Then he was ashamed of himself for asking her that.
“You both look cold,” said Arni.
Giddon supposed he was cold. He wasn’t paying much attention to his body. When Arni ushered them inside, he numbly followed.
* * *
—
Arni Devret was, apparently, the owner of this bank. After asking a small man wearing glasses to bring them tea, he led them up a flight of stairs to what seemed to be his private office.
“I believe your wife was kind to me last night,” Giddon said.
“It was cruel for Minta Varana, or any of the Varanas, to expect you to sit through a formal dinner on such a day,” said Arni gravely, herding them past a desk the size of a bed, to a group of armchairs arranged before a fireplace. “Some of us were there for the sole purpose of policing their conversation.”
“Oh,” said Giddon. “I had no idea.”
“Scholars are opportunists,” said Arni. “Sit down, please. The Devrets have always been on the side of the Industrialists. My own wife is an elected Industry rep in Parliament; it’s the party of practicality and progress. Now, what can I do for you?”
“We wanted to meet with the Lienid envoy at the Keep,” said Giddon, “but we’ve already gotten trapped in one of your ambles. We were hoping you could direct us around the others.”
“Oh, dear,” said Arni, rising and striding away. After ruffling through the drawers of his desk, he came back with a small stack of cards.
“Keep one of these with you,” he said, passing half of the stack to Giddon and half to Hava. “Give one to everyone in your delegation. Show them to the guards anytime you find yourself at a crossroads where you’re not allowed to proceed.”
Studying one of the cards in his hands, Giddon read the heading “Amble Pass.” Under the heading, printed letters proclaimed: “The individual bearing thi
s pass has an official function in this amble on behalf of the Bank of Flag Hill, a registered business.”
Giddon touched his fingers to the elaborate printed border on the card, the date of its expiration, and the raised seal that said “Ledra Magistry. Penalty for misuse.”
“Wouldn’t we be misusing this?” he asked. “We don’t have business with your bank.”
“Oh, the penalty is generally for counterfeiting a pass, not carrying one. The guards never question your business. Most Ledrans carry a pass they picked up somewhere.”
“Do you mean most wealthy Ledrans?” asked Hava.
Arni’s mouth twitched into a smile. “People who live here know the locations of the ambles,” he said. “Those who lack passes know how to navigate around them. Now, have your tea, and once you’re sufficiently warm, I’ll accompany you to the Keep. My son, Mari, is an academy student. It’ll give me an excuse to visit him.”
As they drank, Hava asked Arni so many questions that Giddon was able to retreat into a kind of stupor. Raise cup to face, tip liquid in. Think nothing, feel nothing. Parts of their conversation jabbed him into sudden awareness that Bitterblue would never learn what Hava was learning. The difference between Scholars and Industrialists. Which of the two parties tended to hold more power, win more elections, and influence more policy: the Scholars, though Parliament was evenly split at the moment, which made Arni hopeful. Whether it was unfair to the Industrialists that the Keep sat adjacent to the academy, which was the Scholars’ domain: Yes.
“But Winterkeep had a monarch once too, just like you,” Arni explained, “hundreds of years ago. Our kings and queens established the academy, and lived there, in the Keep. All the nation’s nobility were educated at the academy. Our scholars, with a small s, were the advisers to the monarchs. Winterkeep has a long history of a government run by scholars, which eventually led to the Party of Scholars. The Party of Industry has had to struggle to establish itself from the beginning of the two-party system. Personally, I think our progress has been admirable.”
“Quona Varana told us that the Scholars are the party of the environment,” said Hava. “That’s why they vote against zilfium use.”
Arni’s smile was sunny. When he spoke, it was in a manner Giddon was starting to recognize: the patient, deliberately reasonable tone he used when he was explaining something he thought foolish.
“She would say that,” he said. “It’s her obligation; it’s the message that gets her family elected. The Varanas have voters because they touch a part of the popular imagination. Quona pretends to be un-political, but she’s perfectly aware of what she represents. She communes with animals, you understand? From her house on her cliff above the sea, she forms relationships with silbercows, or so she says. I understand that silbercows are selective about whom they talk to, and we only have her word that they talk to her. She also makes her home a haven for stray cats. And so, people imagine her to be a protector, like a hero in the fairy tales. She symbolizes something idealistic a lot of people like, but fail to see the impracticality of. The reality is that Winterkeep will be left in the dust behind the zilfium engines of the other Torlan nations if we don’t change our laws. And the other reality is something she’s unlikely to let you see behind her carefully crafted image: Quona is a Varana. The Varanas are airship magnates. The only mode of transportation we have in Winterkeep besides horsepower is airships. We don’t have trains like the rest of Torla. The Varanas have a monopoly on the production, leasing, and private sale of airships in Winterkeep; as such, they largely control the movement of the Mail and the Magistry; and they closely guard the secrets of airship technology. Naturally they don’t want the zilfium laws to change. It would ruin their transportation monopoly. Quona wants to protect the environment because doing so protects her fortune.”
It was remarkable, thought Giddon, how comfortable it was to sit beside this fire and listen to Arni’s warm, gravelly voice deliver disillusionment and cynicism. He sounded perfectly sincere. Giddon sensed no falseness, and wondered whom to believe. No one? Everyone? He glanced across the room at Arni’s big, stark desk, then decided Arni probably led all bank visitors to these armchairs near the crackling fireplace, even petitioners for loans. Even people who’d defaulted on their loans. Something about Arni’s manner, gentle, polite, and certain, made Giddon think that he offered people warm drinks and a comfortable chair before telling them that they were bankrupt and the bank would be seizing all of their property.
“How are you feeling?” said Arni. “Warmer? Shall I show you the way to the Keep?”
* * *
—
Arni led them across town with an avuncular sort of concern for their tired feet, their level of warmth, their disorientation.
“See?” he said at one point, gesturing toward a simple, graceful iron archway, decorated with small lamps, over the entrance to a street. “That’s a sign of an opening to an amble.”
But the next amble opening they passed was different, a stone arch covered with ivy, and most of the arches they passed weren’t openings to shopping areas at all. So Giddon gained no faith in these supposed signs.
“Mm-hm,” murmured Hava, noticing his face. “You just have to know.”
The last part of their route took them through the academy campus, which was like a small city of its own: white stone buildings set behind high stone walls; sweeping, well-kept yards and neat paths; gardens of flowers that even now, in this cold, pushed pink petals up through blankets of snow. Giddon’s heart ached at the spaciousness and beauty of the Winterkeep Academy. He saw keenly that it was the kind of institution Bitterblue could only ever have dreamed of creating in Monsea, with or without the money she’d lost in the sales to the zilfium importers. Students crossed the paths together, laughing, shouting, not even looking around, as if their surroundings were nothing to them. Giddon hated them, then was ashamed for hating rich, self-centered children. He’d been that kind of child.
The campus was built on sloped land that rose to a place where a long stairway began, climbing steeply to the crest of a hill. Atop that hill sat a big white building with wide columns and a dome: the Keep, which had used to be the home of Winterkeep’s monarchs. Flags flew to either side of the building’s entrance, a deep blue sea below a sky of gold. At the bottom of the sea lurked a large purple shape, rather formless. On the water’s surface, purple silbercows swam.
They stopped at the base of the steps. “I almost forgot,” said Giddon, who hadn’t forgotten at all, but wanted it to seem like an afterthought. “We saw you walking with someone I know, a woman from home named Trina.”
A knowing light came into Arni’s eyes. “Ah, yes,” he said, “Trina. She’s a well-known figure here, but one around whom we’re all a bit awkward, I’m afraid. Of great use to many, yet few invite her into their homes. Or their banks,” he said with a quick, rueful smile. “I have safety-deposit boxes, you see. And personal safes, and a vault. I’m charged not only with keeping my clients’ possessions secure, but in some cases, with keeping their existence secret.”
“You let me into your bank,” said Hava, “not knowing what my Grace is.”
Her directness seemed to surprise Arni, who glanced into Hava’s face, almost involuntarily. Giddon wondered if he was seeking out her Graceling eyes.
“I asked your doctor, Coran, about your Grace at dinner last night,” he admitted.
“I could use it to rob your bank,” she said, which elicited another surprised glance, then a chuckle.
“I suppose so, yes,” he said, “but that would be an unexpected occupation for a member of the Monsean delegation.”
“But not unexpected for Trina?”
“I would never seriously imply such a thing,” he said. “And I don’t associate with her enough to know what she would do. But she’s said to offer her location services for money, without much in the way of scruples.”
/> “Scruples?” said Giddon, who didn’t know the Keepish word.
“Ethical considerations,” said Arni. “And I’m afraid that whenever something goes missing, people talk of her. You’ll think us terribly rude, even backward. We’re unaccustomed to Gracelings, you see.”
“Gracelings are accustomed to backward attitudes,” said Hava. She spoke without apparent offense, but also without sympathy, and Arni didn’t seem to know how to respond. It was interesting, Giddon thought, to watch his discomfiture at standing in the truth of his own discourtesy. Hava, of course, showed no discomfiture whatsoever.
“Do many things go missing in Ledra?” asked Giddon.
Arni seemed grateful for the distraction of the question. “Not from my bank, I can promise you. But a few friends have misplaced important objects in their homes recently.”
“If you tell us what they are,” said Hava, “we’ll keep an eye out for them.”
“They aren’t objects you’re likely to stumble across,” he said, with perfect equanimity. “Now, do you know your way around the Keep?”
“We do, thank you,” said Giddon, who knew nothing about the Keep aside from what he could see as he looked up at it from the bottom of the steps.
“Then I’ll leave you to it,” said Arni. “I hope you’ll let me know if your business in Monsea, or perhaps with that Council of yours, ever puts you in need of a foreign bank.” He smiled at Giddon’s carefully blank face. “We have privacy laws here that often surprise and delight foreigners, especially those with secrets. I’ll go find my son now. Good day to you.”
And he was off, gliding along a path that led down into the academy campus.
“He just offered to help us manage the funding for any illegal activities we’re a part of,” Giddon said, relieved to return to Lingian. Speaking Keepish was tiring. “You did hear that, didn’t you?”
“Whatever,” said Hava. “How many foxes do you see watching us?”
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