The Imposters of Aventil

by Marshall Ryan Maresca

  Pemmick scowled, sitting on the cot. “I am not a fan of luck. It feels like belief in a fickle faith.” He thought deeply for a moment, looking like what he wanted to say was almost painful for him. Finally he said quietly, “Blessed might be a better word for you.”

  “Blessed, Reverend?” Veranix asked. He could tell the reverend wasn’t using the word lightly—he was using it in its saintly context. “I wouldn’t make that claim.”

  “What else would you say? Random fortune being responsible for your continued survival strikes me as shortsighted. For example—how was that unpleasantness on campus stopped?”

  “You’re going to have to be more specific, Rev.”

  “A few months ago, at the Ceremony of Letters. It was stopped while you were holding off the two assassins. When we met.”

  The reverend had told Veranix he’d seen him as an image of Saint Benton during that fight with Bluejay and Magpie two months ago. That was what had made him decide to help Veranix. Veranix tried not to think too much on that revelation. Being compared to a saint in any context was disquieting.

  “Right,” Veranix said. “I didn’t have anything to do with that, really. My friends did it, disrupting the alchemical magic.”

  “And how did they do it?”

  Veranix realized the reverend was using the Method of Questions, like all his least favorite professors used. He wanted Veranix to reach a conclusion he had already made. Veranix sipped at the tea and played along.

  “They used the napranium rope,” he said, pointing to it, draped across the chair in the corner of the cell. “Channeling the numina powering the alchemy away from the campus—”

  “And to?”

  “To the cloak, and me, in Cantarell Square.”

  “Which did what?”

  “Saved me from being killed by Bluejay and Magpie. Yes, I know, Rev, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “I’m not done, son,” Pemmick said. “This part is important. Why did your friends have that rope and not you?”

  “Kai brought it with her hoping Del could use it to track me—”

  “Yes, but why was it available to her? Why didn’t you have it?”

  “It wasn’t working right. Bluejay cut it in our first fight.”

  “Rather peculiar, hmm?” Pemmick asked. “A small event—inconsequential—cascaded to other events that proved crucial for saving your life, as well as everyone on campus.”

  “And you’re trying to convince me I’m not lucky?”

  “Luck? And not the design of a higher power?”

  “No,” Veranix said, his emotions suddenly rising up in his chest. He got up from the cot and picked up his shirt. He was so stricken, he could barely get words out. “My life—you would have me—by design?” was all he managed at first.

  “You’re upset, obviously—”

  His real feelings found voice, “You want me to believe that I’m living a plan set for me by God or the saints? Did they kill my father, destroy my mother, just to set me on it?”

  “That’s not quite what I—”

  “That they would make me suffer to be their instrument?”

  “Most of the saints suffered. But they still chose what was right. I see that in you.”

  “I’m sorry, Rev, I have a hard time swallowing that. I’d far prefer the terrible things in my life have been just part of normal tragedy. Don’t tell me it’s a path to beatification.”

  The reverend was silent for a bit. “I’m sorry.”

  “I need to get moving. Folks on campus will be worried.” He started to get dressed.

  “Before you leave, I may have a solution for your other problem.”

  “You’re going to have to be more specific.”

  Reverend Pemmick laughed. “You told me about these . . . Deadly Birds. You fear they’ll be hunting you.”

  “Right,” Veranix said. “If you’ve got a solution to that, I’m listening.”

  “You know that the various gang captains meet in the church as a neutral ground. They respect it as a place of peace.”

  Veranix didn’t explicitly know that, but he nodded. “Sure.”

  “Perhaps we can arrange a similar parley between you and these Birds.”

  “I’m for it,” Veranix said. If they thought he killed Emilia, Bluejay, and those others Bluejay named, then he’d need a chance to explain himself. One less problem on his shoulders right now. “How would we even do that? Colin?”

  Pemmick shook his head. “This morning a different Rose Street Prince captain visited in the early hours, and when I inquired about your cousin, she implied that he is being kept quite busy right now by his bosses. I fear he is out of favor.”

  “He’s got plenty of problems, and I shouldn’t add to them.”

  “The Prince captain has already left, but she met with one of the Waterpath Orphan captains. I think she might be someone we can use to contact the Birds.”

  Veranix wasn’t sure how he felt about the Orphans. They didn’t seem to care for Fenmere—holding the line between Aventil and Dentonhill mattered to them. Maybe that was enough. Maybe he should be friendlier with the other Aventil gangs. Or at least cordial.

  “And it might be best if you take a few actions so those on the streets do not think you favor the Princes,” Pemmick said, as if he had heard his thoughts.

  “She’s still here?”

  “I instructed her to wait, taking her back to my study. Though we should probably not leave her alone any longer.”

  “All right,” Veranix said, grabbing the last of his gear and putting it on. He pulled the hood over his head and magicked the mask of darkness over his face. “Let’s go talk to her.”

  They went up to Pemmick’s study, where the Orphan captain was waiting restlessly, twirling one of her knives around absently. She looked like a Waterpath Orphan—dingy, shabby clothes, scars on her cheeks.

  “Yessa?” the reverend said as they entered. “Apologies for making you wait.”

  “I ain’t got much better place to be, Rev, so—saints on fire!”

  That was when she saw Veranix.

  “Morning to you, too,” Veranix said, augmenting his voice to echo when he spoke.

  “That—” she said, pointing with her knife, as if she didn’t realize how threatening that appeared, “that is the rutting Thorn, Reverend.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Pemmick said.

  “Me too,” Veranix said.

  “I didn’t know you wanted me to wait to church meet with the Thorn. Blazes, I thought—” She chuckled, shaking her head. “Don’t matter. So, Thorn. Pleasure to meet you.”

  “Yessa, was it?”

  “Yessa, indeed. No one’s daughter and no one’s mother. What does the Thorn want from me?”

  “I’ve got a bit of a problem—”

  She burst out laughing. “I’d say. The sticks want you locked up, the Princes want you knocked around, and Fenmere’s folk put two thousand crowns on your head.”

  “I’ve heard that figure as well,” Veranix said.

  “I’m surprised the sticks aren’t after you to cash in on that,” Yessa said. She sat down in one of the chairs, flipping the knife absently. “I can tell you, Orphans won’t go for that. Not for two thousand. Mostly because they wouldn’t want to do Fenmere the favor.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “So we have some common ground,” Pemmick said. “I had hoped you would.”

  “You got something for my throat, Reverend? Wine or cider?”

  “It’s nine bells in the morning.”

  “And I’ve got to parley with the Thorn, so I need a bit of a kick.”

  Pemmick sighed and went to a cabinet.

  “So Orphans wouldn’t want to hurt me—”

  “I didn’t say that. But you fight Fenmere, b
roke up the Rabbits, and are pissing off the Princes and the sticks, so I like your style.”

  She was giving him credit for things the imposters had done, but he wasn’t going to bother to disabuse her of that notion.

  “The Deadly Birds might be coming after me,” Veranix said. “They think I’ve been hunting them.”

  “Haven’t you? I heard about that tussle in Cantarell Square.” She took the wine offered from the reverend. A sip, and she added, “You watered it.”

  “Allow me that,” he said.

  Veranix waved off the cup he was offered. The Thorn needed to have some mystique, and what little he had left with Yessa would bleed out on the floor if he was drinking wine. “I’m not interested in the Birds, but I also can’t have them coming after me. I have enough concerns.”

  “Fine, but what the blazes do you think I can do about it?”

  “I want to talk to them. Here. Tonight. At midnight.”

  “And you think I can set that up?”

  “Can you?” Pemmick asked.

  She thought about it for a moment. “All right, I may know someone who can contact the Birds. I’ll see if I can get them here.”

  “Good. Let the reverend know if you do.” Veranix went to leave.

  “Hey, Thorn!” she shouted. “Let’s make one thing clear. You’re gonna owe the Orphans a favor. That’s a marker I am going to get my crowns for.”

  “Fair enough,” Veranix said. Time to add in a bit of that mystique. “But you better earn what you ask for.” That sounded enough like a vague threat to exit on, magicking up black curls of smoke and darkness to surround himself with before slipping out the door.

  Of course, had anyone been in the hallway, that bit of theater would have looked ridiculous. He shrouded himself and went up to the bell tower. Time to get back home to the campus before Kaiana and the others burned the city down looking for him.

  Colin had been through more than his share of sewage, especially from the bosses, and he’d take whatever came his way. But nothing felt stranger and wronger to him than what he had to do this morning.

  He knocked on the door of his old flop, where his old crew were still crashed in, so he could ask their captain for help.

  He could hear the double-latch flip inside, and the door opened up. Tooser, that great big lug, opened it up just enough to look through.

  “Hey there, Toos,” Colin said. “How you doing?”

  “What are you doing here, Colin?”

  “I’m a Prince, this is a Prince flop, ain’t it?”

  “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “When did we turn Princes away when I was the cap here, Toos?”

  “That ain’t it—”

  “And I need to talk to your captain,” Colin said. “So open the blazing door.”

  Tooser paused. “She ain’t here right now.”

  “Where the blazes is she?”

  “Does she answer to you or something?”

  “Sweet saints, Tooser, why are you making this so blasted hard?”

  “Because I know what you did,” Tooser said, nearly spitting in Colin’s face as he said it. Colin wasn’t about to take that.

  “What do you think I did?”

  “You left Jutie in the wind.”

  That hit Colin right in the gut, because it was true. Colin had to choose between fighting sticks to save Jutie, or saving Veranix. “I didn’t have a choice . . .”

  “You choose to be loyal to your crew, the bodies under you. That’s what being a captain is supposed to mean.”

  “It wasn’t like that, Toos . . .”

  Before he could continue, Deena strolled up the alley to the door, smile brighter than two full moons. “Colin Tyson, what can we do for you?”

  “We’ve got a job to do, you and me,” Colin said.

  “You’re taking my crew, Tyson?” she asked.

  “No, Deena, I’m taking you. Bosses said. Whether you want to bring the rest of your crew in or not is up to you.” He wasn’t going to give her a hint of anything resembling disrespect about her being the captain of this crew now.

  “You and me, on some gig together?” she asked. “Am I being punished?”

  “Pardon?”

  “She means your partners tend to end out bad,” Tooser said. “Like your current crew.”

  “Or Cabie,” Deena added.

  “Not funny,” Colin said. “My crew got hit hard, same with Cabie’s, and we’ve got to do something about the tosser who did it.”

  “And what are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to go inside so we can talk in private, Deena,” Colin said. “So open the blazes up.”

  “What do you think, Tooser?”

  “I think I don’t like it.”

  “Tooser doesn’t like it.”

  “Oh, I see,” Colin said. “I’ll go let Old Casey know that Tooser doesn’t like the plan, so it’s not happening. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.” He stepped away from the door.

  “Hey, hey,” Deena said. “No need to be that way, Tyson. Come on in, tell us what we’re doing.”

  So naming Casey got her attention. Either she already knew what was happening, or she knew Colin wouldn’t drop Casey’s name lightly. Tooser opened the door and let them in.

  The flop was brighter and better smelling than Colin remembered it. Tooser went in the back while Deena took a jug of cider out of the cupboard—Colin could see it was far better stocked than it had ever been when this was his flop—and poured cups for the two of them.

  “So what are we doing?” she asked.

  “This guy who hit us, he’s pretending to be the Thorn—”

  “Because you know the difference between a pretender and the real thing.”

  “Yeah, I do,” Colin said. “Don’t be causing a problem about that.”

  “It’s your problem, not mine. So, this pretender.”

  “His whole thing was taking out the Red Rabbits. That’s why he hit us, because we had Sotch.”

  “All right,” Deena said. “And now you want to hit him back.”

  “Right, but we don’t know where this guy is. We got to draw him out.”

  “And how do you—oh.” She got to it quick. “Yeah, I’m the right height and build, ain’t I?”

  “Pretty much. We put out some whispers that Sotch is going to go to the church for sanctuary.”

  “Which she ain’t, because she’s dead, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “But we’re hoping this guy doesn’t realize that he won already.”

  “And when he comes, we’ll be ready for him.”

  “We better, cuz I’m the one who’ll be wearing the fur.”

  “All right, good,” Colin said. “Do we bring your crew along as backup?” He really wanted to let this be her call. He didn’t want anyone to claim he tried to push it one direction or the other.

  She thought about it for a bit, sipping at her cider. “Nah,” she said finally. “It’s got to look like we’re doing this as mouse quiet as we can manage. More bodies in the street, even if they’re discreet, it’ll look like a trap.”

  “We’ve got to presume this tosser is smart,” Colin said. “He did track down my crew’s flop, take out my folks and Cabie’s.”

  “I got something here, something Theanne put together.” She went into the back room and came back out in a moment carrying a vest. “Crazy idea the kid had, sewing some metal plates into this vest.” She put it on. “Bit bulky, but if I’m wearing a Rabbit coat over it, then an arrow is going to have a harder time finding my heart.”

  Colin nodded. “Clever. Normally it’d be obvious you were wearing it, but you’re right. With the coat, it’ll work.”

  “So how do we go with it?”

  “Meet me at this safehouse—it’s on B
ranch, just in the second alley south of Rose. Number nineteen. Come around nine bells tonight.”

  “Nine bells. Branch number nineteen. Got it. And I should bring a lot of knives?”

  “Blazes, yes. As many as you can manage.” Colin got to his feet. No reason to stick around here, especially since Tooser clearly didn’t want to talk to him. “See you then.”

  “Right,” she said, getting the door for him. “We’ll get this guy. For Cabie.”

  “For Cabie,” Colin said, heading out. The door shut behind him, and the double was loudly latched as soon as it was.

  Colin didn’t have a place to be right now, so he went to the Rose & Bush. He could be sure no other Princes would bother going in there. He could have a few ciders in peace.

  Minox met Inspector Rainey in the morning at their Constabulary House in Inemar, as they had agreed upon the night before. He had agreed to go home and sleep a full six hours, meet her at Inemar at eight bells and quickly brief their captain on their progress before going to Aventil.

  It had been a necessary step after the events of the past two nights. He had been neglectful of his health and other responsibilities. He had received a literal knock to the skull, reminding him to refresh himself to regain perspective. He had to examine the facts impartially, not filtered through the magical connection between his hand and the Thorn.

  After sending a page ahead with a note for Sergeant Tripper, he and Inspector Rainey made their way into Aventil.

  “You told the captain what’s happened in Aventil, but you weren’t forthcoming about what you think,” Rainey said.

  “I’m still processing what I think,” Minox said.

  “Is that why we’re walking to Aventil instead of taking the carriage?” she asked. “I don’t mind the walk—”

  “It helps me think it through,” Minox said. “Though once we know the identity of the woman killed on the roof last night, I think I will have significantly more information to work with.”

  “Here’s my concern, Welling. I’m not sure what your end goal in Aventil is. I have a suspicion of how things are going to end—”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “We will find and arrest someone who will satisfy the Aventil constables for the attack against Benvin and the others. This someone will likely be guilty of something, not necessarily that attack. You will be dissatisfied and have a large amount of fodder for the unresolved pile.”