“Scratching the surface of enough, but it will do. The other?”
Haval’s frown deepened. “Steals for a meager living when she can. She’s trying too hard not to notice what she could take if she thought I wasn’t paying attention. She’s a beauty,” he added, “but so are some of the running hounds that will rip your throat out for sheer pleasure. Her hands are scarred,” he added, which caused Jewel to turn to Duster in some surprise, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if she has other scars as well; knows how to survive a fight, if not unscathed. She doesn’t know how to read,” he added. “She also doesn’t wear dresses.”
“And her station?”
“Worse than the other’s. Poorer, leaner. I’d say thirty-second if I had to pin it down, but I’d guess she’s made a habit of moving around a bit.”
“Tell them how you know this.”
Haval set his cup down for the first time. “I owe Ararath a great deal,” he told both girls, “or we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all. Very well. Neither of you are comfortable in your clothing; you fidget, you play with your skirts, you chafe at your sleeves. You, curly, you’ve been reading the signage all over the store, not that there’s much of it. You’re curious about why you’re here, and who I am, and it shows.
“But you, raven, you wouldn’t be here at all if you didn’t think it would gain you something. You want whatever it is Rath has promised you badly enough to try to be something you’re not—you just haven’t figured out what that something is yet. I’d say you’re hunting,” he added. “But again, you aren’t reading anything here; you’re paying attention to where the money is, to where the small textiles—the lace, the beads, the crystals—are, you’ve taken note of entrances and exits, and how many of us there are.
“You probably think we’re unarmed.”
Duster relaxed, crossing her legs and pulling them up off the ground so she could rest her elbows on her knees. “You’re good,” she said, not grudging the words. There was genuine respect in them.
“Either of you could clean up well; either of you could pass as the daughters of struggling merchants in the Middle City. But not as you are now.” He turned to Rath. “Is that enough?”
“It’s a fair assessment, but I expected no less.”
“What do you want of me, Ararath?”
“I want you to teach them what you once taught me.”
Haval’s gray brows rose into his receding hairline, changing the shape of his narrow face until he looked almost clownlike. “Impossible.”
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Rath added, without pausing to acknowledge the single refusal. “We have a meeting in less than ten days with a Patris of some import in the city. And no, Haval, I will not bore you with the details; if you need them, you’ll figure them out on your own.”
“What is the purpose of the meeting?” Haval asked. Everything about his voice had changed, and his posture had altered significantly as well; there was steel in his spine, and he’d found it.
Rath said a very loud nothing.
“You will, of course, give me the name.”
“You don’t want it.”
“Probably not. But want and need are two different creatures, as you and I well know by now. Who, Rath? The answer you give me, and the answer I give you, are now linked.”
Rath was silent for a long, long time. Jewel was wise enough to know that she didn’t know him well, but had she been asked, she would have said he would have walked before answering. His answer, when it came, surrendered little. “I wish to involve you very little in this affair,” he told Haval. “Were it not for necessity, I would not trouble you at all.”
“That bad?”
“It is bad, Haval. Bad, as you might say, for business.”
“Then it’s not your business you’re here on. And which of these two hold your strings?”
Jewel was almost shocked.
“School your face, girl,” Haval told her. But he spoke gently. “It gives away much that Rath wishes to hold secret. Very well; he is here because of you. I hope you’re worth it. I will now assume, from Rath’s reticence and your open shock that the Patris in question is not aware of your existence at this time.”
She said nothing, and tried, very hard, to school her expression. Haval winced.
“Rath, is this wise? They are not—”
“It is not wise.”
“Very well. You know your own business.” Haval rose. “But I will have the name.”
“The name will tell you too much.”
“The name,” he said quietly, “will tell me whether we have business here at all.”
And Rath surrendered. “Patris Waverly.”
Haval’s face did not change at all; he seemed the same pleasant and oddly stern man who had led them to the room. But Jewel knew he recognized the name, and more, the unspoken history that surrounded it.
“Not that Patris, Rath.”
“We have little choice, Haval. Either you will aid us, or we will go without your aid. There is no one else I care to ask.”
“Two weeks, you said? There’s no one else you could ask.”
“That’s more or less what I said.”
“He doesn’t play games,” Haval continued, staring now at Jewel and Duster, before once again giving Rath his full attention. His expression had become utterly impassive. “Ararath, I have long held some affection for you, but affection is like any other coin once spent; it is gone. If you intend to use these girls as bait—”
Duster rose, shoving her chair back so quickly it toppled. Jewel rose almost as swiftly, catching her den-kin by the arm in a grip that could have broken bone. There was a moment in which silence was strained almost to breaking, but it eased. Jewel was relieved to see that Duster did not draw her dagger.
“I see,” Haval said, and Jewel thought he just might. “Forgive me, Ararath. I felt I had to speak plainly, and if insult was about to be offered, your friends have spared our friendship that.
“If you do not play this carefully, you’ll be dead,” Haval continued, looking at the two girls and testing their resolve. But he said it absently, in a tone of voice better suited to discussing the variants in shades of blue fabric. “What role, then, will the two of you play?”
And Duster said, “I’m going to kill him.”
Haval did not laugh. He met Duster’s gaze and held it for a long moment. “You’ve met him, I see,” he said at last, his tone completely without inflection. Without pity.
She nodded her defiance, her trembling anger.
“Very well. I will help you as I can, because I am fond of Rath. I do not consider this wise,” he added. “And I will need two full days of preparatory time before I can be of use to you.
“But I would suggest, if you have any other recourse, that you consider it carefully.”
Rath’s smile was thin, but it was there. “Believe that we have considered it carefully, and believe that,” he added, as he bent down and righted Duster’s fallen chair, “all other options were gently refused.”
Haval nodded. “They’d almost have to be, with the current state of the magisterial guards in the lower holdings.”
Rath frowned. “What news, Haval?”
“It is not appropriate to discuss it here,” Haval replied. Jewel silently added in front of the children, and clenched her teeth to stop herself from speaking.
“Perhaps not, but it bears discussion and study. You are not the only friend I’ve visited in the past few days.”
“Then I will trade information for information,” Haval replied serenely. “I will do what I can to help your young friends to adopt suitable roles, and you will share what you deem wise when the information is in your possession.”
“Wisdom plays little part in this,” Rath replied.
“It seldom does. But if you were wise, we would never have met. And I? I would be elsewhere, I think. In the Kings’ service.”
None of the words made sense to Jewel.
“Come back in two days,” Haval said to them, rising. “I have work to do in the meantime; House Havani has commissioned three very fine dresses, and Lady Havani has specifically requested that I see to their details myself. We all have to eat,” he added.
Rath laughed. It was not a kind laugh. “And Lady Havani is well?”
“She is, of course, as hale as a horse. On a rampage.”
Duster and Jewel walked back to the apartment in lock-step. Rath walked ahead in silence. The cold made itself felt in every step, every breath; the streets were as empty as they were when the moon was at nadir in the rains. Rath was angry, of course. Jewel knew it, and knew as well that there was nothing she could offer to ease his anger.
“You shouldn’t have said anything,” she told Duster quietly.
Duster was sullen, her shoulders bunched together, her skin red with either cold or embarrassment. “I had to,” she said, through clenched teeth.
“Why?”
“He—” She shook her head. “I’m not bait. I’m not—” She stopped walking, and Jewel stopped two steps ahead of her, and went back. Rath, however, kept walking, dwindling into the distant, crushed white of Winter. “I don’t understand you,” Duster said softly. Or as softly as she ever spoke. “And I don’t understand your Rath either.
“He cares about you. He wouldn’t help me if I asked; he wouldn’t lift a finger to help me.”
“He’s not like that—”
“He’s exactly like that,” Duster snapped, but without scorn. “He doesn’t like people much, and he sure as Hells doesn’t trust them. But you?” She shook her head. “He likes you well enough. I thought maybe the two of you . . .” She shook her head. “But that’s not it. I don’t understand it.”
“Does it matter?”
“No. As long as I get what I want, I don’t give a shit.”
“My Oma used to say—”
“Spare me.”
Jewel shrugged. Started to walk. It was Duster, this time, who caught up to her. “I said it because I didn’t want him to think that Rath was like—like the others. The ones who kept me chained in that damn room.”
“Why do you care?”
Duster shrugged. “Damned if I know,” she said at last. And it was true. She didn’t.
“Rath can take care of himself.”
“And you.”
“And me.” Jewel shrugged. Felt something like happiness, but thinner, and more fragile, as she met Duster’s dark eyes. In Torra, she said, “The hardest thing to figure out is what will make you happy.”
“Your Oma said that?”
“All the time.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It was just something she said. You would have liked her.”
“I doubt it.”
“She would have liked you.”
“I really doubt that.”
Jewel exhaled, her breath a mist wall between them. “I do,” she said quietly.
“Because I saved Finch.”
She nodded.
“You like Finch.”
“Yes. She’s important to me.”
“Why?”
“Because she’s Finch. She’s not very harsh, and she’s not—she’s not like me. Or you. Sometimes we need people who aren’t. My mother was never hard enough, according to my Oma, and she’s some part of me. But Duster, Finch didn’t save herself. If you hadn’t decided to help her somehow, she would have died.”
Duster said nothing.
“If I hadn’t decided to help her, she would have died.” She paused, searching for the right words when so many wrong ones waited like traps. “She didn’t need you to kill for her. She didn’t need me to do that either. But she needed both of us.”
“And we were there.” The words were bitter. “What about what I need?”
“I don’t know what you need,” Jewel replied. “Sometimes I don’t know what I need.”
“Your Oma again?”
“No, that’s just me. I’m making it up as I go. We only have now,” she added, “and yes, that part’s my Oma.”
“I’m not afraid of dying,” Duster said, as they walked. “I’m not really afraid of pain either.”
Jewel nodded. “I’m afraid of both.”
“But you came to the mansion.”
She nodded. “There are things that I’m more afraid of.”
“Like what?”
Jewel shrugged. An invitation to expose herself to Duster wasn’t going to happen every day. Thank the gods. But she felt that she owed Duster the truth. Or as much of it as she could actually see. “I’m afraid of failing,” she said quietly. “I’m afraid that I’ve made promises I can’t keep. I’m afraid,” she added, stopping again and turning to face Duster, “of losing any of you.”
Duster’s laugh was harsh and grating. Jewel accepted it, let it pass her by. Duster didn’t have any other way of laughing. Maybe she never would.
“Finch doesn’t need what you need. I don’t think any of the others do. Except Lander,” she added softly, her vision suddenly sharpening as she spoke. “I think Lander needs what you need.”
“Lander doesn’t even talk.”
“No. And I don’t think he will until we—” She stopped. Wherever this was going, she didn’t like it. But she was Jewel, her Oma’s little fire. “Until we kill Patris Waverly.” Her eyes widened a little. “You said that, then. I didn’t—I wasn’t—” She shook her head.
“I want them all dead,” Duster told her, not even noticing.
“I know. But we start where we start.” She closed her eyes. Opened them. “Thank you.”
“For what?” Duster seemed genuinely surprised.
“For trying to spare Rath. Even if you know he can take care of himself.”
Duster shrugged, retreating from the moment. Or so it appeared. But when she spoke, she said, “I’ve never had much I was afraid to lose. I wonder what it’s like.” The bitterness and envy that inflected the words weren’t all they contained; it surprised Jewel.
But today, so had Duster, if only a little.
“It’s like any other fear,” Jewel replied. “But some weaknesses are good and some are bad. I think this is a good one.”
“I don’t want it.”
Jewel said, quietly, “I know. But you saved Finch. That counts for something. It has to.”
Duster didn’t laugh. She said, “I’m trying. Not to be whatever it was they thought I’d become. But you keep harping on Finch. You want to know why I saved her?” She spoke the words with enough force, they were like a blow.
And behind that, Jewel knew she was afraid, for just a minute, of what effect those words would have. Was fighting fear the only way she knew how: By ignoring it. Worse.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It should. I saved her because they needed her dead.”
Jewel frowned. “They needed her dead?”
“They needed her dead. That’s what they said. They wanted her ’cause she wasn’t all damaged and dark, like me.” Bitter, bitter words. “I wanted her to die. She’s never had a hard life—” So unlike the words she’d spoken to Haval, and yet, they were also just as true; Jewel could hear it. Duster was never going to be simple. “But I wanted them to suffer more. That’s it. That’s the only reason.”
Before she could think, Jewel said, “That’s not the only reason.”
Duster flinched. Started to speak. Stopped. In the cold, breath like a whirling cloud all around them, she stared at Jewel Markess. Jewel stared back.
“It’s the only reason,” she said again. But the words were thinner. “It’s—the only reason that matters.”
“What’s the other one?”
Whispered words. But Duster surprised Jewel. She answered. “She was the only good thing I did there. The only thing I—the only right thing. They never guessed I could do it. They never guessed someone as fallen as me could do anything good. But—if I only ever do one good thing—she’s alive. She’s not me
. She can do the rest. And she can do whatever good—” she said the word without her usual sneer, “only because of me.”
Jewel understood, then. Why Duster had looked so angry when she had laid eyes on Finch.
“That has to count for something, right? In Mandaros’ Halls, that has to count for something.”
“It counts,” Jewel said softly. “And with more than just Mandaros. He won’t care until you’re dead.”
She fell silent, and the mists parted slowly around their faces.
Duster said, “I killed my uncle.”
And Jewel, to her own surprise, said, “He probably deserved it.” And meant it.
“That’s it?”
“What’s it?”
“That’s all you’re going to say?”
“I know that the Patris deserves death,” Jewel replied quietly. “All of them. I don’t see why your uncle was different; if you killed him, you had your reasons.”
Duster just stared at her, hand on her dagger, her eyes wide, dark eyes. Animal eyes.
“We have to get back.”
“I don’t know if I can stay. With you. With them.”
“You can. But not if you don’t want to.”
They started to walk again, two girls in dresses that were too fine, in a Winter world where anything was possible, and ice of all kinds was both deadly and thin.
Teller made a place for himself in the kitchen, at Finch’s side. Jewel should have been surprised, but she wasn’t; he had probably done the same thing at home, and finding something familiar in the midst of all that was strange just made sense. Lefty was with them, both hands by his sides; he spoke with his hands and with his voice, alternating between them, depending on whether or not they were looking. Jewel stood in the hall that was only inches away from the kitchen’s frame, looking in at their world.
It was a warm one, with fire in the woodstove and bodies radiating heat. Duster, to no one’s surprise, avoided kitchen duties with a sullen passion. Carver avoided them adroitly, and Arann did the heavy lifting—the wood, for instance. But Finch directed when Jewel wasn’t there, and Jewel was content to let her be.
The Hidden City Page 57