The Justice in Revenge

by Ryan Van Loan

  “Sin Eaters?” Govanti asked, his voice pitched for Eld’s ears alone. “Sirrah, I didn’t know they were involved.” He drew a token from his pocket and ran his thumb over the image of one of the Dead Gods—Talshur, if Eld remembered correctly. “Th-they tell stories about what the mind witches do to anyone who crosses them. Not nice stories, either,” he added.

  “Aye,” Eld said, “I’ve heard them, too.” Seen them, firsthand. “C’mon, let’s walk.”

  He started to head back down the alley, caught a whiff of the mess he’d made earlier, and swung around, his stomach whirling with him, and stepped out into the street. Govanti followed a moment later, trying to make himself small in Eld’s shadow.

  “You said someone was trying to kill you?” Eld asked, the lad’s question coming back to him. The street wasn’t as crowded as it would be once the sun passed its zenith, so they were able to keep a few paces between them and the merchants ahead of them, whose floppy hats whipped around as they argued over some failed offer to a noble. Eld glanced behind them, but the nurse trying to shepherd two small children was too distracted to overhear. “Earlier?”

  “I didn’t say someone tried to kill me. I asked if you’ve ever felt that someone was going to try to,” Govanti said. His dark-blue eyes were clouded. “After that pair nearly stabbed me to death … I—I’ve been feeling like someone’s watching me, lurking back just out of sight. There’s been a time or two I’ve doubled back and the folks on the street have looked different than the way they looked a moment before. As if something’s gone missing and I’m the only one who sees it. As if, if I’d been just a half step quicker I’d see whoever it is. Whatever it is,” he added, whispering the last.

  “You’re just spooked, Govanti,” Eld said. He could hear it in the lad’s voice. Those two nearly gutted him before I got there. “It’s natural, given what’s been going on, but you’re safe with me. With Buc.”

  “Buc?”

  Buc. What costume should I wear? He tried to remember everything his mother had said about the various styles of fancy dress and what they meant. Animals and birds and sea creatures were popular motifs, worked into the formal wear of the day. A unicorn whale means you’re looking to settle down … or does it mean the opposite? He remembered the predator types were reserved for the upper echelon of nobles, those who were close in rank to the Doga … which he supposed included them, but it would only serve to piss off the Company if he showed up wearing a wolf’s mask or a killer whale’s markings. I’m going to have to find a tailor who knows their business or look the fool.

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “What’s that, lad?”

  “Eld—does Buc know what we’re doing?”

  It was Govanti’s tone, more than the words, that pulled Eld out of his reverie. Govanti was truly scared. He steered the lad off the street and onto the walk in front of a shop with a ridiculous gilt-and emerald-painted façade. The nurse and her two charges in tow passed a moment later, the woman pleading with the brother and sister to stop running into the center of the thoroughfare where the carriages traveled or at the very least to stop kicking each other in the shins. Eld put his back to the street, blocking Govanti’s view, and forcing the boy to meet his eyes.

  “These feelings … anything else to back them up? Anyone chase you or break into your room? Anything like that?” Govanti shook his head and Eld nodded. “I don’t think you’ve anything to worry about, lad, it’s just nerves. But”—he cut Govanti off—“I want to make sure, so you keep on as you were and I’ll hang back and see if you have a tail.”

  “What if I do?”

  “Then I’ll cut that tail off,” Eld said, forcing a grin he didn’t feel. “And if you don’t, then you’ll know and be able to relax. Savvy?”

  “Savvy, sirrah.” Govanti looked up at him past the corner of his crooked tricorne. “And Signorina Buc knows about the work we’ve been doing, aye?”

  “Of course,” Eld said, surprised at how easily the lie slid past his lips. She would know, once he told her. After the Masquerade. He would have told her already, but—She wants me out of her way. The Parliamentarian wasn’t the bright lamppost he’d been hoping for, but she was enough that Buc would let it slide that he’d been using her lead fish to try to find out who was behind the attacks on the Doga.

  “That’s all right, then,” Govanti said, the tension visibly leeching from him. “If she knows, that’s all right. She watches out for us, you know?”

  “Of course,” Eld repeated. It was when she stopped watching that everything went up in flames. Like that sugar factory. “Now it’s my turn to watch.” He pressed a silver soldo into Govanti’s hand. “Why don’t you go buy a tricorne to match that new coat and I’ll keep an eye out, aye?”

  “Aye, sirrah.” Govanti tugged on his ragged cap. “Thanks, Eld!”

  Eld watched the boy saunter down the street, an ease in Govanti’s step that, now that he thought on it, hadn’t been there since Eld had assured the lad, the first time they’d met, that Eld wasn’t there to murder him. Godsdamned big imagination. Eld snorted and glanced back at the building they’d stopped in front of. Now that Govanti was taken care of, he realized the scissors and needle and thread were painted in bright, flaky green colors across the entire gilt-backgrounded width of the building.

  It was gaudy and ostentatious and exactly what he needed. If this maestro doesn’t cater to the rich attending the Masquerade, I’ll eat Govanti’s tricorne. The thought made him pause, hand on the handle, but a quick look at the street didn’t show anything out of the ordinary. A carriage waited outside a small silver- and light-purple–marbled palazzo across the street, otherwise it was mostly foot traffic and all wore silks and furs and jewels. Nodding to himself, Eld opened the door and went in.

  * * *

  The figure slid out from beneath the shadow of the carriage and made a few practiced gestures that sent another figure, dressed in the greys of paper runners, after the boy with the ragged hat. Now? Hesitating, the figure slid the finger’s length of thin steel, black wire wrapped around one end serving as a handle, back into their jacket and began walking briskly in the direction of their compatriot, never releasing their grip on the blade. If not now, soon. They quickened their step.

  30

  “The bitch went all out,” I muttered, drawing back the curtain on the carriage. The Doga’s Palacio was resplendent, with hundreds of candles and lamps bouncing light off hundreds of bronzed mirrors. The pure-white marble of the Palacio shone brighter than it did in the daylight. Scores of masks lined the gates around the courtyard, and more candlelight, and in some cases actual flames, shot out of their mouths. Acrobats, tumblers, and bards mingled amongst the guests waiting to enter via the side doors that were reserved, tonight, for merchants and nobles who had fallen on hard times or perhaps were just rising from them. Taken all together, the scene made other Festival days seem like plain, ordinary ones. This, Midwinter’s Day, was the true Festival: Masquerade.

  “I told you,” Salina said, grinning below the lion mask that covered the top half of her face. Gilded and crimson feathers were threaded through her blond hair, turning it into a mane, and with her dark-gold jacket and trousers, she looked a predator. “Now do you think we’re too over-the-top?”

  “You’re not,” I admitted. I plucked at my thin white silk sleeves; they were tight against my arms until my wrists, where they flared out and hung, obscuring my hands and marital status. It was an age-old Servenzan fashion that, with everyone wearing jackets and trousers, had become new again. “Myself? I’m not so sure.”

  “That’s because you’re not sitting where I’m sitting,” she said. “You look beautiful and dangerous and rare … and all of that whispers ‘royalty.’”

  “Doesn’t scream it?”

  “Royalty doesn’t have to scream any more than the shark or leopard does.”

  “Mmm,” I murmured.

  Joffers had taken us to the Doga’s docks, where
the Doga had scores of carriages waiting to bring her guests the rest of the way, so they wouldn’t have to dirty their finery by walking in. Salina had taken it as a given, but I’d been hoping for the chance to try my ball gown out on strangers before going in. The carriage driver made a noise and the horses clip-clopped to a dignified halt. The door swung open and a servant in the Doga’s royal livery bowed us out.

  “You look beautiful,” Salina said as she stepped down beside me, eschewing the woman’s hand. I’d taken it, unwilling to risk falling because I couldn’t see the ground, but then again, Salina was wearing a lot less material than I was. “If ever there was an outfit to drive a man clear of his senses, that’s the one.”

  “She’s right, signorina,” the servant said as she began walking toward the next carriage. “You look a gorgeous huntress. Whatever prey you’re stalking tonight … best be wary.”

  “Mission accomplished,” Salina said. We exchanged a look and giggled.

  I was glad for the mask because even with my dark skin, I was sure my cheeks burned. I glanced down at my gown and my nervousness faded. I don’t know what it is about finery that puts a person’s back to the wall—That’s not true: I do know. It’s meant to make others feel small and if you aren’t used to wearing it, it’ll make you feel small yourself. That’s how the ones who belong know when there’s an outsider amongst them: they can smell it the same way a sea otter can smell the difference between a poisonous stormswash adder and a harmless garter blue.

  Put me in my old divided riding dress or in a jacket and trousers, and I’d run roughshod over any that tried to make me feel less than, but in the finery Salina’s dressmaker had concocted, I’d felt the garter blue the whole evening. Until now. Now I felt the adder, ready to strike.

  “There it is,” Salina said. I arched an eyebrow, realized she couldn’t see it behind my mask, and made a noise in my throat. “Your bearing just changed, now you’ve the look of one who’s about to go to war. Breasts up.”

  “What about them?” I asked, patting my chest with my left hand. The gown was open across the shoulders and cut in such a way that what cleavage I had was on display, but I’d always had more to work with in my arse than my chest. It was why I’d been so quick to adopt trousers. Distract most women and every man and the battle was half-won.

  “Did I pull a thread?”

  “You haven’t had many women friends, have you?” Salina asked, chuckling.

  “No.”

  She put her hands carefully on my shoulders, knowing the reaction an unexpected touch could elicit in me. Bracing me and looking steadily into my face, she said, “You’re going to war. We went over every inch of this gown, from the colors echoing Servenzan royalty to the animal declaring you not just a rarity but a huntress worthy of any of the nobility, to the way the mask accentuates your intent. You’re dressed to kill. Keep your head high, your shoulders back, a sultry saunter to your step, and your breasts”—she squeezed my shoulders—“up.”

  I nodded. “Breasts up.”

  “Now, go kill them, tiger,” she said in my ear.

  “Snow leopard,” I said over my shoulder. I marched along the luxurious, deep-purple runner toward the open, triple, wide, floor-to-ceiling doors, letting my heeled slippers carry me in that haughty saunter the dancing maestro had been startled to learn I already knew. I hadn’t told him they were courtesy of sword lessons from Eld.

  As I reached the top of the stairs, several of the courtiers who were milling around, waiting to see who was important enough to use the main entrance, turned to watch me. I kept my mouth still below my mask, but I wanted to laugh at their expressions. Salina was right.

  “I told you she was,” Sin whispered in my mind. “And with my magic in your veins, you’re going to be a wonder to behold tonight.”

  “Is it you, then? Not Eld’s lessons?”

  “Let’s say I’m the buff on the polish he laid,” Sin said after a pause. The admission clearly cost him, but it made me stand even taller. With those two and myself, how could I lose?

  “S-signorina, your invitation?” the herald at the door asked. Little older than a lad, he had a plumed tricorne that sprouted white feathers so long they nearly dragged on the ground. I handed him the gilt invitation, shaped like Servenza herself, and he nearly dropped it.

  “Gods, man, are you befuddled?” Another herald marched up, feathers woven through her hair. Taking the invitation from him, she said, “We all must make allowances, Signorina Sambuciña, must we not?”

  “Some of us,” I said, for all the world as haughty as any noble.

  As the woman drew breath, I realized how perfectly Salina had planned this moment. Almost as if she’d intended it for herself. I stood atop the circle of pure gold upon which a diamond S was embossed—the runner had been cut so as to display it. Every aspect of the scene matched the gown I wore: purest white silk with leopard spots of deep purple, dark enough to almost be black, and each spot ringed with sparkling thread o’ gold. The cut was open across my shoulders and chest, tight to my waist, and then opened just enough that it was clear I wore a dress and not a suit before flaring at the bottom in sprays of white, gold, and purple. Above it all, my snow leopard’s mask glittered with gold and crushed diamonds. I looked a huntress queen. Which I was.

  “My Doga, Grace of Servenza! Signoras and sirrahs! Signorinas and gentlemen! Honored guests! I present, before your lucky eyes, the jewel of the Kanados Trading Company’s boardroom, Sambuciña Alhurra!!!” The herald’s voice drew every eye.

  And I held them.

  * * *

  “Glass of the bubbles?” The servant behind the bar wore a tailored suit as fine as many of the guests’. His lips creased in a grin. “Or would you prefer something stronger?”

  “Bubbles are fine,” I told him.

  Not that I really wanted the drink, but Salina had warned me that an empty hand was inviting any number of interested guests to approach me. Asking if I needed a drink was apparently the easiest move in this new, hidden war of gestures and words. I wanted no part of it; my fight was with one only. Two, if one counted any potential assassination attempt against the Doga. I took the drink from the man, turning away before he could try to pull me into conversation—the servants were troops in this fight, too, albeit foot soldiers—and headed out of the room toward the main hall, where the faint sounds of the orchestra wafted over the guests.

  Gilderlock, who owned the world’s largest personal bank, stood in the mirrored hallway, surrounded by a coterie of hangers-on. I smiled when I saw him, his grey curls falling to his waist and threaded through with jewels and bells. Catching the would-be thieves who intended to steal Colgna’s famed Diadem of a Thousand Diamonds before they emptied Gilderlocks’ vault had given Eld and me the notoriety that had brought us to Kanados’s attention. The old man was eccentric, but brilliant at coin and creating locking mechanisms to protect said coin. He’d been pleased we prevented the theft, but less so that I’d ruined his reputation by breaking into his previously impregnable vault.

  “Whoops,” Sin said.

  I grinned inwardly and kept walking. Here and there I heard exclamations intended to make me pause; I ignored them. From the corners of the mask’s eyes I could see men and women look me over as I sauntered past. If you could see me now, Sis. For a moment I felt my mouth twist, and a man in a green suit and emerald-studded mask who’d been walking toward me turned hastily away. I forced my expression back to neutral. I have to play their game to beat them … and then they’ll be forced to play mine.

  “Thirty paces down and to the right,” Sin whispered.

  “Eh?”

  “Damn, she’s spotted us. Just past that lump in the blue suit,” he added. “Lucrezia.”

  “That lump is the Chief of the Constabulary,” I told him. “Godsdamn it, here she comes.”

  I hadn’t seen the woman since our Board meeting, but several letters had come for Eld and I’d a suspicion at least one was from her. One of th
e sharks circling. I kept that in the forefront of my mind as Lucrezia drew near. She wore a white dress with high shoulders and feathers, and a pointed mask that swept back into her hair, where more feathers added to the impression that she was a swan. Although I’d never seen a swan with oiled skin that shone with golden glitter. Nor one with that figure. Damn her. I forced a smile and inclined my head slightly, the leopard deigning to recognize its prey.

  “Lucrezia! How are you? I feel it’s been ages.”

  “Sambuciña? I nearly didn’t recognize you. It has been too long,” the other woman agreed, her full-lipped smile looking far more genuine than my own felt. “This past week’s felt a hurricane, with all the preparations for tonight, hasn’t it?”

  “It truly has,” I said, my cheeks beginning to hurt.

  “You look beautiful,” she added, her tone one of surprise rather than flattery.

  “As do you, though I thought you’d be wearing fins.”

  “Fins? What do you take me for, a fish?” She glanced at the glass in my hand. “Actually, Buc, can you do me a favor?” she asked, stepping closer.

  “What’s that?”

  “I promised Circia I’d find us something a little stronger than the aperitifs in the ballroom,” Lucrezia said. “Where do they have the bar set up this year?”

  “Circia?” I tilted my head. “Here I thought you were angling to bed my friend,” I said with a laugh.

  “But now that you know I’m with a woman, we’ll be friends?” Lucrezia asked, smiling more sharply.

  “Easy,” I told her. Are all these “sharks” figments of my imagination?

  “She could be a harmless flirt,” Sin suggested.

  “No one who is rich is harmless,” I reminded him, mentally. “It’s just good to know where you, uh, stand,” I told Lucrezia. “Or lie.”

  “Your perversity knows no bounds, does it?” she asked. “I should probably get those drinks?”

  “Of course,” I muttered. It was a relief to let go of my faux smile as I turned away. “Enjoy your evening, Lucrezia.”