After Onderishta paid, she stood and groaned at the pain in her feet. “I’m too old to be walking all over the city this way. Too old and too fat.”
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Fay asked. “I can do reconnaissance.”
“Thank you, Fay. Mirishiya, go to Suloh’s Tower tonight. When Trillistin turns up, let him know I’ll need his report tomorrow morning in the south tower.”
They went their separate ways. Onderishta dropped a copper knot into the bowl of a hooded beggar for good luck—law be damned—then walked all the way back through both Apricot decks, Low Market, then into The Folly. Night had fallen by the time she reached home.
The house was empty.
She stared down at the empty bed, feeling lonely and forlorn. Keeping a marriage was difficult enough when both spouses spent time together and managed to speak a kind word once in a while. But when they didn’t? Shit. Maybe her marriage was already over. Maybe the house would feel like this at the end of every day.
But no. Zetinna would never end things without a big, messy scene. Still, Onderishta couldn’t help but wonder if one was coming and if she was as helpless to avoid it as she was to collar belligerents like Harl and his assholes.
She took a deep breath and shook out her limbs. She’d seen too many corpses these past few days. It was making her morose.
Back in the front room, she noticed a jug of clean water, a loaf of crusty bread, and a crock of spicy mashed olives waiting for her. Zetinna. She smiled, feeling loved and even lonelier, if that was possible. It was too late to go to the baths, but she washed at a basin, then collapsed into bed. Maybe Zetinna would come home early and wake her. It wouldn’t happen, but it was a pleasant thought to take into dreams.
Onderishta woke to a darkness so complete, she thought she was still dreaming. Even with her window cloths across her shutters, the glow from Suloh’s bones usually leaked through, but now there was nothing. She reached out across her bedcovers to the empty space beside her. Zetinna wasn’t there. Not in itself a cause for alarm, but—
A length of cold metal gently touched the side of her jaw. For a moment, Onderishta thought her throat was about to be cut. She froze in fear.
But the length of metal didn’t feel edged. In fact, it felt like the end of a metal bar.
“Don’t move,” a voice said. The metal lifted from her skin.
If he’d come to kill her, she would already be dying. If he intended to torture her for information, he would have abducted her and taken her to a secluded location. That left only one option. She slid her hand toward the knife mounted on her headboard.
“I want you to tell me what you know about the Pails.”
Onderishta became still, her mind racing. “You mean the minor gang from Wild Dismal? Why? They’re nobodies.”
“They took someone. I’m trying to get her back.”
The little girl. The cynic in her wanted to believe his concern was cover for a power play, but she didn’t think so. “Try Wild Dismal.”
“They’ve moved out. Even their messengers. I don’t know where they are now.”
“Whoever you’re trying to get back is probably with their new boss. Someone took out Harl and purged his people, so the Pails probably turned over your missing friend to them.”
The intruder was silent for a second. “The Pails are the ones who took out Harl.”
Onderishta sat up, turning to face the direction of that soft, raw voice. Then she remembered she’d been told not to move. “They couldn’t,” she said. “It’s not possible. They don’t have the heavies.”
“They have a Katr warrior with godkind magic and a ghostkind blade. He’s worth a dozen street thugs, maybe more. The Pails arranged the raid at the hammerball courts, they made sure there was a collected body on site, and they’ve taken control of his black-market medical operation. I saw the glitterkind ear Harl gave them. It was no larger than a child’s. They might have been Harl’s underlings once, but no longer.”
She had a dozen reasons not to believe him, but she did. To think that a bunch of minor heavies had glitterkind flesh and godkind magic…
Looking around at the inky darkness around her, she realized the Katr wasn’t the only one with a gift from the fallen gods.
“Glitterkind flesh, eh?” Onderishta rubbed her face. This was confirmation of Culzatik’s suspicions. “So, that woman who was cut open, Rulenya, child of Rashila, wasn’t just killed for show? You think she was really collected?”
“Yes.”
“Shit.
“That’s why I have to find the Pails. I need them to tell me if the daughter was collected too.”
Onderishta didn’t have to think about that for long. “She wasn’t. At least, I don’t think she was. The discovery of that body was a scandal and made Harl’s parsu withhold support when he needed it most. If there had been a child’s body, too, it would have triggered another Downscale War. They can’t risk it. No, the girl almost certainly wasn’t collected. She might have been murdered, but it’s more likely that they sold her to a workshop, or they put her to work for them.”
Whoever was crouching in the darkness made no response, and Onderishta could not begin to guess what he was thinking.
“I know who you are,” she said. The realization struck her suddenly. “You’re the pawnbroker. Kyrioc, child of No One. But that name’s bullshit, right? You’re just hiding your connections. Tell me your real name.”
“The Broken Man. And you still haven’t told me where to find the Pails.”
His voice sounded subtly different. More alive somehow. Onderishta was right. It wasn’t a pretense. He really was searching for the little girl.
“The Upgarden hammerball courts were Harl’s public throne, and his replacement will want to sit where he sat.” She called up her courage. “You know, you were smart to hide yourself after putting my constables in the hospital. I’m going to find you, and no matter what tricks you have, I’m going to put a collar on you.”
“Before you do, visit the medical bureaucrats and find out what happens to a glitterkind that has been cut too deeply and too often. Don’t let them brush you off with a vague answer. Make them tell. Everyone in this city depends on it.”
“Wait. If the whole city is in danger, I need to know— We need your help!”
The pitch darkness moved away like a blowing fog. Once again, Suloh’s dim glow shone through her window shutters. Onderishta lunged for the headboard and drew the knife, but she did not stand.
She heard the front door open and close. Perhaps the intruder was gone. Perhaps she was safe again.
The Pails. The pawnshop broker. The Katr informant. The mislaid package. The harvested woman. The workshop filled with heavies who’d been killed with a single stroke. The murder and expulsion of the foreign friends. It all came together, now that she knew the northerner had godkind magic.
She hurried into the front room to make sure that Zetinna wasn’t lying dead on the floor but she was nowhere in sight. She was fine. Presumably.
Onderishta’s knees suddenly felt weak, and she gripped the edge of the table to keep from falling over. The bark of laughter that escaped her was so sharp that she frightened herself. The knife clattered against the floor.
He could have killed her easily. So easily.
What time was it? She threw back the shutters. Zetinna could judge the lateness of the hour by the stars, but she wasn’t here.
Thank the fallen gods.
The hour didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to sleep tonight. Maybe she would never be able to sleep here again.
Dressing quickly, she hurried outside and lit her lantern from the flame of the oil lamp at the intersection. Then, bared knife in hand, she hurried toward Gray Flames and the medical bureaucrats there.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Kyrioc circled the block around Harl’s hammerball courts twice, searching for the exit Harl used to escape the constables. He didn’t find it, but he did notice a constab
le watching him closely. Kyrioc was still dressed in his funeral black—the cloth torn from his fight with the Katr—and Pentulis’s ancient cloak, both of which were out of place among the nobles and merchants in this neighborhood. After his second circuit, an ironshirt pushed off from the lamppost toward him, and Kyrioc went down the long stairs into High Apricot.
Everywhere he looked, he saw children, but none of them looked like the beetles the Pails employed. Either their clothes were too fine, or they chattered too much, or they seemed to have nothing to do.
The Pails were working Riliska, or they had sold her. All he had to do was find someone to ask, and he would know where to find her. Simple.
He traveled the length of High Apricot and spotted no one. Descending to Low Apricot, where the platform halls and cafes gave way to casinos and brothels, he found a few likely candidates, but it quickly became clear that they were pickpockets and petty thieves, not messengers.
In Low Market, he finally spotted one. A boy at least two years younger than Riliska hurried around a corner with a wooden doll in his hand. Kyrioc immediately recognized it from the shelves of the warehouse in Wild Dismal. In the boy’s other hand, he held a rag doll.
Ducking his head as he hurried past a pair of constables, Kyrioc fell into step behind the beetle and followed him into the maze of planks, platforms, and shops.
* * *
“Feel how heavy this is?”
Riliska accepted the doll from Bonsital, one of the other beetles. They were about the same age, but Bonsital talked as though Riliska was a little child.
The doll was like the ones she’d seen on the shelves of the warehouse. Bonsital had just gone into a carpet shop with a stained, ratty old rag doll. She’d emerged with this wooden one.
“There’s coin inside,” the girl whispered. “But you must never open it. Not ever. They skin you for real if you do. For real. Just peel you. Then they go after your family.”
Goosebumps ran down Riliska’s neck. She’d seen the way those heavies had stared at her, especially the one with the steel chain. She believed it.
“Watch,” Bonsital said, pulling her out of sight between two rain barrels.
Another beetle—this one no older than seven, Riliska thought—came down the plankway and hurried to a noodle shop. He was holding a rag doll. When the woman behind the counter saw him, she grabbed the boy’s arm and dragged him into the back.
Then she scanned the street.
Riliska looked at her feet, careful not to make eye contact. “What’s in the rag doll?”
“One of these,” Bonsital said, waggling the little wooden doll back and forth, “but it’s empty. Also some white tar, I think. This is our job. This is what keeps our families safe.”
The two of them slipped out of their hiding space, hid from a tall man in a black cloak, then climbed down a flight of stairs. It was time for the next delivery.
* * *
Onderishta was late for her own meeting, but she found Fay, Mirishiya, and Trillistin deep in conversation when she arrived. She hurried into the council room and set her empty lantern on the desk. Fay glanced at it, then studied her face. He was clearly concerned.
“Well,” he said, nodding at the lantern, “so much for getting a good night’s rest.”
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Onderishta said, gasping a little from the effort of hurrying up the stairs. “Bureaucrats can be infuriating.”
They laughed. Trillistin jumped up from his chair to pull one out for her, then poured her tea from the pot. It had gone cool, but it was welcome nonetheless.
“Are you hungry, boss?” Fay asked.
“After, after,” she said. “Trillistin, what have you found out?”
He stood and clasped his hands behind his back. The Safroys’ servants addressed their masters the same way. “I sought out Jallientus, child of Jalliusha, in Suloh’s Tower and befriended him there. It took some time, but eventually he trusted me enough to describe his life as he lived it before he was taken into the tower. He told me he was a ‘beetle’ in the employ of a local gangster. A courier.”
Fay turned to Onderishta. “I’ve heard of this, haven’t I?”
She shrugged. “Child messengers are common in Koh-Kaulma and Koh-Benjatso, but I didn’t know the practice had spread here. Continue.”
Trillistin nodded. “According to Jallientus, it’s common for Harl’s couriers to be collared by the ironshirts. Coin and white tar are taken from them, and costs are high. The Pails use a different system, something they learned when they sailed around the Semprestian when they were young. They use children, called beetles, to deliver drugs and money, and they’re almost never intercepted. The beetles live with the heavies, sleeping together in…” He hesitated. “Filth,” he said, looking uncomfortable, as though describing the problem made him complicit. “They sleep in filth. Jallientus described spilled chamber pots, sheets that were never washed, cheap food, no schooling, no…no care. No one talks to them except to scold them or give them orders. No one looks out for them. No one cares.”
“Whose kids are these?” Fay asked. “Their own?”
“They come from gambling houses,” Trillistin said. “Casinos, dice alleys, card shops—” He saw Fay was about to interrupt again, and hurried to his point. “Their parents get deep into debt, and the Pails take their children as payment.”
Fay’s mouth hung open, and Onderishta grimaced. Of all the vices the criminals of Koh-Salash unleashed on the city, gambling was considered the least harmful. Now they were a means to steal children? “You’re talking about slavery.”
“I am,” Trillistin said. “The kids are kept in line with threats against them and their families. Jallientus only accepted a place in the tower because his bosses think he’s dead.”
“And these children,” Onderishta said, “are just running through the streets with white tar? And gold coin?”
“Stuffed into dolls,” Trillistin said. “Yes. From what Jallientus told me, no one ever pays attention to them because they look like orphans.”
Fay turned to Onderishta. “And no one gives a shit. By the fallen gods, I hate this fucking city sometimes.”
“Have you discovered anything else?” Onderishta asked.
The boy frowned. “I tried to find more beetles to talk to, but—”
“You mean out in the city?”
“Well, yes.”
“Okay,” Onderishta said. “Don’t do that again—ever—unless I tell you it’s all right. But you did good.” She downed the last of her tea. “My turn. I had an unwelcome visitor last night, in my home. It was the pawnbroker who fought his way out of the tower.”
“Kyrioc?” Fay blurted out.
“If that’s his real name.” She told them about their conversation.
There was silence for a few moments. “That explains a lot,” Fay finally said, “except why now?”
“The package that was stolen at Sailsday’s Regret. Our pawnbroker friend claims that it contained a tiny glitterkind ear.”
Fay stood out of his chair as though he were about run out of the room to retrieve it, then sat again. “That’s confirmation, if we believe him.”
“I do,” Onderishta said. “The Pails proved themselves capable by bringing Harl this beetle system that’s been operating under our noses for who knows how long, so he offers them a chance to move up into black-market medical care. But Harl thinks this delivery is too important to trust to the beetles and insists on using one of his heavies, which draws the wrong sort of attention.”
“The courier gets robbed, right? By the woman who lived in that hovel with the little girl.”
“I doubt she realized just how valuable that score was until after. She was too smart to hide it in her shabby room, so she goes to the pawnshop next door. Remember the robe we found that was torn open at the seams? Harl orders the Pails to recover his property and sends one of his people along to babysit. They track down the woman, grab her and the daughter, then retr
ieve the package from the pawnshop.”
Fay nodded. “The Pails knew Harl would blame them for the failed exchange, and so they struck him before he could strike them.”
“First they took the point to Second Boar,” Onderishta said, “then they delivered the collected corpse of that woman at exactly the same moment that we were conducting our raid.”
“They must have something against that pawnshop asshole, too.”
“Maybe.” Onderishta rubbed her chin. “Maybe they didn’t want another magical asshole running around the city. Or maybe they didn’t even know who he was. Maybe he was just a guy who saw the package and who could be manipulated into running this errand.”
“So, why did he come to you?”
“He wants the little girl.”
“I’m sorry,” Fay said, “but I don’t believe it. I can’t. The man’s been in the city for one year, so he’s not her father. Is he risking his life for one random little girl when the city’s gangs are up for grabs and a piece of glitterkind worth five Harkan regents is in play? A man who can fight his way out of the south tower? It can’t be that simple. He must be playing a game of his own.”
“Excuse me,” Mirishiya said. The apprentices had been silent—as they should be—while Onderishta and Fay talked, but the girl had seized on the first pause. “Do you think this piece of glitterkind came from the Lost Ward?”
Trillistin leaned forward. “What’s the Lost Ward?”
Mirishiya was surprised he didn’t know. “A story I’ve heard all my life—a glitterkind went missing from the home of a noble family—ward-nobles, I mean—and ended up in some slum. The whole thing was hushed up. In the story, anyone who was sick or injured could cure themselves just by kissing the Lost Ward on the lips. It had been kissed so many times that it had shrunk to the size of a little doll, but it still had the brand of its noble family on it.”
“What brand?” Onderishta snapped.
“It’s different every time the story’s told,” the girl said, more quietly. “Sometimes it’s a mountain, sometimes an eagle or a bull.”
A bull. The symbol of the Safroy family.
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