She crossed her arms on her chest. "Tragedies. Every one."
The threat was clear, and even though Talen had very personal knowledge of the often necessary ruthlessness inherent in running a troupe of any kind, to potentially be the target of such unnerved him.
"I thought you and I enjoyed something beyond the exchange of tokens and service, Caela."
She scanned the small room. "Oh, certainly." Probably making sure she wasn't leaving anything behind. "My value to you… is clear."
"Caela…"
She held out her hand. "Your tokens, Talen. The alternative… is outside of my control."
"If I've offended you somehow…"
She looked away, but kept her hand extended. "The tokens. Or… you know Gepur will find you. Himself, or his agents."
Now she did turn to look at him. Her eyes glittered.
"You know how this works. Your fate will no longer be your own."
His chuckle was forced. His shrug, a bit too quick and high.
"When has it ever been…"
She did not laugh.
"And your life?"
Talen swallowed. His shoulders slumped.
Somehow… though his relationship with Caela was supposed to be transactional, and Rajen had no idea Caela existed… Talen felt as though he was betraying them both.
Caela's threats were not empty… but neither were they necessary.
As soon as she'd woken, he'd known he'd have to pay. He still had to try to bargain, but his heart wasn't in it.
Talen handed her his token purse.
She avoided looking at him and tilted her head toward the door. "I think I'll rest here for a time. You have no further use of the room; isn't that right?"
"No, I…"
"Then our business is done, Talen."
"Maybe we can… I don't want you to think I'm…"
"Our business is done, Talen."
Ah.
A sadness he didn't understand gripped Talen’s chest. Perhaps it was a harbinger of loneliness.
He went to the door.
"Balance and harmony, Caela."
She sat down on the side of the bed and became fascinated by her own hands. "As you say."
Talen left her.
Sot
The child was restless. Fussing and, worse, making little noises.
Not asleep.
It made Sot very nervous. He padded tight circles—Lama had made him remove his boots—around the little room.
She sat on the bed, lightly bouncing Ranith in her arms. "You're making it worse. Making him more upset."
He rolled his eyes. "Oh, I'm making him upset? Really?"
"Be. Still."
Sot ignored her. "Use the cloth again. Or maybe he’s still hungry."
"The cloth isn't working. Or at best, it's only keeping him from crying. But it's… I don't know. The magick is fading."
"What good is it, then?" Sot shook his head. "Why would Ulthus give us something that wasn't good enough to do the job? Are you sure you're—"
"Don't you say it."
Sot stopped pacing and put his ear to the door. Nothing.
"If he starts to cry…"
"I know, Sot!"
"Keep your voice down!"
Lama shut her eyes. Sot watched her nostrils flare. Throughout this familiar exercise, she never stopped rocking the kit in her arms.
She opened her eyes. "You're not helping. In fact, what have you done, other than…"
That was cruel. He didn't have to be beaten by her words, not any more. They were nearly done with each other, after all.
"Don't you say it, Lama." He pursed his lips and shook his head again, shaming. "Come on."
Ranith waved his tiny fists. His face grew red.
Sot pointed. "He's doing something. It doesn't look good."
Lama shifted the kit to lay against her bosom. Instead of bouncing him, she bounced on the bed. "Shhhh… shhhh…"
Ranith's little noises were not so little anymore.
"You have to do something, Lama!"
She didn't respond to Sot. Instead, she started making small noises of her own.
Singing.
She was singing.
Just nonsense words; cooing, lilting syllables.
But she was singing.
Sot hadn't heard Lama sing since before they'd come to the palace. It had been years.
Many years.
It was working. Ranith was quieter.
Sot eased himself down to sit on the floor, his back against the door.
She did it.
How long until this new magick didn't work?
Talen
Talen closed the door behind him. Though the click of the latch was preferable to the sound of a bone knife sliding between his ribs, he still felt as though there was a blade in his heart.
This wasn't heartbreak, though believing so might be gentler on his conscience.
Talen knew losing Caela was what he deserved. Now he had neither her, proxy for his true desire that she was, nor Rajen. Not that the seer had ever been other than one more persistent, elusive dream.
How many tokens had Talen spent on Caela that should have gone toward paying the tax to reclaim his family's land?
The whole affair was folly. He’d offended Caela, probably beyond repair. His dalliance with her was an honorless buffer to ease his pining for Rajen, itself a foolish distraction. His behavior was unworthy of his family's legacy, especially the gallantry and sacrifice of his fabled mothersfather.
No, this wasn't heartbreak.
This was shame.
Alone in the hallway, keenly aware of Caela's silent, seething presence on the other side of the door at his back, Talen closed his eyes and sighed hard.
Caela's voice came through the door, muffled but unmistakably full of contempt. "Go sing your sadness somewhere else."
Heat erupted on Talen's face. Shame had held him; embarrassment shoved him along.
The common room downstairs would be filling with patrons. Gossip of Ranith's disappearance would be on everyone's lips. Talen could make back most of what he'd given Caela with a few improvised verses, surely.
He was three stride down the hall when another sound behind another door stopped him cold.
Was that…
What was that?
Singing?
It was indeed. Soft, and surely from the throat of an amateur. No words, exactly, just a sing-song melody. A…
The fine hairs on Talen's arms stiffened.
It was a lullaby. Unmistakably.
Below that… a delicate accompaniment…
A thrill bloomed in Talen's chest. Chills ran along his spine.
Cooing. The cooing of a child.
No.
Not a child.
An infant.
There was no question.
The implication was at once stunning and terrifying. The Steadfast Capful was a second home for Talen, and he had never, in the year he'd been singing there, seen or heard an infant in the place.
Talen looked around frantically. No one coming up the stairs. Caela still within her room.
His heart thudded in his ears.
On this day, when all of Aenikantag was alive with the search for the only child of the Alwardendyn?
What else could this be?
Ranith and his kidnappers hid in the upstairs corner room of the Steadfast Capful, and only Talen and the Shaper of the World knew it.
In his nineteen years, Talen counted three times when the thread of his life was utterly and irrevocably unraveled and woven anew.
This would be the fourth.
The fulfillment of Talen's every dream and goal lay behind that door, if he handled this knowledge properly.
He was just a sellsong, barely more than a Shadow District urchin, and, as well as anyone knew, had no history or family to claim. He couldn't simply go to the first city guard he found. In their eyes, he was next to a criminal himself.
This had t
o be done carefully. And quickly.
He had to talk to Rajen.
Right now.
Chapter Twelve
Dennick
Thanks to the frightened testimony of the kit Sepi, Dennick left the palace yard with a strong sense that, regarding Ranith's kidnapping, he had a better theory than Dunak.
Not counting Ranith himself, there were four magn missing and two magn dead.
The missing included the heartfast launderers Sot and Lama, their friend Vadi of the palace staff, and another palace staff member.
The dead included a female whose skull had been crushed before her body'd been burned in the launderer warren fire, and another unrecognizable victim found in the tower wend.
Sepi's confession carried the pure honesty found in the very young and very scared. Dennick believed her: she had spoken to Lama last night, in the middle of the yard, some time after curfew but the fires.
Dennick spent the mark before tahrest learning what he could about Lama by discreetly consulting his Shadow District contacts. He could not be certain, but based on descriptions of the magn, he believed the female with the caved-in skull was not her.
So the corpse in Sot and Lama's quarters was likely the other one. Vadi.
Vadi, who had access to the palace staff wend, and Ranith's chambers.
Let Dunak believe Sot and Vadi had killed Lama and the other servant and made off with the infant. Likely the only thing Dunak had right was that the kidnappers acted on the behalf of some unknown third party.
Dennick was convinced Sot and Lama had killed Vadi for the key to the tower wend, and that Lama had been on the way to the tower when she encountered Sepi. After scaring the little one back to the launderers' warren and silence, Lama somehow got to Ranith and got him out… probably setting the fire that killed the other servant.
The additional fire in the launderers' warren didn't make much sense, unless it was intended as a clumsy distraction. Dennick supposed it worked well enough.
No matter. Lama had Ranith, and Sot was likely with her.
And where, Dennick learned, had Lama and Sot spent most of their time before working in the palace yard?
The Steadfast Capful, a tavern popular with Shadow District locals, whose master was called Kug.
The mothersbrother of Lama.
Dunak had followed the trail to the Steadfast Capful; it was the first place investigated by the guard outside of the palace. They had found nothing, and Kug claimed ignorance.
That was unlikely, but Dennick knew he'd learn nothing, just like Dunak, if he questioned the tavern master directly. He'd have to be surreptitious.
As the heartfast of the most beloved artist in the city, and not without notoriety and celebrity in his own right, Dennick was too recognizable to successfully attempt anything covert.
Which is why he sat hunched at a dim corner table in the common room of the Steadfast Capful as someone other than himself.
Soot and street muck stained his face and hands. His cloak, with its deep hood flung over his head, was torn and bramble-snagged, and the edges of the hood were damp with old, rancid essa. His trousers were threadbare and filthy. His boots were cracked and patched, and three toes poked through the left.
In this guise, Dennick could roam the Shadow District with impunity. When anyone asked, he gave the name Hatul.
Hatul was perpetually inebriated, likely slept on the street, and was rumored to be a disgraced former member of a garrison stationed somewhere along the Wilendyn border of Aenik.
Most had learned to not ask, as Hatul's slurred speech was nearly unintelligible; his manner, boorish.
In the light of day, outside of the Shadow District, anyone who knew Dennick would likely see through the disguise. Conveniently, most of the high-status magn familiar with Dennick would never set foot in the Shadow District if they could help it, and Hatul was almost never seen in the light of day.
This night, the common room of the Steadfast Capful was crowded with clientele. The long tables near the central fire pit were fully occupied, and most of the round smaller tables as well. The two servants, one young and one older, bustled through the room delivering platters and jugs and mugs, while the master, Kug, tended to the patrons at the bar.
Talk of Ranith's kidnapping was a tidal susurrus flowing throughout the room. These Shadow District folk were laborers, crafters, dockworkers, and sailors, generally, and as such, their opinions, theories, and predictions were laced with crude humor, speculation as wild as it was assured, and cynicism.
Dennick was too far from the bar to clearly hear the conversations there, so he watched Kug. If the tavern keeper was made anxious by the topic of the day, his behavior did not betray him.
The two helpers were far too busy to offer opinions. They moved with an unconscious and automatic choreography, obviously the result of long practice.
Dennick's gaze followed the younger one—Prak, he was called—toward the stairs that led up to the rented rooms. The boy opened a door in the wall below the stairs; the stairwell doubled as a storage closet from which he retrieved a precariously balanced double armload of towels.
Rushing down the stairs came another young magn, not much older than the tavern boy, with distinctive hair the color of wet sand. Dennick recognized him: a sellsong, Talen, who often sang for his supper at the Capful and other Shadow District venues.
Talen's eyes were wide, undeniably anxious, and fixed on the front door. He didn't see the tavern boy; Prak did not see him.
Of course they collided. Clean towels fell to the filthy floor.
Prak glared at Talen. "Worthless!"
Talen held up his hands. "Apologies!" He bent to help the boy, but his attention was far from the task at hand.
Prak pushed him away. "Off, Talen! You're just making it worse, pushing them around!" The boy's tone was the definition of teen-aged indignation. "Ugh! Can't you see I don't have time for this?"
Talen stood up quickly and was already angling for the door as he said, "Apologies, Prak! See you again."
Prak's irritation carried confusion. "Wait—you're not singing..? Tonight of all nights..?"
Talen raised an arm but didn't alter his course. "Have to see someone. Might be back later!
"Did you pay for your bed, sellsong..?"
Talen was more than halfway across the floor and nearly to the door. "I'm settled! Sorry!"
What might send Talen so quickly away from what would probably be a very lucrative audience for a clever sellsong such as himself?
Dennick rose from his seat in the corner, unsteady as merited his role, but rather more sure and quick than one might expect of drunken Hatul. Stumbling and muttering, he crossed the room and deftly put himself in Talen's path.
Talen
Talen was mortified. Prak had ruined any chance he'd had to slip out of the Steadfast Capful unnoticed. Every eye was on him as he strode for the door. He ignored good-natured calls from patrons for him to sing them a story.
No more than a stride from the door, Talen was compelled to stop short to avoid running into the big, stinking drunk, Hatul. The broad magn stepped into his path and stood there, swaying slightly.
Talen pivoted to the left. "Your pardon."
Hatul stepped sideways, blocking Talen. He was close enough to make Talen's eyes water.
Hatul said, "Y'cannot be leaving, storyboy! Storyboy gotta sing!" His glassy eyes seemed to focus on a place just above and past Talen's shoulder. His smile was wet and loose.
"Not tonight. Your pardon."
Talen tried to dart to the right. Hatul stumbled and waved his arms, the result being that the magn was once again in Talen's way.
"Ya gotta!"
Every bit Talen wasted with this gutternapper, the chance improved that someone else would discover Ranith and rob Talen of his destiny.
"Hatul! Clear away, please!"
Hatul's grin lost some of its cheer. His expression traversed confusion and hurt, and seemed headed for offense
.
No. An altercation with the big drunk, assuming Talen could avoid injury, would only bring more attention… and possibly the guard.
That would not do.
Another pivot. Another staggering interception.
Talen wondered how someone swimming so deeply in essa could be so nimble. Unless the magn was not as drunk as he presented himself?
Had he another reason to keep Talen at the Capful?
Did he know?
Desperation fueled agility. Talen feinted left, ducked, and slipped to the right, around Hatul and out the door.
He wanted to run all the way to Rajen's, but that would only make him more conspicuous on a night when all were suspect in the eyes of the guard, and to those Shadow District folk whose ambition was backed by a brutality Talen could not match.
He restrained himself to a brisk walk.
It was so unfair.
Fagahg
Fagahg stood with his back to the wall in the common room of the Steadfast Capful and watched Dennick and the sellsong do their dance by the front door.
The other patrons ignored Fagahg. The tavern help did not approach him.
He was a stone in a stream. Leaves and twigs flowed around him.
He had followed Dennick from the palace. Unnoticed in crowds, secreted in shadows, or hidden on rooftops, Fagahg heard Dennick's conversations with various magn throughout the day. He now knew of Lama and Sot, and of their connection with the Steadfast Capful and its master.
Fagahg had watched Dennick enter a locked shed propped against a warehouse near the docks. He waited, hidden and still, until Dennick emerged in his elaborate, slipshod disguise.
Fagahg followed him to the tavern, where he watched Dennick watch the crowd.
Time flowed past the stone in the stream.
Then, the sellsong bolted from the upstairs in a desperate hurry to leave.
Was he late for an appointment?
Or, had he discovered something that terrified him?
Soon, the sellsong would evade Dennick. Dennick would either follow him, or slink upstairs to see what sent him running.
The sellsong darted out the door. Dennick made a show of drunken amusement, swaying and stumbling just long enough for his quarry to gain a safe distance, then lumbered out the door himself.
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