Passages

  Camden Wright, one of Paddy’s senior runners who’d been avoiding him for days, had finally cracked the silence.

  Paddy had stared at him in confusion. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

  “Your ma . . .”

  It hadn’t taken much more. When Lance Constable Farane had finally pulled them apart, both youths had torn uniforms, bleeding knuckles, and a broken friendship. Hektor’d yelled at them, Aiden’d yelled at them. Neither he nor Camden would say what had sparked the fight, but everyone else knew.

  And, at least now, he knew.

  “Your ma . . .”

  Of all the changes, he’d never thought she’d be one of them.

  The city bells began to toll the hour, and he straightened up with a growl. It would soon be time for his shift at the Watch House, and for the first time in his life, he didn’t want to go.

  He started down the street, walking slowly and morosely, then abruptly headed up a narrow close and onto Harp Way, which paralleled Iron Street to the north. The shops here were a bit larger, a bit fancier, their wares a bit more exotic: musical instruments and surgical tools and the like. The lanes and closes which intersected the Way were also larger and more exotic, and they were named for a more expensive style of goods and trades: Stave Court, Lower and Upper Ink Streets, and Tapestry Row.

  Paddy walked past Glazier’s Terrace as fast as he could. He would not look up that street. He would not look for a certain glassmaker’s shop, or a certain glassmaker; a certain fancy, exotic, artisan glassmaking, interfering, not-a-Watchman outsider with a real glass-paned front window on his shop displaying goods Paddy’s family wouldn’t even think of buying even if they could spare the money. Which they could, because they weren’t that poorly off, but still, there was little left at the end of the day for extras, and certainly not for extras made of glass. They drank from ceramic cups, had wooden shutters on their windows, and the occasional tincture from the herbalist came in a pot and went back once it was emptied. Even Kassie’s prize possession—a small bird-shaped music box ordered for her by their granther just before he’d died—was made of wood and metal. Clearly this man’s family catered to a wealthier class of people than their own.

  He scowled, trying to stretch out his shoulders in a tunic that had been too small for a month now, and kicked at a loose cobblestone. His tunic was too small and so was his shirt, the sleeves riding up past his wrists. And his boots were too tight. He’d soon need new ones, and he didn’t think he’d saved up enough money yet. Maybe he could make do with a cast-off pair of Jakon’s or Raik’s until he could afford them, but his ma wouldn’t like it. The Danns might wear hand-me-down uniforms, but they didn’t wear hand-me-down boots. His ma would insist on buying him a new pair, and he didn’t want her to. He brought home his own wage. He would buy his own boots. And if he couldn’t afford them yet, he’d wait.

  Growling low in his throat, he carried on along Harp Way for another three blocks, then turned down another narrow close. He was five steps in when he heard the scream.

  “Stop that boy!”

  Paddy acted at instinctively, spinning about and heading back up the close at a dead run. The youth racing past collided with him, and they went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Paddy took an elbow in the face and a foot in the stomach before he managed to overbear the other youth, but a burst of laughter pulled him up short.

  “Codi?!”

  Flat on his back, Paddy’s knee in his chest, Codi Vinney continued to laugh. “Hiya, Pazers!” he said gleefully. “What brings you to this neck of the streets?”

  “Get up!”

  “Duck!”

  The woman who’d screamed had caught up to them by now and she aimed a blow at Codi’s head that hit Paddy on the shoulder as he dragged the other youth to his feet.

  “I want him arrested!” she shrieked, swinging at him again as Codi continued to laugh.

  “I’ve got him, Mistress Auklet,” Paddy gasped, “You can stop now.”

  “I’ll stop when he’s rotting in a cell!” she shot back, her face turning a dangerous purple. “Look what he’s done to my frock!”

  She waved a brown-stained pleat in Paddy’s face.

  “Honest, Pazers, I tripped and bumped into her,” Codi protested, still laughing. “Besides, she has plenty more where that came from.”

  “I’ll show you plenty more, you little turd rag!” She managed to box his ears, which just sent him into another peal of laughter.

  “He’s smeared rotten fruit onto my clothes for the last time, Padriec Dann!” she shouted. “You lot do something about him, or my husband will!”

  “I will, we will. Codi, come on!” More to get them both away from the enraged woman’s fists, Paddy hustled Codi down the close as fast as he could drag him, only slowing when they turned onto Iron Street.

  “You can let go of my collar now, Chief Runner Dann,” Codi said with an overly dramatic wheeze to indicate that Paddy had a hold of his neck a little too tightly. “I’m not going anywhere. You know me; caught is as caught can.”

  “Yeah, I do know you,” Paddy snapped back, but he released the other youth and rubbed at his shoulder where Mistress Auklet’s blow still stung. “I’ve known you our whole lives, and I know her too. What’s wrong with you? She’ll skin you alive one day!”

  Codi shrugged. “No, she won’t, Pazers. You’d stop her.”

  “Don’t be sure.”

  Codi started laughing again.

  “Look, seriously,” Paddy said. “This has gotta stop. I know you don’t like her, but you can’t keep smearin’ her clothes and dropping bugs into her pockets! You’re not eight years old anymore!”

  “No.” Codi’s expression changed from genial to enraged with frightening speed. “Neither was my little sister when that woman accused her of being a thief! She was six! I don’t forget and I won’t forget!”

  Paddy sighed. “Maybe not,” he said more quietly, “but one day soon you’ll be an adult, and the Watch’ll have to do somethin’ more about this. So, I’m tellin’ you—I’m askin’ you—as a friend, please stop.”

  “Fair enough. Consider it done.”

  Paddy rocked to a halt. “What? Jus’ like that?”

  Codi thumped the dirt from his tunic absently. “Sure, jus’ like that. All you hadda do was ask.”

  “I’ve been askin’ for six months!”

  Codi folded his arms across his chest and grinned. “No, you’ve been tellin’ and yellin’ and scoldin’ for six months. This is the first time you’ve actually asked.”

  Paddy gave him a deeply suspicious look. “An’ that’s all it took, huh? Askin’ one time?”

  “That’s all it took.”

  “Bollocks. You’re up to somethin’.”

  “Am I?”

  “Codi . . .” Paddy warned.

  “What? Can’t me helpin’ a friend out be enough?”

  “No. Not with you.”

  Codi burst out laughing again. “Honestly, Pazers, you kill me.” He mimed wiping a tear from his eye. “Besides, maybe I don’t have to do anythin’ anymore. Maybe I’ve found somethin’ out so perfect, so ripe, that all I gotta do is sit back an’ wait.”

  “What?”

  “Hm?”

  Paddy took a deep breath. “What have you found out, Codi?”

  His friend waggled a finger at him. “Now that’d be doin’ your job for you, wouldn’t it? But maybe . . .” he added as Paddy’s eyes narrowed, “if you’re really good, I’ll give you a hint.”

  Paddy waited. “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  Paddy just crossed his arms, and Codi snickered. “All right, all right. Don’t ya think they dress a bit posh for their livin’? Why d’ya think that might be?”

  “He’s a stationer an’ she’s a pattern drawer,” Paddy replied, refusing to be
drawn into useless speculation. “That’s a pretty posh livin’.”

  “For all that finery? I don’t think so. She’s got a different frock for every day of the week, an’ he drinks the good stuff. Lots of the good stuff.”

  “Your point?”

  Codi just shrugged. “All I’m sayin’ is that I hear rumors from time to time; rumors that might be worth lookin’ into. An’ not just about the Auklets neither,” he continued. “Some pretty strange rumors like how one of my all-too-serious-rules-followin’ old friends was fightin’ in the street like a common brawler.” He indicated the bruise on Paddy’s cheek. “An’ the reasons for it.”

  “Codi—” Paddy warned again.

  “I’m just sayin’ I hear a rumor, an’ then what do I see but Padriec Dann standin’ at the foot of Glazier’s Terrace, all ready to mix it up again.”

  “I was not ready to mix up anythin’,” Paddy protested hotly.

  “So, what were you doin’ there?”

  “I was goin’ to work.”

  “Really? Your work’s in Iron Street, an’ you live in Iron Street.”

  “So? Maybe I was just . . .” Paddy trailed off.

  “What? Checkin’ him out?”

  Paddy glanced away. “Maybe.”

  “Makes sense. I would have too if he were courtin’ my ma.”

  “He’s not courtin’ her! He’s jus’ . . . he’s . . .” Paddy clamped his mouth shut.

  Codi tipped his head to one side. “Jus’ what?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Want me to find out for ya?”

  “No!”

  “You sure, ’cause I could just amble over there, all innocent like and . . .”

  “No! Seriously, Codi. Leave him alone. He’s . . . they’re . . . they’re . . .”

  “What?”

  “Good folk. I guess,” Paddy said grudgingly.

  “Yeah. They are. Big family, two of ’em our age, Robyn an’ Orlenda. Honest, hard workin’, Haven born an’ bred, though not directly in Iron Street, so I suppose that does kinda make him an outsider. Now Ren—” he continued before Paddy could answer, “—that’s his name by the way, Master glassmaker Ren Jessan, lost his wife five years ago. He used to run with the Danns an’ the Brownes when they were all littles together, so I hear. Good friends with yer da, by all accounts, till he apprenticed on Glazier’s Terrace an yer da disappeared into the Watch House.”

  “Sounds like you ambled over there already,” Paddy groused.

  “Yeah, well, I like to keep an eye out for my friends, an’ I’m friends with Robyn an’ Orlenda too. Want me to introduce you?”

  “No. Not right now,” Paddy amended when Codi raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Well, when ‘right now’ comes along, you just let me know. ’Course,” Codi added with a wink. “Right now might come sooner rather than later, ’cause they just might know what I know about the Auklets.”

  When Paddy made to press him, he shook his head. “No time for that now,” he said as the city bells began to toll. “Aren’t you gonna be late for work? Better take me in, Chief Runner Dann, or someone might accuse you of favoritism, an’ then I’d have to smear somethin’ nasty on their clothes to defend your honor.”

  He laughed as Paddy gave him a dark look. “I hate you sometimes.”

  “No you don’t. You love me like a brother.”

  “Yeah, well, I hate them too sometimes.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Corporal Hydd Thacker, the Day Officer in Charge, shook his head wearily when they arrived at the Watch House a few moments later.

  “Aren’t you getting a bit old for this kind of nonsense?” he demanded when Paddy explained the reason for Codi’s arrest.

  “Funny, that’s just what Chief Runner Dann said.”

  “No doubt. And why aren’t you at work? Doesn’t your da’s brewery require all of its apprentices?”

  Codi nodded pleasantly. “As it happens, I was on an errand for that very business when Mistress Aucklet stumbled into me. I think she must have been drunk,” he noted in a conspiratorial whisper. “She was weavin’ back and forth like a sailor in a high wind.”

  “Uh-huh.” Corporal Thacker jerked his head toward the stairs leading to the cells. “Get him squared away, then send someone to his da,” he said wearily.

  Paddy nodded.

  * * *

  * * *

  One of Codi’s cousins arrived a few hours later, paid his fine, and took charge of him. Codi waved cheerfully at Corporal Thacker as they left, then winked at Paddy, just returning from a run.

  “Yer uniform seems to be gettin’ a bit tight these days,” he noted. “Specially around the pockets.”

  Paddy glared at him. “You didn’t.”

  His friend gave him a wide-eyed look. “Didn’t what?”

  Paddy crossed his arms, refusing to check his pockets as Cody laughed. “You will,” he said as his cousin pulled him through the door. “You always do.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Paddy waited until he was home that evening before finally giving in to temptation. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the tiny round stone the color of a gameball. With a sigh, he opened the lid of a small wooden box by his bedside and added it to the others inside.

  He’d known Codi Vinny his entire life, had been pulling him out and been embroiled in one scrape or another for as long. With a smiling countenance and an absurd sense of ethics that exasperated his family and his neighbors alike, Codi might have become an accomplished pickpocket, but that had, fortunately, never appealed to him. If pressed, he would have said it was no challenge, but Paddy knew differently. Codi was honest whether he liked to admit it or not, he was just . . . Codi.

  If he liked you, you found all kinds of things hidden in your pockets, from sweetmeats to tiny toys, even flowers. He and Paddy had played gameball together for years, until more adult responsibilities had pulled them both away. But Codi still hid the ball-shaped stones in Paddy’s clothes whenever they got together, and even though he knew he would do it, Paddy’d never been able to catch him in the act.

  However, if Codi didn’t like you, for whatever reason, the gifts were a lot nastier, ranging from rotten fruit to bugs to clods of manure, not always dried. And he really hated the Auklets.

  Paddy frowned, wondering what the other youth had found out about them to make him so gleeful. In the old days Paddy would have learned it before Codi, but that had been the old days before . . .

  “Want me to introduce you?”

  “Yes. No. I dunno know. Maybe.”

  “No.”

  * * *

  * * *

  The town bells had just finished ringing three when he was awakened by the sound of pebbles hitting his bedroom shutters. He sighed. For years, Codi hadn’t bothered to remember that Paddy shared a room with his older brother. Not that it really mattered; Hektor could sleep through anything, but still.

  Paddy pulled the blanket over his head, determined to ignore the other youth, but when the sound of pebbles became the sound of rocks, he rose with a curse.

  Crossing to the window, he threw open the shutters and glared down at the moonlit street.

  Below, Codi waved at him with a cheerful disregard for anything but their soon-to-be-recent- adventure. He gestured. Paddy shook his head. Codi raised the rock in his fist, and Paddy closed the shutters with as quiet a slam as he could manage. He would just keep at it.

  It took a few minutes for him to find a shirt and a pair of breeches, then he let himself out of the flat and padded down the stairs in his bare feet.

  He met Codi at the door to the tenement.

  “What?” he hissed.

  His friend drew back with an air of mock injury. “I thought you wanted to know what was goin’ on with the Auklets?” he aske
d innocently.

  “Sure, in the daytime,” Paddy shot back, pulling on his boots.

  “Daytime’s not the time anythin’ happens, Chief Runner Dann. You know that. C’mon.”

  Codi led the way down Iron Street, through the close they’d used that morning, and along Harp Way. But instead of making for the Auklets’ shop on the corner of Inglenook Lane, Codi carried on, turning up Glazier’s Terrace. Paddy stopped, and his friend gave him a quizzical look.

  “What? I tol’ you, Robyn an’ Orlenda know what’s goin’ on, so they’re comin’ too.”

  “Why?”

  Codi just gave him a grin. “Chicken?”

  “No!”

  “Shh, dummy, you’ll wake up the whole street.”

  “No. I’m not chicken,” Paddy repeated through gritted teeth.

  “Then c’mon. Or do you wanna wait till the wedding’ to meet them?”

  “What wedding!? Never mind. Whatever, just go, jerk.”

  They crept toward the Jessans’ shop, freezing as two figures materialized from around the back. They stared at each other for a long time, then, as if reaching a wordless consensus, the two figures headed over, eyes narrowed, legs as stiff as two cats approaching an unfamiliar tom. They fetched up a careful distance away, close enough to talk without waking the neighborhood, but far enough to avoid coming into contact with each other.

  The smaller of the two crossed her arms.

  “Whose your friend, Vinny?” she demanded.

  “I’m Padriec Dann,” Paddy answered for him.

  She turned an angry look on Codi who just chuckled. “What? You figured I bring Captain Travin?”

  “No, but there’s plenty of other Watchmen who aren’t Danns,” she shot back.

  “None as good. Look,” Codi continued before she could answer, “We’ve got more important things to do tonight than sortin’ out whether you lot can stand each other, so sort it out now; then we can go catch the Auklets in the act.” He leaned against the shop wall, arms crossed, with every sign of waiting all night. Paddy and Orlenda gave him equally dark looks, which he happily ignored.