“You can sense when somebody is guilty of spilling Catresou blood,” she said. “Could you tell if a person was guilty of anyone’s murder?”
Juliet shrugged. “Probably.”
“How close do you have to be?” asked Runajo, sitting up. Her exhaustion was melting away, now that she had the start of a plan.
If Runajo could use Juliet to find the murderer, then the High Priestess might finally listen to her. She might permit Runajo to enter the Sunken Library, might help her find a way to survive it. Even if she didn’t—if the murderer were stopped, then Runajo would have time. So she could prepare for the library, so she could decide what to do with Juliet, so she could think about danger without shaking again.
Runajo was afraid. She was desperately afraid of the murderer. But if she could stop her, then maybe she would find her courage again.
“Why should I help you?” asked Juliet.
Because I order you to, Runajo nearly said, and then felt sick. Was it really so easy, to start using this girl as a slave?
Of course it was easy. Juliet’s own family had all managed it.
As if she could tell what Runajo was thinking, Juliet said, “You’ve already enslaved me. You shouldn’t flinch at a few more orders.”
“Your family enslaved you,” said Runajo. “And what choice do I have but to give you orders? You said you wanted to kill me and all my Sisters. You really should have lied to me from the start.”
“I never lie,” said Juliet.
Runajo raised her eyebrows. “You took a secret husband without ever lying?”
“I did not always tell the whole truth,” said Juliet. “That is not the same as lying.”
“Well, if you want to slaughter the entire Sisterhood, you’ll have to learn at least a little deceit,” said Runajo. “Tact, as well.”
“You’ve thought about what it would take to kill them?” asked Juliet.
“I think about everything,” said Runajo. “And a good deal more than you seem to. Will you help me or not?”
Silence stretched between them. Juliet stared at her, and though her face was resolutely set as always, there was something tired in her shoulders, her eyes.
“You still haven’t told me why I should,” she said.
“Because it’s unjust,” said Runajo, “for anyone to be murdered. Even one of us. Don’t you want to see all murderers punished?”
Juliet stared at her for a moment longer. Then her mouth tilted up. “All right,” she said.
15
PARIS WAS GLAD TO HAVE Romeo’s help, but he felt a sense of dread as they trudged back to Justiran’s house. He had declared that he didn’t need help from a renouncer when he stormed out. He could guess the sort of raised eyebrows and condescension he was going to face when he came crawling back.
It was for Juliet. He could bear any sort of humiliation to get justice for her and save his clan from being bound to necromancers.
He still kept trying to make the wall around his mind stronger, because if he was going to be humiliated, at least he didn’t want Romeo to know how much.
But when Justiran opened the door, he just looked them up and down and said, “If you want dinner, you’ll have to help with the cleanup.”
Romeo smiled and said, “I can show him how.”
Paris didn’t say anything. He followed Romeo into the house for a second time, feeling like he was sneaking in, and then stood awkwardly on the edge of the room, watching Justiran go into the kitchen and Romeo wipe off the table. They had clearly eaten together before; they knew the rhythm to move around each other.
He didn’t belong here.
“Paris,” said Justiran. “Come give me a hand.”
Reluctantly, he walked into the kitchen. “What?”
“Stir this,” said Justiran, handing him a spoon. He didn’t immediately start another task.
“This is just an excuse to make me talk with you, isn’t it?” said Paris.
“Yes,” said Justiran, not sounding the least bit ashamed.
Paris drew a breath. “If you’re going to tell me I can live without my clan or some such nonsense—”
“No,” said Justiran. “I’m going to tell you that those clothes are going to get you robbed, and you’d be better off selling them while they’re still in one piece.”
“You were thinking that nonsense, weren’t you?” said Paris.
Justiran smiled ruefully. “Maybe. I don’t claim I’m perfect.”
“I don’t need you to tell me what I’m strong enough to live without,” said Paris, wishing that Justiran would get angry at him or at least openly contemptuous, so that he wouldn’t feel quite so ridiculous lashing out.
“You’re right,” said Justiran. “You don’t.”
And it sounded . . . honest, when he said it.
“But you do need to keep stirring,” Justiran added, “or you really won’t like what we have to eat. I’m guessing you’ve never sold used clothes before?”
“No,” said Paris, stirring the pot. Steam puffed up in his face; the soup was heavily spiced, and he was suddenly aware of just how hungry he was.
“I’ll do it for you,” said Justiran. “And I have some spare clothes that might not fit you too badly.”
Paris’s hand tightened on the spoon. He shouldn’t be taking help from a renouncer. He shouldn’t be relieved that the renouncer was treating him with respect.
But he was.
After dinner was over, and Justiran had gone out to sell Paris’s old clothing, Romeo looked at him over their tea and said, “I will tell you everything I know about Tybalt.”
“All right,” said Paris. He knew he should feel triumphant, but instead he felt uneasy. He was sitting in the house of a renouncer, drinking tea. He was unmasked, wearing not Catresou clothing but an ill-fitting tunic and trousers. He was about to discuss, quite calmly and civilly, his kinsman’s death with the murderer.
Romeo might have caught a bit of that last thought, because his fingers tightened on his teacup as he said, “I know it doesn’t matter, but I am sorry.”
It didn’t matter. Sorry was such a little word for killing Tybalt and helping get Juliet killed. But when Paris looked at Romeo, slightly hunched over his teacup—while he felt the faint, persistent ache of Romeo’s walled-off grief—he couldn’t seem to feel exactly angry.
“We have to stop Lord Catresou,” he said. “That’s all that matters. When did you . . .” He realized that he was about to ask, When did you last see Tybalt?, which was idiotic, because they both knew the answer.
“Did you ever see Tybalt in the Lower City before?” he asked instead.
Romeo shook his head. “I never knew he came down here.”
Paris didn’t want to ask, but he wanted to stop being the sort of coward who had heard the Juliet say she was in danger and done nothing.
“You said he was a brute. Did he really—did you ever see him—”
“Juliet never said a word against him,” said Romeo. “I never saw him hurt anyone in the Upper City. He had a reputation for being friendly with everyone. Courteous, anyway. He must have said good morning to me half a dozen times. But when we dueled . . . I never saw anyone so angry. I do believe he might have hurt her afterward.”
“If you hadn’t killed him,” said Paris, and wished he didn’t feel just the tiniest bit relieved at that. Because if Tybalt had lived—if Romeo hadn’t accidentally thrown Lord Catresou’s plans into disarray—then Juliet might be in the hands of a necromancer right now.
“Yes,” said Romeo.
He wasn’t meeting Paris’s eyes. He also wasn’t sinking into a wild display of grief, which Paris found a great relief but also unnerving. He wasn’t sure what to do with a Romeo who wasn’t wailing aloud.
He’d known him less than a day. Last night, he had still thought he was going to be the Juliet’s Guardian.
“You fought him in the Lower City?” said Paris. He’d heard that much from his father.
R
omeo’s voice was barely above a whisper. “The south market.”
That was why the City Guard had known to look for Romeo: the duel had happened in one of the largest marketplaces of the Lower City. There must have been a hundred witnesses to name him.
“What happened?” asked Paris.
Romeo pressed his lips together for a moment and then said, “Makari. My tutor.”
The memories were overwhelming. Paris caught a glimpse of a lean, lined face, slouching shoulders, and a wry half smile; he felt a hand on his shoulder, heard a voice warm with pride. An enormous rush of mixed affection, admiration, and desperate desire to please swept over him. And grief. Bitter, aching grief wrapped around the thought, He was like a brother to me, and I will never see him again.
Makari was dead. Paris knew it, without having to ask.
“Tybalt knew about me and Juliet somehow. He said . . . utterly vile things. I tried to explain, but he wasn’t listening, and Makari got angry. He could always shrug off any insult—he grew up in the Lower City himself, he’s only half Mahyanai, and a lot of the clan looks down on him for all he’s one of our best swordsmen—but that time he got angry. For my sake. He told Tybalt to shut up, and when he didn’t, he said he would teach him a lesson. They fought, and I tried to stop them, because Juliet loves Tybalt—”
Romeo stopped.
“Loved,” he corrected himself dully. “She loved him, so I tried to drag Makari away, and Tybalt killed him while I was holding his sword arm.”
“Tybalt cheated?” said Paris, and he probably shouldn’t be surprised at anything anymore, but he was.
“Or he was aiming for me,” Romeo said, his voice quiet and hollow. “I’m not sure. And then—I hardly remember. I picked up Makari’s sword. You know what happened next.”
Somehow Romeo had killed Tybalt, the best fighter of his generation.
“I think I met somebody down here who knew Tybalt,” said Paris.
He didn’t want to tell anyone, let alone Romeo, about how useless he was on his own. But Romeo had been willing to talk about his own shame, and Paris could hardly do less. So he resolutely explained everything that had happened since he got angry and stomped out of Justiran’s house.
“Do you know what the King of Cats is?” he finished.
“He’s the champion duelist for the Lower City,” said Romeo, as if everyone knew.
“But it’s illegal for commoners to duel,” said Paris.
Romeo snorted. “Of course it’s illegal. They do it anyway. Anyone who brings a weapon can fight, and the one who wins is the King of Cats.”
“Do you know where they meet?” asked Paris. If they could track down Vai, maybe they could make him talk.
Romeo shook his head. “They’d never tell someone like me.”
And obviously, nobody would want to tell Paris either. They could still try to hunt down Vai, but given the size of the Lower City, it might be almost as hard as hunting the Master Necromancer.
There had to be a way they could learn more about Tybalt.
“When you dueled Tybalt,” said Paris, “did he have any friends with him?”
Romeo’s eyes went distant. “Maybe,” he said. “There was a girl—a Lower City girl, she looked like she might work in a shop. She ran to Tybalt when he fell. She was crying over him, until somebody dragged her away. I suppose she might have just been tender-hearted, but . . .”
“Would you know that girl if you saw her again?” Paris asked, his pulse quickening. Because this could be it. This could be the clue that would lead to them stopping Lord Catresou.
“Yes,” said Romeo.
“Then we go back to that market,” said Paris. “We find her. And we find out what she knows.”
When they set out for the south market the next morning, Paris had two goals: to find the girl who had cried over Tybalt and to not storm away from Romeo in a fit of anger.
Five minutes after walking out Justiran’s door, he didn’t feel confident he’d achieve either one. Romeo had not had any more fits of grief, but he was incapable of taking two steps without thinking about Juliet. He had taken Juliet to sit on that rooftop. He had walked down that street, the day after meeting Juliet. That woman’s dress was the same blue as Juliet’s eyes. This morning’s sunlight would be so beautiful on Juliet’s hair.
And he was terrible at keeping his thoughts to himself.
“I can’t help loving her,” said Romeo. “Maybe you’re just terrible at not listening.”
Of course Paris was terrible. He had never been meant to be Guardian. He tried to crush that thought before Romeo could hear it.
“Love her?” he said. “How much did you even know her?”
He remembered Juliet in the garden when he met her, the anger hiding her sadness, and her resignation in the sepulcher. Her determination to protect her people. It’s all I ever wanted, to be correct.
How could Romeo have taken that from her?
“Or did you just see she was pretty, and decide you needed her?” he demanded.
“She was lonely,” said Romeo. His voice was soft, wistful. “And kind.”
And you used her loneliness against her, Paris wanted to say, but he could no longer convince himself that Romeo had manipulated her on purpose. And he was trying not to start a fight. He hoped Romeo hadn’t overheard that thought.
If he had, he didn’t react. But after a few moments he said, suddenly, “It was just a stupid bet, the first time I saw her.” He laughed softly, ruefully. “Not even really a bet. We were joking about what you Catresou had hidden behind those walls, and Makari said I was too scatterbrained to sneak past the guards, and I wanted to prove him wrong. So I got inside. I climbed the walls of a garden. And there she was, as lovely as the stars and just as bright, and all the daylight seemed as night compared to her—”
“You can’t have thought that,” said Paris. “Not at first.”
Romeo hadn’t even known her name. Paris knew that he himself had never understood her, but at least he’d exchanged words with her.
And strangely, Romeo seemed to listen to him. He paused, lips pressing together, and Paris felt a flicker of uncertainty before he half laughed and said, “No. At first, I thought she was terrible and strange and pitiable. She was practicing the sword, and she looked not quite human.”
And Paris saw it, a secondhand memory so vivid that for a moment he felt like he was there himself: Juliet in her garden, unmasked, her dark hair swirling free and her face set in stubborn, angry concentration as she worked through a set of sword forms. Her blade gleamed in the sunlight; her mouth was set in a not-quite-smile that was just as ferocious and sharp.
He saw it, and he thought Juliet and zoura and protector of our people . . . but he also felt what Romeo had thought in that moment: alien and victim and wrong.
“And then the cat came,” Romeo went on.
“What?” said Paris.
Romeo shrugged. “I don’t know its name. It was barely more than a kitten—”
And again Paris saw the memory, saw the white fur dappled with orange and black splotches, heard the shrill, plaintive meows.
“—and she picked it up. Cradled it.”
The words were short and abrupt. But in the memory Paris saw, it was an entire dance: Juliet slowly laying down her sword so the cat would not startle. The fingers she held out for the cat to sniff, the gentle scratch she gave its cheek. The cat trilling and rubbing its cheek against her hand, then arching its spine under her fingers. Another meow, and she ran her fingers down its spine again, scratched its cheek again—and then, at last, she cupped her hand around the cat’s chest and lifted it up. She cradled it in her arms, whispering something that Paris—Romeo—could not hear. But the gentle delight on her face was something anyone could read.
“Then the guards came and I had to run,” said Romeo. “But I wanted to know how she could be so ferocious and so kind. And I loved her. Because of that moment, I will always love her.”
He
said the words as simply as if he were describing the sun going up and coming down.
“No matter that I live and she is dead,” Romeo went on earnestly. “It is nothing to me. Were she a revenant and ripping the flesh from my bones, I would love her still, and still I would try—”
“Stop it,” said Paris, and then quickly added, “if you want. But I really don’t care about your beautiful feelings.”
He couldn’t help thinking, though: Romeo had loved Juliet for what he knew of her. Who among the Catresou had done the same?
Paris didn’t know much about the Lower City, but even he had heard of the south market, because it was the one marketplace in the city where everybody went. Because—as in so many shops and markets of the Lower City—half the goods were stolen from workshops and transports in the Upper City. If you wanted something elegant and didn’t want to pay full price—or if, like Paris’s father, you wanted to know what your competitors were crafting—you went to the south market and searched through the goods. People were always complaining, both about how much stolen material was in the market and about how high the prices were, and everyone always agreed that the City Guard needed to do something about it. Not much ever got done, though, largely because most members of the City Guard liked to shop there too.
The shops lined a large avenue, and at the south end, the avenue turned into a wide stairway that spilled down into one of the main squares of the Lower City. The stairs were almost impassible because of the crowd of vendors who had jammed their stalls, carts, and blankets spread with goods onto the steps. The crowd oozed slowly between them, admiring, chattering, bargaining.
It did not seem like a good place to duel someone.
“We were down in the square,” Romeo muttered, looking unhappily toward the huge fountain at the center. There was more space down there; Paris could see how it would be possible to fight a brief, awkward duel.
“It didn’t take long,” said Romeo.
“Stop listening,” said Paris, trying to shore up the walls in his mind. “Do you remember which direction she came from?”
“That way,” said Romeo, pointing toward a knot of vendors.
It took them several hours, but finally they determined that the girl was not working at any of the shops or carts nearby in the marketplace. At least, she wasn’t working that day. Most people hadn’t been talkative, and there was no way to ask questions about absent employees without sounding suspicious.
Bright Smoke, Cold Fire Page 12