Summernight

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  Time to roll the dice.

  He climbed the stonework carefully, grateful to see that the window to his room was still open.

  Almost there.

  Almost there.

  His foot slipped, but he recovered, pushing hard with the other foot and flipping himself over the window ledge and into the dark room beyond.

  “Gotcha,” a melodious female voice said, and a hand gripped his arm in the darkness.

  24: For a Sister

  Marielle

  MARIELLE’S MOUTH WAS dry and her hands shook as she held her dagger to the neck of the man she’d caught.

  It had worked.

  It was him!

  His scent was so strong that she could almost taste it – warm honey, lemongrass, cardamom, and tarragon all mixing into a heady scent that threatened to sweep her away. Her vision was temporarily blinded by the burst of gold his presence brought with it, tinged with the turquoise and gold residue of old magic and the throbbing pulse of his orange and ginger desperation. Through it all, in a bronze tinge as different to the gold of her attraction as honey was to sunbeams, was a single thread of hope smelling like morning dew.

  Marielle gritted her teeth, fighting against the pull of his emotions. She didn’t dare to succumb to it. If she did, all would be lost.

  She shoved him against the wall instead, drawing her truncheon in a smooth motion and setting it against his neck as her dagger eased back. She pushed against the truncheon – not enough to choke him, but enough to pin him to the wall. She still couldn’t believe it was him. It had been such a long shot!

  “Tamerlan Zi’fen?” she asked. “You’re under arrest by the Jingen City Watch.”

  He moaned and the sound of his voice set every hair of her body on end as if she was a tuning fork and he’d sung her note.

  “Please,” the one word spilled from his lips like a pearl from a string. “Please don’t do this.”

  “Don’t stop you?” she hissed. “You are in violation of Jingen City Law 34 subsection V – no citizen shall attempt to enter through a locked door belonging to a private citizen, a guild, a government building, or foreign entity. Do you deny that you tried to break into the Seven Suns Palace?”

  “No,” he said. His voice was exactly as she’d expected – deep and husky. It thrilled her. It made her think of what sorts of things he might whisper to her in this dark room if they weren’t enemies and if she didn’t have him pressed against a wall with her truncheon.

  “You are also in violation of Jingen City Law 21, subsection II – no citizen shall steal guild property, Jingen City Law 34 – again! – Jingen City Law 9, subsection IV – no citizen shall threaten the life of another citizen with violent action, including but not limited to, choking, beating, containing, assault with edged weapons, assault with – ”

  He cut her off. “Could I just admit to you that yes, I stole the book at the Queen Mer Library and threatened Sian.”

  “You’re admitting this?”

  Righteous anger welled up in her. He admitted his crime. No matter what attraction existed, it was clear what came next. She would march him to the local Watch House and turn him into custody. She would testify to his crimes before the Lord Mythos. It would not be comfortable to condemn him to death, but the law was clear and easy to understand, and so was her role. She would take no pleasure in it, but she would carry it out. And she would watch him sink.

  “Could you light a candle?” he asked.

  “What?”

  He sounded so calm even though his emotions popped and blazed. That orange and ginger pulsing of his desperation was the strongest of all. She shouldn’t light the candle. He must be planning something behind all those emotions.

  “I can’t see your face,” he said gently.

  Why did he have to be gentle? She was threatening him with justice for his crimes! She had a truncheon to his neck! He shouldn’t be gentle. He should be raging and threatening or weeping. She’d seen both. She’d never seen gentle. She’d never smelled the azure and aspen scent that swirled around him when making an arrest.

  “What can a little light hurt?” he pressed.

  He had a point. But if she let up with the truncheon, he might escape. She put the tip of her long knife back to his throat, shifting her weight nervously.

  “Feel that point? I keep it sharp in accordance with strict regulation.”

  “I have no doubt.”

  Was he laughing at her? He seemed to find the comment funny.

  “If you want a candle, you’ll need to light one with the edge of this knife at your throat. It’s my insurance that you won’t escape.”

  “Sure, sure. Just let me walk to the washstand, please.”

  There had been a candle there. She remembered that now. And flint and Firestarter. She kept her knife pressed to his throat as he struck the flint, sparking the starter grass and cupping it carefully in his hands as he blew on the tiny flame, nursing it to life.

  The flickers of light send a glow over his face that highlighted his high-born good looks. He looked like the pictures of the Dragonblooded you saw in books or statues around Jingen. Like the warriors from the mountains of old, spilling down onto the plains to fight dragons.

  He lit the candle and then held it, looking at her with widening eyes.

  “Don’t think that just because I’m a woman you can take advantage of me,” Marielle said. “I am a servant of the law. I will give my life to uphold it.”

  “And you love good,” he said, his dreamy eyes seeming to see more of her than she planned to give. She pulled her scarf over her nose and mouth in defense. “In ancient times there were warriors of light and justice who were dedicated to doing good and honoring their god. They were called Paladins. Are you a paladin, Officer?”

  “Marielle Valenspear,” she said, letting the veil drop again.

  “I didn’t know that Watch Officers were so beautiful,” he said, his eyes running over her face and hair like he was trying to memorize them.

  Marielle stiffened. If he thought he could charm her with sweet words about paladins and comments on her looks, he could think again. She was no red-door woman ready to please a man for a price. She felt her cheeks heating. She shouldn’t have thought that. It was insulting to her mother.

  “Are you also compassionate?” he asked, licking his lips like he was nervous to ask the question. His lower lip was fuller than the upper lip – shaped in a way that made Marielle think of kissing.

  “We’re justice,” Marielle said. “The Hand of the Law.”

  “What would you say if I told you that tomorrow they are going to sacrifice a girl who doesn’t deserve to die. They’re going to spill her blood out for a dusty old ritual. They’re going to take all her smiles. They’re going to steal all her tears. They’re going to rob from the world all the ways that she would have made everything around her more beautiful.”

  “I know that,” Marielle said, and her tone might have been harsher than she wanted because ringing in her mind was the thought that she could stop it all if she was just willing to give up her own life instead. “That doesn’t change the law.

  Tamerlan smiled slightly at her – just one corner of his mouth lifting sadly. “Did you know that she’s my little sister?”

  The words hung in the air between them as he leaned in closer, ignoring her blade, his words quiet and gentle – almost delicate.

  “My first memory is of her tiny steps toddling after me. My first heartbreak was followed by her childish hug. I think sometimes that maybe she’s the only one who’s ever known me. And pretty soon there won’t be an Amaryllis anymore and I’m pretty sure that if that’s true, then there won’t be a Tamerlan either.” He glanced into the shadows, a haunted look flashing over his face so quickly that Marielle couldn’t have sworn she’d actually seen it at all. “Is that justice?”

  “It’s the law,” she said, but the words felt hollow, like for the first time in her life they didn’t matter like they us
ed to. Because it wasn’t the Real Law. It was the thing that Captain Ironarm had warned her about. It was that moment when you realized that the City Law didn’t line up with the Real Law at all.

  “What is the law, Marielle?”

  “I read you the codes that you broke. Do you want to hear the section about the obtaining of sacrifices and implementation of the sacrifice system?” her voice grew fainter with every word.

  “I do not,” and now his voice had steel in it. “What I want to know is this – you serve truth and justice. You love the law because it lays out the right way of things like a straight line through a maze. You are devoted to it because it sets out a wall to defend the innocent and lays a trap for the guilty. But tell me this, Marielle, is this real justice? Who are you defending when you are complicit in stealing my sister’s life? Where is truth in the lie that she is worth less than anyone else in this city? Where is the justice in taking from her what isn’t yours to take? Tell me that Jingen City Law and subsection.”

  “I can’t let you break the law,” Marielle breathed, but she didn’t know anymore if she meant it. After all, who was she to say that her life was worth more than this Amaryllis? Was there anyone who would think their life had ended if she died? Lord Mythos had said he didn’t want to kill her. And Carnelian would miss the results she brought. Her mother – Variena – would probably cry. But when they gave her the redemption money for Marielle’s life, she would spend it. Variena was a survivor. “If I let anyone break it, then there is no law. And if there is no law, then no one is safe.”

  “Who is safe right now? Is Amaryllis safe? I’m not asking you to let me break the law,” Tamerlan said, clearly taking a deep breath to compose himself. He bit his lip, stretching it between his teeth as he thought about his words. A sheen of sweat had broken out across his brow and he ran his calloused hand through his short light-colored hair. He probably didn’t realize how that made his muscles bulge with the movement or how that drew her eyes.

  “Then what are you asking for,” she asked, a little breathlessly. The dagger point by his throat had dropped without her realizing it.

  “I’m just asking you not to stop me – not tonight. Just one more night, Marielle. Please?”

  His big eyes were liquid as he pled, like he was on the verge of tears, and the way his emotions bubbled and rolled like the sea in a storm, he could very well be.

  She shouldn’t say yes. She knew that much. Saying yes was a betrayal of everything she’d ever believed about what was right and wrong and what mattered. She was a servant of the law. She was made of law from core to cusp.

  And yet.

  And yet it was only her own selfishness that kept his sister in that tower at all. If she marched to the Sunset Tower tonight and demanded to be taken in Amaryllis’ place, they would take her, and it would be her life at stake. And no one, not a brother or a friend or anyone else, would bother to fight to keep her alive.

  She didn’t have the courage to give herself for a stranger. Not even a stranger with a beautiful, angst-ridden brother. She swallowed the sick feeling of shame that filled her.

  Maybe Captain Ironarm was right. Maybe what you did in that moment between the Real Law and the City Law told you who you really were.

  She took a deep, shaking breath and lowered her knife, sliding it back in its sheath.

  Tamerlan danced back deftly, ducking out of her range and scooping up a pair of oiled-jute packs and jamming a mortar and pestle into the top of one of them. He paused for a moment, like he was considering something, and then with a nervous half-smile, he ducked in close, kissed her cheek and breathed a gasping, “Thank you.”

  He was across the room and leaping out the window before her breath steadied again. Gone before the gooseflesh erupting across her cheek and down her arm settled.

  She’d made a decision.

  And now she’d live with the consequences.

  25: Rampage

  Tamerlan

  TAMERLAN HUDDLED IN the shadows of the canal, grinding the ingredients carefully. He was almost ready. This time, he had the lock picks and a knife in his belt. When Lila Cherrylocks – or even Byron Bronzebow – came for him, he’d be ready.

  There was a loud peal of laughter overhead from the street above and someone threw a coin over the railing into the canal. Jhinn reached out with careful precision and caught the coin inches from the water.

  “I think they threw it in for good luck,” Tamerlan said mildly.

  “Yeah. It’s my good luck now, boy.”

  Tamerlan chuckled quietly. “Okay. I’m going to go up to one of the braziers up there and smoke this stuff. I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “Yeah. Sure. I’ll be here.”

  “You don’t have somewhere else you need to be?”

  “I’m paid up for the night!” Jhinn held up the coin he’d caught. “See? The waves are interested in your progress. If you grab the sister, you’ll be glad I’m nearby.”

  Tamerlan nodded, pouring his mixture into a small scarf – he didn’t want to lose his mixing bowl – and carefully climbing from the gondola to the stone ledge that ran along the canal. With careful steps, he followed the ledge to the stairs that led up to the street above.

  The Temple District was alight with merriment, people in costume racing from temple to temple to give out small carvings and tokens of their faith – good luck for the year ahead. The elderly and small children had gone to bed hours ago and now as the night grew late, the scarier costumes appeared. A Deathless Pirate with his face painted like a skull lurched along the street followed closely by a Lady Sacrifice dripping blood as she walked. What might look like a virginal costume in the day, looked horrific in the darkness and with the added effects of makeup.

  Tamerlan’s stomach turned, leaving his mouth dry. It all felt too real when he remembered that his sister would look just like that tomorrow. He skirted the costumed merry-makers, dodging a group of Smudgers promising a spirit of pleasure if he took a whiff of their smoke. He didn’t need that. He had his own spirit to consume.

  Fortunately, the Temple District had open braziers outside many of the Temples. The key was to find one that no one else would share. Tamerlan still didn’t know what would happen if anyone shared his smoke and he didn’t want to find out tonight.

  “Here for a good time?” a Lady Chaos asked, lurching into him with a wide grin on her face and a tottering step. She’d either been smoking the Smudger’s pleasure smoke or drinking too heavily. Her blue eyes were glassy with intoxication. Tamerlan leaned her gently against a nearby wall and passed quickly. Hopefully, she’d find her way home safely. He didn’t have the time tonight to help her on her way.

  Her blue eyes had reminded him of the purple ones that had watched him so sharply back in his room. Why had the Scenter let him go? Why hadn’t she dragged him to the nearest Watch House? He had thought she would.

  Her compassion – surprising as it was – was like a golden gift from the heavens. In any other circumstance, he would have found a way to pay her back – in friendship if nothing else. Tamerlan liked people who believed in things and if anyone really believed in the law, it was that woman – Marielle. And yet, she’d cared enough to break it. Even her name rolled easily on his tongue. Marielle.

  He shook his head. Now was not the time to wonder why she’d given him that gift. Now was definitely not the time to let haunting snatches of her beautiful face flicker through his mind like glimpses of a sunset between the rooftops. He should be using his chance while he still had it.

  He snuck around the side of a Smudger Temple. The front of the building bore a sign stating: All Spirits Welcome Smudge House.

  A group of laughing people still shy of twenty-years-old ran up the steps, nearly tripping over their costumes to lay gifts of plants and leaves at the door. Good luck for them in coming months and years.

  “We should take some, too,” one of them laughed. “I bet someone else left something valuable!”

>   Another one, dressed as One-eyed King Ablemeyer stopped him. “I don’t want to be on the Smudgers bad side, do you?”

  “Ooooh! The spirits will get you!” One of the girls waved her arms like an angry spirit.

  Tamerlan half-smiled at their fun as he pulled out his scarf. The brazier at the back of the Temple was burned down to embers. But embers would be enough.

  He looked around. No one was watching.

  Time to roll the dice for the second time that night. It had worked out the first time, hadn’t it?

  He dumped the ingredients from the scarf to the brazier, immediately shoving his head into the puff of smoke that erupted from the hot coals.

  Breathe! Breathe, Tamerlan! He sucked in great gasps of smoke, reeling from it. He coughed and sputtered, hands on his knees, but this was no time to stop – not if he wanted to save Amaryllis. Gritting his teeth, he stuck his head into the smoke a second time and breathed another lungful of smoke, sucking the acrid blackness into his lungs like it was lifegiving air. When he thought he might pass out from it, he stumbled backward, landing roughly on the cobblestones, his head spinning.

  Mine! I want him! That was Lila Cherrylocks! He’d succeeded!

  Tamerlan’s heart was racing, the blood already flooding into his brain. He’d done it!

  I don’t think so, thief. I’m taking this pretty man for a stroll around town.

  There was a feeling of something puuushing in his brain and then Lila’s voice was gone, replaced by a voice as hard as a whipcrack and as dry at the bones in the crypts.

  The moon is up. I hear the sounds of life around me.

  Tamerlan grabbed his belt knife from his belt and stalked away from the brazier without a single look back.

  Whatever spirit this was seemed to be focused and intense. Good! She could get him to Amaryllis. This didn’t seem like the kind of person who let things like castle walls or guards stop her.