The Hanged Man

by K. D. Edwards

  “None of that was your call to make,” I said. “None of it. I am your guardian. I was just forced to kill for you. An officer of the guarda died for you. Where are they?”

  Max stumbled over to his desk. He reached under the drawer and pulled something loose with a ripping sound. A bundle of letters—heavy, expensive ragcloth—were circled with a piece of torn masking tape.

  I yanked the bundle apart. I handed half to Brand, and took the other. I ordered the shell-shocked Max downstairs to be fed and watered by Queenie. Together, Brand and I started to read through the numerous, increasingly less vague entreaties, in which the Hanged Man’s people asserted his claim on Max.

  It took the better part of half an hour. By the end of it, Addam, Brand, and I had moved to the third floor, which was a single open space I’d turned into my sanctum. Sanctums were the heart of every major Atlantean household; a blessed and highly personal space where we meditated over our empty sigils, filling them with magic.

  “I don’t know the rules,” Brand said, running a tired hand over his face. “Are these important? We already knew the Hanged Man was interested in Max. He sent that letter months ago, remember? And Quinn’s hinted that we’re going to need to face him eventually.”

  “But he hadn’t asserted his rights in that letter we saw. Max hid these—hid the formal claims.”

  “So what does this mean?” Brand asked.

  “It means we’ve lost time,” I said. “No more grace period. We’re well into stage two, which involves dead men and screaming children.”

  “But if he’s moved against you . . .” Addam said. “That is actionable, yes? That permits you to act.”

  “It would, if we could prove the kidnappers operated on the Hanged Man’s word. Do you think we’ll be able to prove that?”

  “Quinn saw it,” Addam said, but hesitantly.

  “I will not involve Quinn in this.” Which opened up a whole other can of worries. “Don’t get me wrong, Addam, I am grateful as all hell for what he did today. But he’s supposed to be medicated. This isn’t healthy for him. How did he see all this through the drugs? As clearly as he did?”

  “You’re important to him. He says important things still break through the medication. He is . . . most evasive on this point.” I could tell that it bothered Addam—or that something about it bothered him—but filed it away for future consideration.

  Brand stared at me. “Are you honestly telling me we can’t make the first move?”

  “Not the kind you want us to make,” I said. I sorted the letters in my hand. One of them had a simple red and black business card folded into it. I showed it to Addam. “Jirvan. Do you know anyone called Jirvan, related to the Hanged Man?”

  “I do not. I know very little of—him—or his associates.”

  Him. That’s the sort of Arcana the Hanged Man was. People hid from him with pronouns.

  Without another word, I left the sanctum and climbed the stairs to my bedroom. Brand followed, and Addam behind him.

  My phone was charging on the bureau by the window. I picked it up, glanced at the business card, and dialed. It was answered on the second ring.

  I said, “We will parlay on neutral ground. Today.”

  Magic is infinite. Our ability to tap into it is not.

  My own resources were more stretched than most of the ruling class. When my father’s court was destroyed some twenty years ago, all of his wealth vanished with it. That included his sigils—the most powerful device a scion possessed. Using them, we were able to store, and re-store, single-use spells through highly individualistic acts of meditation. While most Atlanteans were capable of cantrips—small, showy parlor tricks—it took a sigil to focus truly strong acts of magic.

  As a lost art, the number of existing sigils—and their overpowered cousin, the mass sigil—was fixed. I retained only a handful from my youth, a ragtag collection composed of a white gold ring, a gold ring, a cameo necklace, a pewter ankh, a circle attached to a leather strap that I kept on my thigh, and a gold ankle chain. I’d obtained a seventh sigil from Lady Lovers, Matthias’s deposed grandmother. And I had an eighth as a gift from Quinn, for saving Addam’s life.

  Lost art or no, most greater houses were swimming in sigils. Arcana courts had armories of them. Just about the only edge I had was my own innate ability. While the potential for sigil magic was the same for any scion, the power to utilize that potential was not.

  I was a very, very good magic user. I was my father’s son. My throne may have toppled, but not the skill and bloodline that had raised it in the first place.

  I picked the park as neutral ground. Literally, the spot of my fight. Not only did it seem fitting, but also it allowed for showmanship. By the time Jirvan arrived I was bending over and staring thoughtfully at a bloodstain.

  The Atlantean who approached us—Jirvan—was scarred. He was very scarred. Healing magic had reconstituted as much as possible, but every inch of exposed skin still had the shiny, plasticky uniformity of old burns. Underneath that, he was an average-looking man, almost elderly. He walked with a pronounced limp in his left leg.

  Quinn had mentioned something about a leg, hadn’t he? That was the thing about Quinn’s prophecies: you could never tell when you needed to take something literally or metaphorically. Sometimes Jell-O just meant Jell-O, and sometimes Jell-O meant the ectoplasm of monster dinosaur ghosts.

  I’d dressed in a creased, button-down shirt and black pants. Brand was wearing tactical leathers, including a chest holster lined with vulcanized coal knives. He stood a short ways off, unblinking.

  “Lord Sun,” Jirvan said, without offering his hand. “It’s a pleasure.”

  “Tell me who you are in relation to the Hanged Man,” I said. “I will not speak to a puppet.”

  “Of course, my lord,” Jirvan said. “Shall we sit?”

  “No. I asked you a question.”

  “I am Lord Hanged Man’s seneschal. In this matter, I speak with his voice.”

  “This matter,” I repeated, rolling the word around. “I’m curious what you think this matter is. Are you referring to the Gallows’ very mistaken claim on my ward? Sending messengers and letters to my home without my knowledge? Or today’s attempted kidnapping?”

  “My faith. Kidnapping?”

  I stared at the bloodstains on the ground, patiently.

  The seneschal gave a nearby bench a plaintive look. He sighed. “I’m afraid I’m not prepared to speak about any kidnapping. I am, however, happy to talk about Lord Hanged Man’s pending nuptials.”

  Behind Jirvan, I saw a look of utter fury cross Brand’s face, but kept my own anger in check.

  “Why,” I said, without the lift of a question. “That’s what puzzles me most. Why. Matthias’s court is gone. Lady Lovers is in exile. He no longer offers a connection to the Heart Throne. So why him. One might suspect it’s a move against the Sun Throne.”

  “Lord Sun,” Jirvan said, with a regrettably apologetic expression. “From a certain perspective—and I say this with all respect—the Sun Throne offers as few connections as the Heart Throne, if this was just a political matter, which it is not.”

  I continued as if Jirvan hadn’t spoken. “The Hanged Man has never met Matthias. There have been no formal introductions. Matthias comes with no personal wealth, no sigils, no assets. He is unschooled. He is without prospects. So still I wonder: why.”

  “I wouldn’t presume to speak about Lord Hanged Man’s affections. I’m not even sure they are relevant to this discussion. There is a contract, Lord Sun.”

  “There was a contract, when Max—Matthias—was an adherent of the Heart Throne. Now he’s mine. He’s my ward. He’s my responsibility. He’s under my protection.”

  “The terms of the marital contract are very clear. It remains precedent, no matter which court Matthias belongs to.”

  “How much—” I began to say, but Jirvan raised a scarred hand.

  “Apologies. I think it’s in our best interes
ts to be clear that this is not a negotiation. Lord Hanged Man’s mind is set.”

  I didn’t speak for a full ten seconds. I just let the weight of my regard build until the seneschal began shifting weight off his bad leg. I said, “Let me be clear as well. I have told you that Max is under my protection. Harm to him must pass through me. And I consider the Hanged Man’s attentions very much a form of harm. Knowing that, will the Gallows still pursue this ridiculous claim?”

  “I’m afraid the Gallows finds this situation anything but ridiculous. Knowing that, are you prepared to step aside, and send the boy into Lord Hanged Man’s custody?”

  “We will send him your head,” Brand whispered.

  “That would be a bitter start to the formalities between our courts,” Jirvan said, and damn if he didn’t even flinch.

  My eyes wandered across the scars on his face. A man who had known such pain wouldn’t be easily frightened.

  “Very well,” I said. “Rules.”

  Jirvan raised an eyebrow. He folded his hands in front of his stomach, and waited.

  I said, “Matthias is not the sole resident of my home. Others live there. The presence of you or your men, the deluge of secret messages, can—and will—be construed as aggression. It will allow me to act.”

  “By all means, please accept my deepest apologies. We were led to assume you were aware of our advances. We believed we were acting with full transparency.”

  “And since I’m only becoming aware of the official claim today, the formal notification period begins now.”

  Jirvan hesitated. He shook his head faintly. “While we respect your . . . lineage, Lord Sun, you are not an Arcana. The notification period has ended.”

  I smiled. “My seat on the Arcanum exists, it’s just empty. Perhaps you would prefer I claim it?”

  Jirvan went still, except for one finger tapping against another. Finally he said, with a much less uncertain headshake, “That seems a rather dramatic course of action. And unnecessary. Our claim holds. That will not change.”

  I took a thin, long breath, and remained unprovoked. “You’re the Hanged Man’s seneschal, Jirvan. Advise him well.”

  Jirvan smiled at me. He smiled at Brand. With a final nod, he turned and left.

  Brand waited until the man was far out of earshot. Then he said, with heartfelt emphasis, “Fuck.”

  “Could have gone worse,” I said.

  “No, I mean, fuck. This is going to be all about protocol, isn’t it? That’s not my world. If it can be stabbed, I take the lead. This is all words. Fucking protocol.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, staring at the scarred man’s receding back. “Protocol will only get us so far. There will be things to stab soon enough.” I closed my eyes and rubbed them. “We need to prepare, Brand. We’re out of time.”

  Later that night, after everyone had gone to bed, I went downstairs and sat on the sofa.

  There was something about a house at midnight that always reminded me of sanctums. The refrigerator hissed as the ice tray filled; floors and walls groaned; distant traffic ebbed and advanced like an ocean tide. It was easy to slip into a meditative fugue.

  I thought about things. Like Jirvan. I wondered how he’d been scarred, and if it had been in the Hanged Man’s employ. I was surprised by his age, too. A seneschal is a high-placed position, especially in a court like the Gallows that had so few centers of power outside the Hanged Man’s immediate circle. I would have expected him in better health and rejuvenated to a younger age.

  Tomorrow, we’d need to start researching Jirvan. We’d need to research the more obscure clauses governing marital claims. We’d need to tap our contacts, and likely shore up a monetary fund for information brokering.

  I let my thoughts flow in that direction while I waited.

  I’d have guessed I’d be there until two or three in the morning, but Max was impatient. He barely waited until half past one before he snuck downstairs.

  He made it to the door before I cleared my throat. He jumped in the air, then caught himself with that useful fae agility.

  “No handkerchief,” I said. “In all the stories, the kid runs away with a handkerchief tied around a fishing pole.”

  Max sighed and took a step closer, until he didn’t have to squint to see me. His face was drawn into tight, unhappy lines. “This isn’t a story. And I’m not a kid. I’m a grown man who has put everyone he cares about in danger, and has a responsibility to do something about it.”

  “I’ll tell you when you’re acting like a man,” I said.

  Max stared down at the duffle bag in his hand. Brand had got it at a tradeshow. The logo for the crossbow company was bright florescent yellow. Matthias had never been very good at picking the right colors for sneaking around.

  “Sit down,” I said.

  “I can’t put you through this,” Max whispered. “I can’t.”

  “We’re already in it. We have to see it through.”

  “Don’t make this any harder.”

  “Max, I swear on the River, if you try to leave this house, I will fall on you like thunder. Sit. The fuck. Down.”

  He didn’t sit next to me. He chose the armchair I usually sat in. He put his duffle bag on the ground between his feet.

  “I will have your word,” I said. “Now. Your word.”

  “About what?”

  “Max.”

  Max glanced at the door, and dropped his head again. “I won’t leave if you can promise me that you see a way out of this. Do you?”

  “There is always a way out. Give me your word.”

  “I won’t leave,” he promised.

  I stayed silent, to see what he’d say next. Most people didn’t let silence sit for long, and Max was more nervous than most. Sure enough, after a few seconds, he said, “Will you let me help?”

  I thought about that, and said, “Yes.”

  “Will you let me fight?”

  “If it comes to it. And Max?”

  “Yes?”

  “You have to . . . We . . . Look. I know there are bad things in your past. And you know I know they’re there. I haven’t forced the question; I’ve tried to let you decide when you were ready to talk about them. But the time is rapidly approaching when we’ll need to have the conversation.”

  “I don’t—that’s done. All of that is behind me.” He swallowed, on the edge of panic. “Do I really need to talk about it? Does it do you any good to talk about your past?”

  “It’s not about what’s good for you. It’s about arming Brand and me with every bit of information that may help.”

  “There’s nothing there that will help you. My past has nothing to do with what’s happening now. My uncle—”

  He stopped talking as if he’d bit his tongue. I watched the emotion shut down his face. Brand and I already suspected that Max’s uncle— who’d been his primary guardian—hadn’t been a kindly influence. We weren’t entirely sure if the man had survived the fall of the Heart Throne. We were entirely sure that, if we ever found out he had, he wouldn’t survive much longer.

  “It’s been a long day,” I said, “and there’s a lot we need to do tomorrow. Why don’t you go to bed?”

  He nodded and got up, hefting the duffle bag. At the bottom of the stairs he turned around and, jerkily, hurried back to me. He bent down to kiss my cheek.

  He whispered, “I love you and Brand and Queenie.” Then he ran upstairs, his footsteps making the spiral stairway vibrate.

  I didn’t get up yet. I sat on the sofa and waited. About ninety seconds later, sure enough, a key scraped the lock, and the front door opened. Brand came in with an aluminum baseball bat against his shoulder.

  I stared at it curiously. “Would you really have hit him with it?”

  Brand said, all formal, “I was prepared to demonstrate my disappointment with his fucking martyrdom. You talked him out of running away?”

  “He promised he’d stay.”

  Brand nodded. He was about to close the
door behind him when—to both our surprise—Quinn poked his head in. It was windy outside, and his blond hair stood up in cowlicks.

  “Hello,” he said. He nudged the door open with a paintball gun.

  I pointed at Brand, delighted, and said, “You didn’t know he was out there, did you?”

  “Shut up. He’s a seer—he probably knew where to sit where I couldn’t see him. Shut the fuck up!”

  “Quinn,” I said. “Please tell me Addam is out there too.”

  “Do you want me to call him?” Quinn asked helpfully, missing the point entirely.

  “No. I want you not to be outside, in New Atlantis, by yourself, after midnight. Addam is going to kill you.” I pulled out my phone and texted Addam.

  Quinn said, “I didn’t want to wake him up. Most of the time he’s dreaming about circus tents, which is weird, but it makes him happy. He hasn’t been sleeping very well. It’s hard to run his business without business partners, even ones who try to kill him.”

  My phone chirped. I looked at Addam’s response and said, “He’s sending a car. He wants me to tell you that this is worse than the papaya incident.”

  Quinn went a little pale. “Oh, that was bad.”

  “I’m telling him not to send a car. You can bunk with Max. If you kick Max a lot in your sleep, preferably in the ass, I’ll even make you breakfast tomorrow.”

  “So Max isn’t running away anymore?” Quinn asked.

  “No. And I thought you couldn’t see what was going to happen anymore?”

  “It’s not so bad right now,” he said, a little too evasively. “The medicine . . . takes a lot away. I can look, but it’s not . . . like it was. I only see important flashes. You’ll get in a fight near a boat soon.”

  “Is this a real boat or one of your not-really-a-boat boats?” Brand asked.

  “I don’t know what that means,” Quinn said, with a lot of dignity.

  “It means last week you told us to watch out for a very very dangerous dog when we infiltrated that warehouse. And the only dog was a picture of a hell hound in a frame on the wall.”

  “But it was a hell hound,” Quinn pointed out.

  “In a fucking picture,” Brand said.