by Jackson Lear
We ended up with twenty temples to search. There were temples to Silvair and Silvare – which I learned from someone called Hanrel that Silvare was Silvair’s twin brother and was the god of blacksmithing, knitting, corn, and boils. Silvair was the god of wind, beer, stags, and wet nurses. The ancient gods were eclectic, I’ll give you that. Then there were temples to Dwoama, Rhend, Lycyx, Asar, Nevalayton, and so on. Old man Clifford may have rambled on about them when I was a youngster. If he had, most of my time was probably spent staring at the clouds through the atrium ceiling.
I had an idea that wasn’t well received. We could go to the orphanage, hire ourselves four or five kids for the night, and have them wander around each of these temples and see which ones they were chased away from. The fellas didn’t like the idea of risking more orphans being kidnapped, especially since we knew how to hide in plain sight and kids didn’t. I argued that last point. I was practically invisible for most of my youth.
With time running out we paired up. Me and Lieutenant. Greaser and Runaway. We stayed relatively close together, just a few streets apart in case we were ambushed or happened to strike gold. Each temple required us to search each surrounding building. All the roofs. All the windows. Any window that was boarded up, we checked. Anything with a simple curtain, we checked. Anything with kids laughing, women chatting, or any kind of family feeling, we ignored. We were looking for silence, which wasn’t easy in a lively city just a couple of hours after sunset.
Dwoama and Rhend were struck off the list. Then Silvair and Silvare. One hour for each pair and even then we were hustling.
The moon was on the rise. Lanterns went out. Voices quietened. We had to figure out if each face in the window belonged to one of Vanguard’s or one of the doctor’s goons. Considering they all looked alike it was no easy feat.
I staggered to the top of one set of stairs, wildly out of breath, barely able to stand on my own feet. Lieutenant held out a thick handful of bread.
“I’m okay.”
“Like hell you are. You need something to eat.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re about to collapse.”
“That’s because I’ve been going up and down stairs non-stop for three hours.”
Lieutenant sat himself down on one step, dug one thumb into the side of his boots, and let out a satisfied groan. “When was the last time you ate something?”
“In Castor’s house.”
“How much?”
“A bite.”
“Literally a bite?”
“Yeah. Get up because I’m not carrying you to the next place.”
“Not until you eat something.”
I snatched the clump of bread from his hand and shoved it into my mouth. “There. Happy?”
“Delighted. Now sit down for a minute.”
“Can’t.”
“Either we both sit down for one minute or I sit down for five. Your call.”
I leaned against the wall.
“That’s not sitting down.”
“You’re worse than the sestas.”
“I’m willing to bet that you talked back a lot as a kid.”
“Not true. I was a good kid growing up.”
Lieutenant shook his head. “This might be a case of what you remember being radically different from reality.” He pulled out another lump of bread.
I’ll be honest, I hadn’t really felt hungry until the first bite hit my stomach. I mean, I was tired and run down but my stomach had stopped growling at me the moment I ran from Castor’s. I took another handful of bread, ate that too.
“You’ll still be plenty exhausted when you need to be,” said Lieutenant.
Yeah, that was now kind of a problem. I had burned a lot of magic just trying to survive my landing into Kasera’s compound and that was after using magic to eavesdrop from a distance. Doing magic once while exhausted was a given. Doing it twice without a rest in between was dangerous. I had no idea what would happen to me if I tried it a third time. The issue now facing me wasn’t that I was trying to exhaust myself to store some kind of reserve of magic. Rather, it was the sinking feeling that Día might’ve been executed already. If I even closed my eyes I was sure I’d sleep through the doctors’ departure, only for them to never return to Erast again. As long as I remained on my feet, I still had a chance of finding them.
A staccato whistle cried out. Bird-like. Lieutenant and I both exchanged the same look and hurried back to the street. Runaway was jogging along, whistling, unsure of where we were. I whistled back. Runaway stopped, found us, trotted. Out of breath. “She’s here.”
“Who?”
“Kasera’s daughter.”
A weight dropped through my soul. It couldn’t be midnight already, could it? Impossible. There were still people awake. “You saw her?”
“Greaser did. She’s come with soldiers, and …”
“The woman in black?”
“Yeah.”
Zara. Wonderful. Lieutenant must’ve seen the look of resolution in my eye. “Okay. Raike and I will head back to the orphanage and see if we can smooth things out before his new girlfriend can kill him.” He ignored my glare. “You two do what you can to track down Qin and Myalla.”
“What if you need back up?”
“We won’t need back up if we find Myalla. Let’s go.”
As much as I hated the idea, Lieutenant and I ran like the wind to catch up to Miss Kasera. The last thing we needed was for her to leave before we got there.
Chapter Thirty-One
I raced back to the orphanage with Lieutenant. We were several hours past our deadline with Miss Kasera to hand over Myalla and our odds of even finding her right now seemed grim. Even so, we ran like the demons from Hell were chasing us. It didn’t take long before we were forced onto the roof tops, away from the prying eyes, and now at risk of tripping over every uneven tile beneath us.
I paused along one street. Two soldiers disappeared around a bend half a mile from the orphanage. Lieutenant held one hand against the small of his back, as upright as a post, trying his best not to look out of breath.
We moved on, leaping over one laneway and another but the soldiers were on a direct route. The only way to pass them was to move faster. We charged on, tripping and stumbling, slowing and heaving, until we reached a road that was too wide to leap across without burning magic. Lieutenant and I dropped down, reached the ground, and strolled towards my former home with only twenty seconds to catch our breath.
A kid sat on the step in front of the orphanage’s door, his forehead resting on top of his forearms. Potentially one of Vanguard’s spies. Lieutenant had a look. Squinted. Didn’t recognize who it was. We pulled away, hoping to intercept Kasera’s envoy along the road.
We were in a tough spot. Miss Kasera and I hadn’t exactly seen eye to eye about when Myalla Castor should be returned or even where she was being returned to. Miss Kasera argued for it to be done at sunset, to the Castors themselves. I argued midnight, at the orphanage. I had reneged on both options.
“Now might be a good time to practice a few ‘ma’am’s,” whispered Lieutenant. “All the more so because it could be the only thing that will save your life.”
Someone was coming our way. Four someones in fact. In the lead by ten yards was Zara. Behind her, Miss Kasera, dressed in an evening blue tunic which fell to her ankles, topped with a fine, open coat made from sable to guard her against the evening chill. There was little mistaking that she came from wealth. If it wasn’t what she wore then it was the two men behind her. Swords on display by their waist. Thick hide armor across their chests. Loose trousers for quick movements. All of them wore boots of respectable quality. The two soldiers were my age. Grizzled. Stab first and ask questions later.
Lieutenant whispered again. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Miss Kasera looked away from me the moment our eyes met, yet whenever I peered at the guards by her side her attention returned. Suspicious, cautious, on the verge
of realizing she had made a mistake.
“‘Ma’am’, okay? Lots of ‘ma’am’s.”
Zara searched the windows above us, checking for watchers, then approached. “Considering where we are and who could be watching, let’s all be very careful with our manners, okay?”
I nodded.
“Where’s Myalla?”
“Where’s Día?”
“You bring Myalla first.”
I looked to Lieutenant, silencing him. Then, with Mr. Thoroughly Confused by my side, I said to Zara, “Give us one moment, please.” I pulled Lieutenant away, leading us towards the orphanage.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, as quietly and pleasantly as possible.
“Kel is back in the orphanage, isn’t he?”
“He might be but he isn’t Myalla.”
“At this point he’s the next best thing. But first we need to deal with one of Vanguard’s spies.”
Lieutenant shot his eyes to the windows and roof tops surrounding us. “Where?”
“The kid.”
“Where?”
“The one sitting on the orphanage’s doorstep.”
Lieutenant slowed. Gave me a look as though I had completely lost my mind.
“I’m not going to kill him.”
“He could be an orphan.”
“If he was, he would’ve climbed in through one of the windows.”
“Then he’s new and doesn’t have a room yet.”
“Orphans don’t seek out orphanages. They’re dragged inside and handed over to an adult. That half-asleep kid is a spy.”
“Okay … and we’re about to do what to a kid?”
I pulled out two slips of fabric.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
The kid hadn’t moved. Sitting down on the door step, his arms on top of his knees, his forehead down. We stopped in front of him.
The air must’ve shifted around him, one of those primal feelings you get when you know something is within your threat range. He snapped his head up. I clamped my hand over his mouth, gag in place, the other hand behind his skull. He gasped inwards, muffled. Too startled to cry out. Lieutenant got to work on his legs to stop him from kicking out, then to his fists. The kid’s eyes lit up in terror as two thugs bound him tightly. As soon as Lieutenant was done I leaned in to the boy’s face.
“What the fuck are you doing, sleeping on the job?”
He muffled a cry, unsure of what to answer.
“Didn’t we tell you to stay alert? To watch out in case someone came back? Now we find you like this?” I held Lieutenant’s dagger in front of the kid’s face and pointed along the street, away from Miss Kasera. “You break any of my binds and I’ll cut new ones from your clothes, got it? Now go wait over there.”
He murmured something incomprehensible.
“Oh, you want to talk directly to Spider and tell him you were asleep when you shouldn’t have been?”
He fell quiet, eyes wide, still terrified.
“Good. Now go watch that corner. You fall asleep again tonight and gods help you.” I pulled him to his feet. He hobbled away, his hands and feet still tied together, and ducked around the corner.
Lieutenant was certainly getting a workout in his neck from all the shaking of his head he was doing. “I mean, I thought you were crap with people but if that was you going easy on a kid then holy shit.”
“You’re right. We should’ve roughed him up a little to make it look more authentic.”
“That’s not where I was going with this. And gods help you if you ever become a father one day.”
I called up to the window above me. “Psst. Kel?”
We waited.
“Kel? Looking for Día? Wake up.”
Lieutenant whispered in my ear. “Unless he’s got a Myalla lookalike up there, I don’t see how this is going to work.”
“Miss Kasera knows more about the doctors than she’s letting on. We need as much leverage over her as possible.”
Kel poked his head out of a distant window. Far corner. Higher drop to the ground. The sestas had punished him for skipping out on work and made him sleep in a room full of five year olds. Not great for your confidence when you’re thirteen.
“I need your help.”
He hadn’t slept a wink. Still bleary eyed but he was fading. “I can’t.”
“I need you for five minutes. No longer.”
“If they catch me, I’m out.”
I dug into my pocket. I now had a lot more marks on me thanks to looting eight of Vanguard’s dumbest. “I need you to meet someone. She’s nice. She won’t hurt you at all. I’ll give you two of these right now for coming down, and two more for meeting her. Tell her you know Día.”
Kel hung his head, debating. “If they catch me …”
Lieutenant reached into his pocket. Pulled out some coins as well.
Kel sighed, staring at us both. He had a similar kind of look as Caen. Guilty, but committing of trouble anyway. Kel grimaced, ducked inside, away for a whole minute, leaving Lieutenant and I to stew in the middle of the relatively cool street, enjoying the breeze which came our way.
“Well, we’re fucked,” said Lieutenant.
Kel reappeared. He swung his legs out, shimmied from one window to another, and dropped down. In his hand was his rolled up pillow.
“You don’t need to run away,” I said.
“I know.” He had a mix of shame and determination running through him, shifting from one to the other. No doubt terrified and hoping that we had a better offer for him.
“Where will you go?”
He shrugged. “The army, maybe.”
“Are you fifteen?”
“No.”
“You’re in for a long wait, then.”
Kel looked from me to Lieutenant. He knew the answer before he even asked it. “You haven’t found her yet, have you?”
‘Her.’ Becoming more distant by the day. Not a good sign. “Not yet.” I held the two coins out to him. Lieutenant did the same. Hopefully they were ones he recognized, considering the few coins he might’ve seen in his life would’ve been whatever he found on the street.
“What do I have to do?”
“Meet General Kasera’s daughter.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re Día’s best friend. And you need to buy us some time.”
“Huh?”
We pushed him forward. Zara, Miss Kasera, and the two soldiers had started to wander forward, annoyed that we had taken as long as we did. I stopped in front of them and rested my hand on Kel’s shoulder.
Miss Kasera arched an eye at me. “He’s not Myalla.”
“No. This is Kel. He lives at the orphanage. Día was his friend.”
“Best friend,” added Kel.
I waited until Miss Kasera looked at Kel properly. “This affects more than just one girl,” I said. “Your father is protecting assholes who kidnap children so they can sacrifice them to the Eyeless Ghost. Kel knows of two more people going missing, from Broker’s Wharf. How many orphans does it take to make a stand against these people?”
“He’s not protecting them,” said Miss Kasera. She studied me closely for a moment then lifted her chin in a sign of dismissal. “Kel? You should go back to the orphanage.”
“Are you here to get Día back?” he asked.
A grimace. And a glare coming my way. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Promise?”
She practically gnashed her teeth together. “I promise. Run along, now.”
Kel scampered away.
Miss Kasera shook her head at me. “That was low.”
“He’ll remember you said that for as long as he lives,” I said.
She shook her head at me. “Recruiting a runaway as young as him into your company?” She settled back into her stance. “Where’s Myalla?”
I peered back at her, curious to see how she reacted to a mercenary testing her. “Where’s Día?”
“I don’t kn
ow.”
“Neither do I.”
She didn’t seem to take the news well. “You’ve lost Myalla?”
“I assure you, I have my best people on the job to find her.”
She gritted her teeth, the annoyance building through her chest and across her shoulders. I was about to see what a young senator was made of. “We had a deal. You were supposed to deliver Myalla at sunset.”
“A third party has come along and interfered.”
“Who?”
“As much as it pains me, I’m not going to talk shit about a rival company.”
“I’m sure you talk shit about them all the time.”
“Not to someone who has the ear of a general. The less you all know about us, the safer we are.”
She narrowed her eyes. “The sestas described you and your friend to Zara only yesterday. One was like a walking storm. A former resident turned … your kind. The other was a good looking man. Square jaw. The envy of everyone who saw him.”
Judging by the eye roll from Zara nearby, I guessed someone beside me just swelled with a smile. He might have even bowed a quick, ‘thank you, you’re too kind.’
I asked, “What should I call you?”
“Alysia will do.”
Lieutenant and I gave her a slight nod.
“Zara kept calling you ‘Miss Kasera,’” I said.
“It would be more appropriate to call me Miss Kasera Lavarta until I mother a child but since my husband is away and I’m staying with my father, ‘Miss Kasera’ is not a blight on either family.”
“Alysia, then. Where are the doctors holding Día?”
She stared back at me, wholly unafraid. “Introductions are a two-way street, gentlemen.”
She already knew I used to be Brayen, and with Lieutenant beside me I couldn’t very well tell them I was Raike since I should avoid telling the authorities anything about me. “I don’t think it’s going to do any of us any good if I lie to you so let’s assume for the time being that I don’t have a name.”
