Outcaste

by Fletcher DeLancey

  Mouse took much longer than she expected. Her worry was nearing the level of fear when she finally saw him, walking slowly with his head down. As he passed the doorway, oblivious to his watcher, she heard a quiet sniff.

  Part of her wanted to rush out and pull him into a warmron. But another part was still angry and didn’t know why. She was not about to risk further confrontation and say even more that she might regret.

  She followed him all the way home, a silent shadow twenty strides behind. When he arrived at their building, she caught up and opened the door.

  His relief was almost smothering. “I’m sorry,” he said in a voice thick with tears.

  “I am, too.”

  “I didn’t mean to make you angry. Please don’t leave.”

  She nudged him through the door. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  They took the lift to their floor, and by the time they were safely in their rooms, Mouse had mostly sobered up.

  “It’s just hard,” he said. “For a while, you were my warrior. And now you’re not.”

  “I’m your warrior whenever you need one.”

  “No, you’re not. I don’t think you realize that yet. But that isn’t your fault. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  She had not understood a single thing that had happened since they left Dock One. “You’re still my family,” she said.

  He leaned up on tiptoe and kissed her cheek. “Thank Fahla for that.”

  She was still frowning in thought when his bedroom door shut.

  21

  DRIFTING

  Mouse was different after her birth anniversary. Rahel didn’t know why, but something seemed to have switched on inside him. Or perhaps switched off.

  He began taking more clients again. Half a cycle ago, when she was making enough income, she had convinced him to reduce his client list and let her pay for more of their living expenses. Now, he was working almost every day. Worse, he was taking clients at night.

  “You were the one who told me not to do that,” she argued one evening as he was leaving. “You said it wasn’t safe.”

  “Nothing in my job is safe.”

  “Mouse, come on! Why are you doing this?”

  He opened the door. “You and Jacon aren’t the only ones with plans.”

  “What does that—”

  “I have to go. Back in a hantick and a half.” The door closed behind him before she could react.

  The next time he went out at night, she stood in front of the door. “No. Not until you tell me where you’re going. If you’re determined to be this stupid, at least give me that.”

  When he didn’t answer right away, her heart sank.

  “I’m not going to like where you’re meeting these clients, am I?”

  “Robber’s Rest,” he muttered.

  “What in the—that’s the sleaziest place on the bayfront!”

  “It’s not so bad when you know the owners. They’re very . . . discreet.”

  “Meaning they don’t ask questions and they have terrible memories. That’s not always a good thing, Mouse.”

  “It is for me. I make more when I don’t have to pay for discretion.”

  “For the love of Fahla, you don’t have to make more. We’re doing fine!”

  “You are. I’m falling behind. It was time to get back in the boat.”

  “Why is this suddenly you versus me? We’re a team. We’ve always been a team. What changed?”

  When he met her eyes, he looked much older than his nineteen cycles. “Nothing. It’s what will change. I have to plan for that.”

  Sharro’s concern came through her touch when she heard about Mouse. Drawing her fingertips across Rahel’s open palm, she said, “He’s proving something.”

  Rahel was sitting beside her on the couch, her hand resting on Sharro’s thigh while they watched the courtyard trees tossing back and forth in a spring hailstorm.

  “I know, but what does he have to prove?”

  “Nothing. That’s not the right question.”

  The wind shifted, rattling hailstones against the tall windows. Rahel watched them hit, stick, and slide slowly down in a trail of melting ice. A flash of lightning streaked through the blue-black clouds, followed almost immediately by the crack and roar of thunder.

  “What does he think he has to prove?” she asked.

  Sharro lifted her hand and kissed her wrist, a silent sign of approval, then laid it back on her thigh. Moving her caresses up Rahel’s arm, she said, “You had a disagreement the night of your birth anniversary. Do you think this has something to do with that?”

  It had been three ninedays since their fight. Rahel had not told Sharro what it was about. Now she looked at her and said, “He thought I wanted to shek you.”

  Sharro’s caresses did not falter, nor did her facial expression change. “Crudely put. Is that what he called it when you and he joined?”

  “I think I’m the one who called it shekking, before we started. Just to make him laugh. He was more serious about it once we got going. It was joining for him.”

  “So he joined with you, but you and I would shek.”

  “Then . . . he’s jealous? Shouldn’t I have sensed that?”

  “Not necessarily. Not if the jealousy was short-lived. Perhaps it became something else. A fear.”

  Sharro gently tugged on her arm, and Rahel repositioned herself without a word. Stretched out on her side with her head on Sharro’s warm thigh, she watched the hailstones judder and slide their way down the glass. Some of them slipped straight down, a smooth and uninterrupted race to their destination. Others took longer, moving in fits and starts, angling this way and that before finally sliding to the bottom.

  “He’s afraid we’re outrunning him,” she said. “Jacon and me. We’re moving on with our lives, and he feels left behind.”

  Sharro combed the hair away from her ear. “That is a very lonely feeling.”

  “But he doesn’t have to feel that way. I’ve told him time and again, I’m taking him with me.”

  “You’re taking him with you,” Sharro repeated. “Like a crate of belongings?”

  “No, of course . . . not.” The last word came out in a different tone. “Oh.”

  It was always Sharro’s way to lead her to a realization and then let her sit with it. Rahel sat with it now, barely able to see the courtyard through the streaks and stones on the glass. Another lightning bolt split the dark sky, its following thunder so loud that it shook the room.

  She dropped her hand down to Sharro’s calf, pulling up the trouser leg enough to touch the smooth skin beneath. “You always wear loose trousers.”

  “I always wear loose trousers with you.”

  She listened to the comfort that sang through Sharro’s skin, the total relaxation that said she felt safe, secure, unworried.

  Mouse’s skin had carried none of those emotions when she had briefly held his hands.

  “You don’t allow all of your clients to touch you?”

  Sharro laughed quietly. “Only four of them. Including you. Most don’t want to. They don’t come to touch; they come to be touched.”

  Most. Not all. Meaning some clients wanted to, but Sharro would not allow it. She had not chosen them for that.

  Rahel felt very sorry for those unknown clients. For a moment, she wondered if Mouse was one of them.

  She would never ask, because Sharro would never answer.

  22

  STOLEN GOODS

  One moon after her birth anniversary, Rahel told Mouse that she was going to dig out her wooden daggers.

  “Finally going to sell them now that you have a bank account? Good idea,” he said.

  “Um, no. I’m going to give them back to my mother when she comes next nineday.”

  “You’re what? Why?”

  “They’re not mine.”

  “They are too. Your parents owed you that much.”

  “Maybe, but they didn’t give them to me. I stole them. I’m not
comfortable with that anymore.”

  He shook his head. “Your warrior honor is getting more inconvenient by the day. I think this is a mistake. You’re giving up a lot of cash.”

  “I’d be giving up my honor if I didn’t. That’s worth more to me.”

  “It’s a mistake,” he repeated. “What have your parents given you? One cycle of legitimate work because you fooled them into it, and then they pulled your permit and let you come this close to dying on the docks.” He held his thumb and forefinger a hair’s width apart. “Then they let you sell yourself—”

  “They don’t know about that.”

  “Well, whose fault is that? If they ever bothered to learn the first thing about you, they’d know!” He glared, the anger pulsing off him.

  “I think you’re more yanked at them than I am.” After his recent distance, it was nice to see him grumpy on her behalf.

  “Parents are supposed to take care of their children. Like Jacon’s. Does he have the only decent parents on Alsea?”

  “I’m sure there are a few more,” she said, thinking of Deme Isanelle. “Besides, my brother and sister probably think our parents are wonderful.”

  “Oh, that’s a testament. ‘We’re wonderful to two-thirds of our children. Fahla’s blessings upon us!’ What a pile of dokshin.”

  “Is this about my parents or yours?”

  He was silent for a moment. “You’re spending too much time with Sharro. That’s the kind of thing she says. Did she inspire this sudden burst of decency?”

  “She doesn’t even know about the daggers.”

  “Are you going to tell her?”

  “After I give them back, yes.”

  “She’ll probably love you even more after that.”

  Rahel decided not to respond to that provocation. “I’m going now. Want to come with me?”

  With an exaggerated sigh, he said, “Yeah, sure, why not? Someone needs to witness the final conversion of Fahla’s third lover to the side of light and honor.”

  She had to laugh. “You haven’t called me that in a long time.”

  They dressed in rain cloaks, a requirement for the changeable spring weather. At the door, she took her collapsible stave off its shelf and tucked it into the new tooled leather holster at her belt. It had been Mouse’s gift to her for this birth anniversary.

  “It looks good on you,” he said, watching her clip the holster strap over the top of the stave.

  “I love it. My second-best birth anniversary gift.”

  “What was the first?”

  “The stave, grainbird.”

  His pleasure warmed her senses all the way out the front door of their building.

  She had decided to do this after dark in hopes of avoiding unwanted company. The disused warehouse where she had hidden the daggers two cycles ago was still just as dilapidated, but foot traffic around the area had increased since then. She wasn’t about to risk a City Guard patrol stumbling over her while she was pulling bricks out of private property.

  “So this is where you hid them,” Mouse said when they stood in the alley behind the warehouse. “You certainly chose a nice part of town.”

  “I’ll have you know I searched for a nineday before I settled on this place. My requirements were very stringent.”

  “What, you wanted the worst toilet hole on the bayfront? Even I wouldn’t have come here alone back then. And I went everywhere.”

  She started at the back corner and began walking along the warehouse wall, counting bricks.

  “How did you mark the spot?” Mouse asked.

  “Shek! I didn’t. Now don’t talk to me for a tick.” Going back to the corner, she started over.

  “Oh, I get it,” he said when she was five steps in. “What did you use, the date of the Wandering King’s ascension to the throne?”

  “For the love of Fahla. You dokker.” She went back to the corner, smiling at his gleeful giggles. “Don’t you shekking say another word.”

  “Not saying anything.” He began to sing an old sea chant. Loudly.

  “And don’t sing, either!” she shouted.

  He tried to keep going, but couldn’t manage it through his laughter. She joined him, laughing so hard that she had to lean against the building for support.

  “Ah, that was good.” Mouse wiped the streaks from his wet cheeks and glanced at the sky. “Not sure if that was from me or not. I guess we’d better get on with it.”

  “Thank you. I should probably thank Fahla for making it rain, too. We’d have been out here all night otherwise.”

  She pulled up her hood against the increasing rain, pushed off the wall, and began counting once more. By the time she reached the thirty-fourth brick, the rain was falling in such sheets that all she could hear was the roar of water spattering off tiled roofs, metal bins, and the bricks of the alley. She dropped into a squat and began prying at the second brick from the ground.

  “Hoi,” Mouse said from close behind her. He was speaking loudly to be heard over the rain. “Is that my wood pick?”

  She nodded.

  “You stole my wood pick?”

  “Borrowed.”

  “Oh, like you borrowed those daggers? So I’ll get it back in two cycles.”

  “You’re hilarious.” Safely hidden in her hood, she let the smile spread over her face. Mouse hadn’t sounded this much like himself since their fight. Maybe they were finally past it.

  The brick had nearly sealed itself in place after two cycles of rain and weather. She was glad she had brought the pick. A few more ticks of digging broke it free, but it still took a great deal of patient back-and-forth wiggling before she could grasp the heavy brick with both hands and slide it out. Once it was safely on the ground, she held the pick over her shoulder. “Here. I’m returning your wood pick.”

  It was plucked from her fingers. “I should burn an oil bowl in thanks to Fahla. This must be a record.”

  “Shut up.” She reached into the hole and felt the crinkle of the waterproof envelope. “Still here.”

  Something loosened in her chest when she drew out the envelope. Part of her had worried that someone might have found the daggers and taken them. Two cycles was a long time.

  “Hold them, please?”

  Mouse accepted the envelope. “Huh. I thought they’d be bigger, given what you said they were worth.”

  “You should have seen the swords.” She lifted the brick, slotted it in place, and slowly pushed it back. “Those were big. Magnificent. But a little hard to carry in my pants.”

  When the brick was properly aligned, she took the envelope back from Mouse and slid it into an inside pocket of her rain cloak. “Thank you. Shall we go?”

  She felt it then, the sensory itch of someone approaching. Multiple someones. She whirled around to find three cloaked figures striding toward them from the mouth of the alley, their boots splashing through the puddles. It was hard to see under the hoods, but she thought it was two men and a woman. One of the men was the size of a ship.

  “Whatever that is, it must be good to be worth all that work. We’ll take it now,” said the one in the middle. Her voice confirmed Rahel’s guess, and her words meant they had been watching, staying out of normal empathic range.

  “Keep that fantasy,” she shot back, undoing the strap over her stave with one hand while pushing back her hood with the other. “It’ll be safer for you than the reality.”

  The smaller man sniggered. “Brave words for three against two. Oh, I miscounted. Three against one and a half.”

  “Three against one,” said the other. “I don’t think that even counts as half.”

  “Mouse, get back.”

  “Going.”

  Their opponents laughed at his retreat. “What did I say? Doesn’t even count!” the big man called.

  They hadn’t yet unhooded. That made them stupid or overconfident. Rahel would take either one.

  The rain was pouring out of the sky as if Fahla had upended a bucket. Her hair w
as already sticking to her brow, and the water ran down her forehead ridges to drip off the end of her nose, but that was preferable to having no peripheral vision. Stave grip in hand, she stepped forward, putting more distance between herself and Mouse. “He backed up because he’s smart,” she said. “If you had half his brains, you’d back up, too.”

  They spread out and approached her, courageous in their numbers. “If you had any brains, you’d give us that packet and keep your teeth,” the woman said.

  Lightning flashed overhead, making something glint in her hand. A knife, Rahel realized.

  That marked her first target.

  The boom of thunder disguised the sound of her stave extending, and she was swinging before any of them knew what was happening. The stave cracked against the woman’s wrist, sending the knife sailing across the alley.

  A short scream rent the air. Rahel was already on her second target, reversing direction to smash her stave against the temple of the smaller man. He dropped like a sack of rocks.

  Three opponents were one too many. The big man had enough time to anticipate and duck her next swing, managing to catch her stave in his hands. He straightened, grinning at her. “Nice try.”

  He was an idiot, confidently holding her stave with the end angled toward his face. A quick step and thrust sent the smooth metal sliding through his wet hands and into the side of his mouth. He stumbled backward, spitting blood and teeth like hailstones, and she swept his feet out from under him. By the time he hit the ground, her stave was whistling back for the next blow. It struck him in the temple, and she didn’t wait to verify his state before looking around for the last threat.

  The woman was backing away, holding her wrist against her body. “Shekking Mother,” she said in a strangled tone. Her shock rattled against Rahel’s senses; she had never expected to lose this fight. “You broke it. You broke my wrist.”

  Rahel shook her wet hair out of her eyes and followed her, keeping her within range. “Leave now before I break something else.”

  The woman’s shock faded as she stopped and stood straighter. “Not without my knife.”

  “You must be joking,” Rahel scoffed. “I’m not letting you pick that up.” She cast a quick glance at the men, confirming that they were still down and out. She couldn’t feel them, but at this distance she couldn’t rely on her senses.