Synder came to stand over his shoulder. She stared critically at the cards. “He’s not telling the truth, either,” she said. “I feel pretty confident I saw five or so copies of the Face of Marvels, Ashes.”
“You did not,” William asserted with powerful confidence. “My memory is flawless. And Jacob has taught me about using extra cards. It is against the rules.”
“I really am just very lucky.” Ashes grinned innocently. Synder rolled her eyes.
“There, there, Will,” Jack said as he walked through the door. “You’re right that he didn’t use extra cards.” He glanced at the table. “Palming some of them back into the deck, though—that he has been doing. What have I told you about letting someone else shuffle the cards?”
“Don’t give it away!” Ashes protested.
“He has been cheating?” William looked aghast. More than aghast, personally betrayed, as if the entire world had just let him down. “I did not . . . I did not notice.”
“Don’t take it too hard,” Jack said. “Ashes is quite a good cheater. He beat me at cards, once.”
“And I wasn’t the only one cheating that time.”
“Seems you could use a bit of competition.” Jack sat at the table, gathered the cards together, and shuffled them with a practiced ease. “Care to play a bit, Syn?”
“Juliana wants me to wash the dishes,” Synder said, failing to keep an affronted sniff out of her voice.
“Do them after,” Jack said. “Jewel’s gone upstairs anyway, she won’t notice you slacking for a few minutes. You can bet the dishes away, if you like.”
Synder fidgeted uncomfortably. Ashes watched her out of the corner of his eye, fascinated. He’d grown used to Juliana’s quiet, exact manner, but Synder wore every thought and decision on her face. He saw the precise moment when her resolve crumbled like a weakened dam.
“One game,” she said, and sat. “Just one.”
“Fantastic,” Jack said. “A quick game of Brag, I think, with the usual bets. Reconstitution, dishes, laundry.” William and Synder nodded, Synder rather more skeptically. Jack flashed a smile at Ashes. “You know the rules, lad?”
“I’ve played Brag before,” Ashes said, feeling faintly insulted.
“Not like this, I think,” Jack said, flicking a card out of the shuffle and blowing on it. The face of Delight melted away, becoming Marvels, and then Duty. “House rule. You can Stitch or Weave whatever you care to. It’s legal.” He smirked. “So long as no one catches you.”
Synder nodded along. “You have to double the last bet to call for iron,” she said. “And if you’re wrong then you lose, no matter what they’re holding.”
A pinched agony came over William’s face at her words, the Wisp’s equivalent to a look of utter disgust. Jack laughed softly.
“Will’s had pretty poor luck with that in the past,” Jack said conspiratorially.
“Poor fortune!” William scoffed. “By the bones! Have you any idea the odds that three players would hold a prial at once?”
“Not the faintest,” Jack said, dealing three cards to everyone in a series of swift, smooth movements.
“Our master lives and moves with the onus of gods,” William said in mournful tones. “We shall live to regret this.”
“Oh, come, now, William,” Synder said. “He can’t always win.”
“I recant,” Synder said. “Every hopeful thing I ever said about this game, I rescind it. I am a false prophet of the worst sort.” She threw her cards down, as if in protest. “I fold.”
Her just-one-game of Brag had turned out to be four games of Brag, during which her skill at Weaving had served her not at all; she had tried twice to cheat, and had iron pressed against her cards every single time. Her temper had darkened as the games went on, and Ashes could have sworn the space around her had become blacker as well.
The company’s usual wager was chores written on slips of paper; whoever held the slip was exempt from the duty. Candlestick Jack held more than everyone else put together, and he was grinning like a guilty cat.
“It brings joy to my heart, seeing your optimism crumble like that,” Jack said. “Soon you’ll be a proper cynic, like Will and me.”
“I am a pragmatist,” William said haughtily. He looked at his cards, pressed his lips together, and gathered the few slips of chores he still had to his name. “For which reason I think I, too, will withdraw.” He laid the cards down, clinging to his slips like a drowning man clutching a plank.
Jack’s grin widened. “Can’t bear to part with your exemption from buying meat, Will?”
“A butcher shop is no place for a respectable human being.”
“Getting rather liberal with that term,” Jack muttered.
William sniffed. “I am respectable.”
“Wasn’t what I meant. How about you, lad?” Jack turned bright eyes on his new student. “Seems there’s a trend going around the table.”
Ashes nodded thoughtfully, rubbing his thumb along the cards. “Never been much for trends, Jack.”
“Lay your bet, then,” said the Weaver.
“Never been much for playing the idiot, either.”
The Artificer gave a bright and dangerous smile. “Then perhaps you’d best fold.”
“Neh,” Ashes said. “Can’t do that, either, as I figure you’ve got some manner of Artifice on the cards just this moment.”
“Then call for iron, lad. We don’t have the whole night long.”
Ashes smiled and shoved the last of his slips into the pot. “Twice your bet. I figure I’d like to see your cards, Mr. Rehl.”
The Weaver matched his grin. “Pair royal. Duty, Wrath, and Judgment.”
Ashes peered at them. “Those fake?”
“You’re free to call for iron,” Jack said. “If you’re confident.”
“I am,” he said, and laid his cards down. Jack inspected them.
“Those look terribly like the Faces of Kindness, lad.”
“That’d be because they are.”
Jack set a handful of his slips into the pot. “Iron.”
Ashes tilted his head. “You only need—”
“I’m calling for iron on all of them,” Jack said. He pulled an optic out of his pocket, not content to wait for someone else to produce iron. He peered at Ashes’s cards and scoffed. “Well. Damn. How did you manage that, I wonder.”
Ashes grinned widely. “I’ve said I’m a lucky bloke, haven’t I? I’m a lucky bloke.”
“This is ridiculous,” Synder said, standing. “I’m going to go clean some dishes. As I will be doing for the next two months, by the way, in case any of you ever wish to see me again.” She shot a venomous look at Jack.
“Free will is meaningless without consequences, dear Synder,” Jack said.
“I will retire as well, I think,” said William, rising. “I am given to understand it is traditional to say it was a pleasure playing, but my culture frowns on lying. Good eventide, gentlemen.”
Ashes frowned. “Aren’t you coming—?”
“Good night, Will,” Jack said, giving Ashes a sharp look. He shut his mouth until William was gone.
“He’s not coming with us?” Ashes asked.
“Not tonight,” Jack said, standing and leading Ashes out of the room. “Do you have your new face? Put that on, then. We’ll want to be invisible tonight.” Jack shifted something in his clothing, and a moment later was a different man. He looked vaguely Bärsi, with a thick, oily beard so dark it could have been blue.
“So I’m not actually doing anything tonight?”
“Not as such,” Jack said. “No, this is more of what you could call . . . research.”
Ashes looked at him in stunned disbelief. “You’re preparing for something?”
“Is that so difficult to believe?”
“You’re— Oh, bugger, how did Will say it? You’re—encouragably temarious.”
“Watch your mouth, lad,” Jack said, smirking. “Properly pronounced, that might’
ve been ten syllables altogether.”
“He said it meant you were addicted to having no plan,” Ashes said.
“Will struggles with the concept of improvisation,” Jack said. “He’s also not really happy if he’s not complaining. I am not totally opposed to preparation.”
The streets were utterly empty, except for the ever-present Lyonshire fog. It made Ashes’s skin crawl, not that he would have admitted it to Jack. Burroughside was too far from the Lethe to experience much mist. Even if it had, Ashes was almost never out after sundown. It was a bad habit for Burroughsiders who liked the original arrangement of their intestines.
“So we’re not terrible worried about the curfew, are we?” Ashes asked cautiously, not wanting to sound nervous.
“Not at all,” Jack said. “Curfew’s not such a concern for those with iron names.”
“Um . . .” Ashes said, feeling a sudden urge to scan the darkness for police.
“Sorry, I ought to rephrase. It’s not such a worry for anyone who looks like they have an iron name.” He glanced at Ashes’s clothes. “So long as you’re wearing clothes that look reasonably clean, I doubt you’ll have much to worry on. It’s all about image, lad.”
“Talking of.” Ashes looked sidelong at Jack. “How long d’you think it’ll take for Will and Synder to figure out you’ve been cheating at cards the old-fashioned way?”
“Those two? Decades, I imagine.” Jack smiled wickedly. “You cottoned rather fast.”
Ashes snorted. “You dealt every time. It’s not that mysterious.”
“And yet our resident geniuses have not caught on,” Jack said.
That drew a smirk from him. After weeks of hearing William’s passionless critiques of his Stitching, and the unending comments about Synder and how brilliant she was, it felt good to think that at least there was something they couldn’t do. “Guess they’re not as clever as all that.”
“Perhaps,” Jack said. “But even very clever people can be fooled when they’re looking in the wrong place. Our house rules make it explicit that using Artifice is cheating, and they know me to be a cheater. They just look in the wrong places.”
Ashes worked his mouth thoughtfully. “Seems almost like that sort of lying is . . . better than Artifice, almost. Sometimes.”
“Losing faith in the magic, lad?” Jack glanced at him, vaguely amused. “Wondering if maybe you’d be better served with makeup and clever fingers?”
“It’d be easier,” Ashes said. “Nobody could burn it away with iron. It wouldn’t fizzle if you stepped over a stream. You wouldn’t have to worry about someone seeing you with one of those stones.”
“Don’t let me forget you said that,” Jack said. “You’ve just volunteered for another lesson.”
“Not that it’d help overmuch,” Ashes said, more than a trace of bitterness in his voice.
Jack looked sidelong at him. “Struggling with your education?”
Ashes clenched his jaw. “William hasn’t told you?”
“I’m not talking to Will,” Jack said. “I’m talking to you.”
“Stitching’s just a bit harder than I expected, is all,” Ashes said evasively.
Jack gave him a look that, in the dark, Ashes couldn’t quite decipher. “Feels a bit like you’re wearing secondhand clothes, mm?”
“Seems it ought to be easier,” said Ashes.
“Skill takes practice. Obscene amounts of practice.” Jack clapped him on the shoulder. “Even Synder had space for improvement, back when Juliana found her.”
“What about that watch? You said that was her application to study.”
“It was, but we’d known about her a while before that,” Jack said. “She couldn’t apprentice until she was thirteen. So she was self-taught for most of her life, and then she brought the watch so she could . . .” Jack trailed off. “It’s occurring to me that that information’s not especially encouraging.”
Ashes kicked at the stones beneath his feet, sending an eddy through the mist at his ankles. “What about you? Did it come easy to you?”
“I’m something of an odd case,” Jack said. “And so are Will and Jewel—mm, bugger.”
“None of you?” Ashes kept his voice steady, but only just.
“It doesn’t mean you’re not canted, lad,” Jack said. “Just that you’re young, and untrained. It’ll come.”
Ashes nodded, though he felt like he was lying. Not convincingly, either.
“There are other elements to it,” Jack said, not unkindly. “Truth be told, now I’ve known you a little while, I’m rather shocked your gift is Stitching.”
“How d’you mean?”
“Stitchers are subtle,” Jack said with a shrug. “Most of them, at least. Quiet. Deliberate, really. They see details, and they lie when they have to.” He grinned at Ashes. “You’re more like me—incorrigibly temerarious. You don’t lie for a purpose, you lie for the thrill of it. Stitchers want to be invisible. You, my boy . . .” The lamplight caught Jack’s smile and amplified it against the dark. “You want that moment, minutes or days or years later, when someone thinks back and realizes they were fooled. You want them to know how clever you were. There’s little room for that in Stitching.”
Streetlamp light oozed around the air, thickened by the fog. Ashes guessed, from the look of the houses on either side, that they were in an Ivory neighborhood. Ivory neighborhoods meant police. He tensed.
“You’d want to do that after you’ve gotten away, though,” Jack said thoughtfully.
“Right. Obviously.”
“Since you’re not an idiot.”
“I try not to be.”
“Have you wondered yet what we’re doing?”
Ashes gave him a flat look. “You saying that’s a question you’d answer?”
“I’m insulted. I answer questions all the time.”
“But answer honestly, though?”
“I’ll admit it’s not something I’m fond of,” Jack said with a grin. “Answering honestly tends to give one a reputation. But I’ll answer honestly. This time.”
“All right, then. What’re we doing?”
Jack grinned. “Walking. But also, intermittently, talking, planning, and preparing.”
Ashes scoffed. “I can’t believe I fell for that. Ha bloody ha—”
“So that we can rob an Ivory Lord.”
Ashes stopped. Jack did likewise. He wore an impish grin.
“Say that again,” Ashes said.
“We’re going to rob an Ivory Lord.”
“You lying to me?”
“No lies between liars.”
“Bloody—which one?” Ashes held up a hand. “Wait. No. What the actual hell?”
“Go on.”
“You’re robbing an Ivory Lord.”
“We are robbing an Ivory Lord,” Jack said. “And it’s Lord Edgecombe, by the way.”
“Why would you tell me that?” Ashes shook his head madly. “Wait. Don’t answer that. Why would you rob an Ivory Lord?”
“Because they’re the ones with the money, lad. Faces, that’s hardly a question worthy of you.”
“An Ivory Lord,” Ashes said. “The ones that have legions of the police living in barracks on their front yards.”
“Indeed.”
“The ones that literally write the laws.”
“The very same.”
“The ones with the faces that go all shiny? Who’re personally friends with the Queens?”
“You have assessed the situation adroitly,” Jack said with a grin.
“You’re mad.”
“As incisive an observation as you have ever spoken.”
“You’re mad.”
“So you’ve said.” Jack was beginning to sound impatient now. “But my sanity’s not the prime issue. Look.”
They were standing at the gates of an Ivory manor. Now Ashes knew for certain they were in West Lyonshire; only the wealthiest of Teranis’s governing class lived here. Beyond the gate, Ashes could see
an absurdly massive garden, bright green even in the murk. The fog wouldn’t let him see anything but the top of the manor, which had to be at least three stories up.
“This is the gate to Lord Edgecombe’s home,” Jack said. “And in three months, it will be flung wide open.”
“How d’you know that?”
“Edgecombe’s been absent from Lyonscourt for months now,” Jack said. “And my sources have finally figured out why.” He rested one hand on the heavy iron bars. “Lady Edgecombe is pregnant. The House will finally have a legitimate heir.”
“I don’t understand—”
“Lady Edgecombe’s been childless for years,” Jack said. “An Ivory Lord will throw parties for any reason he can find, but finally creating an heir for the family? It’ll be a ball unlike anything this city’s seen in years. Everyone who can rub a pair of crowns together will be invited.”
Ashes nodded slowly. “And we’re going to go. And rob him.”
Jack smiled broadly. “We are going to do exactly that, my lad. Exactly that.”
Ashes chewed his lip. “And I’m coming along?”
“Good help is hard to find these days, especially in my business.”
“I was never a housebreaker,” Ashes said dubiously.
“Who said I needed a housebreaker? I’m a housebreaker. You’re a clever, watchful imp who can wriggle his way out of trouble at a moment’s notice. It’s a useful skill.”
Ashes nodded absently. His thoughts were sluggish, drowned inside a fog of instinctive fear. Stealing from Ivories . . . no one was that stupid. The Lords of the city were too proud, too ferocious, and far, far too wealthy to evade for long.
But if anyone could get away with it . . .
“All right,” Ashes said. “I’ll do it.”
Jack laughed softly and began walking south. “I’m glad to hear you’re volunteering. Aren’t I already paying you?”
The Facefaker's Game Page 17
