“To be an actress, you idiot. Look—”
“Mehitabel, we have to tell Jean-Soleil.”
“No,” said Gordeny Fisher behind us. “I’ll tell him. But I want to tell Mr. Baillie something first.”
I moved out of the way.
“Now, Gordeny,” Drin said nervously.
“I’ve had about all of you I’m going to take,” she said. “I’m going to go to Jean-Soleil and tell him the truth. Which is that I know some people who ain’t all that nice. That’s all. I’m not a pack-rat and I’m not a hooker or a pusher or whatever the fuck it is you think I am. If he throws me out—”
"He won’t,” I said.
“If he throws me out, you win. But if he lets me stay, I want you to quit with the fishy looks at me—and the fishy looks at Semper, for that matter. Okay?”
I wished there were enough light for me to see Drin’s face; I was willing to bet he looked like he’d just swallowed a live frog, and I would have dearly loved to see that look on Drin Baillie’s face.
“Okay?”
Fundamentally, Drin was a coward. He mumbled agreement and fled.
“There,” said Gordeny with great satisfaction.
“I’m sorry I was spying,” I said.
“It don’t matter. Doesn’t. I mean, it’s not like there’s any big secret. I got an ex-boyfriend who’s into some nasty shit. He won’t bring it here. And it doesn’t matter.”
“Only to Drin,” I said.
That made her laugh, and we were able to start back toward the party.
“Don’t tell Jean-Soleil tonight,” I said. “He’ll be too drunk to pay attention. Catch him Neuvième. He gets back at ten on the dot. And, er . . .”
“I won’t say anything about Drin. I don’t figure he’s going to be a problem anymore.”
“No, you’ve fixed him. And Jean-Soleil will know anyway. It’s just unkind to make him admit it.” We’d reached the rehearsal room. I smiled at her. “Now go on in there and enjoy being Madame Fisher.”
She smiled back and dropped me a curtsy. “Madame Parr.”
We went into the light and babble together.
Felix
Mildmay went to bed as soon as we got back to the suite. He remembered his manners enough to say good night, but his eyes were inward-focused and exalted, and I wouldn’t have gotten any sense out of him if I’d tried.
He went into his little room and shut the door, and Vincent and I stood awkwardly staring at each other until I remembered my own manners and asked, “Will Ivo be expecting you back, or can you stay for a little?”
Vincent consulted his pocket watch. “Ivo said he wouldn’t wait up for me. If I stay an hour or so, he’ll have gone to bed and I shan’t have to deal with him at all.”
“And you can, er, trust him? Brandy?”
“Yes, please. And, yes. Ivo, in his way, is quite scrupulous. He doesn’t lie to me.”
I poured brandy, brought him a snifter, and we went to sit in the chairs by the hearth. “What does . . . no, I’m sorry. It’s no business of mine.”
“What does he do to me, you were going to ask?” He smiled, wry but real. “You never did have any tact.”
“Guilty as charged,” and I smiled back at him, wanting him to like me.
“It’s not as bad as you think,” he said, looking down into his brandy.
My eyebrows went up. “No?”
He gave me a sidelong quirk of a smile. “Not quite. Ivo isn’t a tarquin, you see.”
“Ivo . . . isn’t a tarquin?”
“No.”
“But—”
“Ivo,” Vincent said with great precision, “is a martyr.”
After a moment, I realized I was staring and looked hastily away.
“In the bedroom,” Vincent said, in that dry precise tone like a man dissecting his own heart, “I am Ivo’s tarquin. Out of the bedroom, I am Ivo’s catamite. Do you see?”
“You said he was jealous,” I said slowly.
“He is. Fearfully jealous. And he hates . . .” He swallowed brandy. “He hates himself for needing what he needs. And he hates me for giving him what he needs. But at the same time, it is need, and so he will not give me up. Because he can control me.”
“You’ve had a long time to think about this.”
“Oh, yes. And no one to talk to about it. Because even if I could trust anyone at Arborstell to listen and not betray me, none of them would understand. But you do, don’t you?” And his pale eyes caught me, like an iron spike through my chest.
“I . . . Yes. I do. But how—” My voice was all breath and much too high. “How can you tell?”
“Oh.” His eyes widened. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I just meant that you were at the Shining Tiger. I didn’t mean . . .”
“Damnation,” I said, and lowered my face into my hands.
“It doesn’t matter,” Vincent said, very gently. “You must know I won’t tell anyone.”
“Yes,” I managed.
“And,” he said, more cautiously, “it doesn’t matter to me. Powers, Felix, you can’t think I’d hold a . . . a difficulty like that against you.”
“No.” But I felt as if I were naked, and the scars on my back were burning with imaginary gazes. I drew a deep, shuddering breath, forced myself to sit upright again. I had to move this conversation away from myself. “Vincent. You don’t have to stay with him.”
“Felix—”
“You can come to me. I won’t . . .” I swallowed hard. “I will swear an oath on anything you like not to lay a finger on you.”
“I wouldn’t have been worried,” he said, but he was leaning away from me, just slightly. “Do you desire me?”
“I—”
“And do you desire me because you want a tarquin? Or because you want to tarquin a tarquin?”
“Vincent, I wouldn’t—”
“But you would want to,” he said, wary now, like one of the half-wild cats which lived in the interstices of the Mirador and preyed on mice and rats and cockroaches. And somehow he was standing up, with his chair between us.
“I wouldn’t.”
“I believe that you believe that,” he said with terrible kindness. “I think it will be better if I say good night now. Thank you for the loveliest evening I’ve had in as long as I can remember. ”
I stood up, but did not dare to approach him. “Vincent, please don’t—”
“I don’t hold it against you,” he said. “But I’m not going to talk about it any longer. Good night.”
He left, swift and silent, and I sat down again. After a moment, I reached for my brandy glass.
Part Four
Chapter 16
Mildmay
When me and Felix got back after court, there was a letter on the mantelpiece.
“It’s for you,” Felix said. “From Simon.”
He was suspicious as fuck, but he handed it over. I opened it. It was Gideon’s writing inside. All it said was FENRIS TOMORROW SUNDOWN. I crumpled it up and fed it to the fire before Felix had a chance to ask. He’d for sure know Gideon’s handwriting when he saw it.
“What was it?” Felix said.
“Oh, um, me and Simon kind of got plans for tomorrow evening. Is that . . . I mean, d’you mind?”
“You’re going to go see Gideon,” he said. He wasn’t asking, just telling me, like I’d got the date wrong.
“Yeah,” I said.
“No, I don’t mind. I can amuse myself, you know.” And when I didn’t say nothing, he said, “I’m not that much of a monster. And I’m not angry at Gideon anymore. He did what he had to do. It’s all right, Mildmay.”
It wasn’t, since of course what he meant when he said he wasn’t angry was that he was trying not to be angry. So I was just as glad when he said, “I’m going out. Back for dinner probably.” And he bailed like he thought I was going to try and stop him.
Furthest thing from my mind, let me tell you.
Couple hours later, there was a knock at the doo
r. Oh powers, please don’t let this be Fleur again.
It wasn’t. It was Mr. Demabrien.
“He ain’t here,” I said.
Vincent Demabrien, who looked so much like Keeper it made my skin crawl, stared straight through me and said, “I need to talk to him.”
“Then you’ll have to try back later, ’cause he ain’t here, and I don’t know where he is.” And I was closing the door, along of really not wanting to talk to Mr. Demabrien, when he moved, fast and sudden and forward instead of back, and I gave way because he wasn’t any kind of a threat, and I might not want to talk to him, but that didn’t mean I wanted to hurt him.
“Mr. Demabrien—”
“I really need to talk to him.” And he looked wild enough around the eyes that I believed him.
“I heard you the first time. I ain’t hiding him in my coat, you know.”
He colored a little. “I didn’t think you were. But can’t you find him?”
“In the Mirador? Yeah, I s’pose, if you got a month or two to spare.”
“No, I mean the obligation d’âme.”
“I’m sorry. What?”
He went even redder, but he didn’t back down. “In the stories, the esclavin can always find the obligataire.”
I said, short and ugly, “Well, I can’t.”
“Are you sure? Have you ever tried?”
“I just can’t.” I wasn’t going to give into the binding-by-forms like that. “Look, you can leave a message and I promise I’ll tell him as soon as he walks in the door. I ain’t trying to spike your wheel or nothing.”
“I’m not . . . it isn’t . . .” And then, all in a rush, “It’s just that I’ve seen another ghost, and I really need to talk to him about it.”
It took me a moment to believe that I’d heard him say what it sounded like I’d heard him say. “A . . . another ghost?”
If I’d thought he was embarrassed before, it wasn’t nothing compared to the way he was embarrassed now. “He didn’t . . . I thought Felix would have told you. I . . . I see ghosts. Felix has been . . .”—his mouth twisted—“. . . doing experiments.”
“And ain’t that just like him,” I said. Because I knew how Felix got, and I knew it was just Mr. Demabrien’s bad fucking luck he’d gotten in the way.
His face went kind of slack, like I’d thumped him over the head or something. Powers. I wasn’t going to ask what he thought of me, that he was surprised I could feel bad for him about getting pinned by Felix like that, so I pretended like I hadn’t noticed nothing and said, “What d’you want me to tell him?”
“Tell Felix . . .” He took a deep breath. “Tell him that Magnus needs his help.”
“Needs his help?”
“He needs to be laid.”
For a moment, I heard him wrong, and I was going to say, I know Felix will fuck anything in trousers, but even he’s gonna
have some trouble with that one. But Mr. Demabrien said, “He said Felix tried to help him before, so I’m hoping he’ll understand the situation better than I do.”
And then I did remember, back before Strych, Felix telling me about this ghost he’d talked to when he was crazy. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll tell him. I even sort of know what you’re talking about, so . . . it’ll be okay.”
Which was a stupid thing to say, but Mr. Demabrien didn’t seem to mind. He left looking almost happy, and it wasn’t ’til Felix came back and just about had a brain-strike when I told him Mr. Demabrien’d been looking for him that I figured it out.
They’d had a fight—or, looking at Felix trying to act all nonchalant and shit while I told him about the ghost, maybe not a fight exactly. But a something. Felix was good at those. And now Mr. Demabrien didn’t want to talk to Felix, and Felix kind of didn’t want to talk to Mr. Demabrien and kind of really did.
I was glad when he took in what I was telling him, because all at once he quit being flustered and started thinking again, and that was a lot easier to deal with. Well, what I mean is, once he started thinking, there wasn’t anything needed dealing with. Just Felix muttering under his breath and pawing through his old notes. And I could sit there and watch and not have to worry that he’d catch me at it.
Felix was weird about being watched. For one thing, he almost always knew. He didn’t mind—fuck, he loved it. But when he knew, which like I said was mostly, he’d . . . I dunno. He’d perform. Nothing major—half the time I swear it was just him pretending like he hadn’t noticed—but always some kind of performance, and you know, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how tired it must have made him.
But sometimes he did forget, when something got him worked up enough, and I knew he’d forgotten now, because he wasn’t muttering loud enough for me to hear him. So I watched, and I was grateful for it—just a funny little chance to see who Felix was when he wasn’t watching.
And if I wished I could get to know that guy better—well, I sure wasn’t stupid enough to say so.
My dreams were patchy and bad, Strych and Kolkhis and the Duke of Aiaia who’d cut out Gideon’s tongue playing this crazy game of tag in and out of the pillars of St. Kirban’s flooded cellars. I had a hard time shaking the dreams, too, so that I went half the day feeling like I wasn’t really awake, like I might turn around in the Hall of the Chimeras and find Strych grinning at me. I’d had a terrible time with that after we got back to the Mirador two indictions ago. I’d keep looking behind me in corridors, and it got to where it was hard to open doors for being afraid he’d be waiting on the other side. I never have liked mirrors, but I couldn’t look in one for months without my eyes cutting sideways to check for his reflection. It had passed off, the way most bad frights do, and half of my trouble that Huitième was just plain tiredness at the thought it might start up all over again.
Felix said on our way to the Grenouille Salon, “Are you all right? You look white as a sheet.”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “Just bad dreams, you know.”
“You dream about Malkar a lot.”
“Yeah, I do. Him and Keep . . . Kolkhis.”
“Let me ward your dreams tonight. Just so you can get some rest.”
“That would be great,” I said, and I was about as alarmed as Felix at how tired I sounded.
“I’ll do it, then. I won’t forget.”
“Thanks,” I said. I wanted to say more, I don’t know what, but he waved it off, and then we were walking into the Grenouille Salon, and I wasn’t about to say anything in front of all them kids.
They were all real quiet that afternoon, like they were afraid Felix would bite them. I couldn’t help wondering what he’d been like last time and what he had or hadn’t said about why I wasn’t there with him. He was talking about spells of locking and unlocking. He started with doors and went on to secrets, and about there he lost me. But it made me think about Strych’s workroom and the spells on the door there. And that got me thinking about Strych again, and every time one of the kids shifted, I was afraid they were going to turn around and smile at me with Strych’s mouth.
Get a grip on yourself, Milly-Fox, I thought, but I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t that Strych was everywhere I looked. It was that he was about to be everywhere I looked, like he was biding his time, waiting for just the right moment to tap me on the shoulder and say, Really, with that scar it’s a wonder you can talk at all. I couldn’t shake him off, and it seemed like this was about the stupidest night I could have picked to go traipsing off to visit a necromancer. But when Felix suggested after class that maybe I should cry off, I couldn’t do that, either. I couldn’t tell Felix why—the whole tangle with Jenny and Luther Littleman would just make him feel like the Lower City was crawling up into the Mirador to get him—and I think I left him feeling like the real reason I wouldn’t cry off was I’d rather spend my time with Gideon than him.
Once I got the answers, I thought, heading to Simon and Rinaldo’s suite. When it’s just a story, then I can tell him.
Simon and them wer
e glad to have me show up early, because Rinaldo had this craze for a four-handed version of Long Tiffany called Hogram’s Key. It was enough to give a counting machine fits, but I didn’t mind it so long as we didn’t play for money. And it kept my mind off Strych pretty good, aside from having to keep an eye on the door in case it started to open or he just walked through it or something. Powers and saints, I don’t know.
Simon told me he’d gotten a letter from Augusta Fenris. “Bad handwriting and worse spelling, but she says she’ll meet us in a bar called the Lady’s Lapdog in Dragonteeth.”
“Powers,” I said.
“What?”
“I been in the Lapdog before.”
“What’s wrong with it? Is it dangerous?”
I snorted. “Worst you got to look out for in the Lapdog is the fleas.” It was a pretty smart choice, looking at it from Mrs. Fenris’s point of view. If I had anything nasty in mind, I sure wouldn’t be trying it there. Too many flashies. But fuck me sideways. If I was risking my neck going down the city, it seemed like I ought to at least get a shot at the beer at the Hornet and Spindle out of it.
We left in plenty of time, me and Simon and Gideon. Simon didn’t have near as much fuss with the cabbie this time around. They take flashies down to Dragonteeth and Candlewick Mews all the time, and he probably figured he knew what we were after. In a weird way, I kind of wished he was right, even though I wouldn’t have touched the sort of gal who hung out in the Lady’s Lapdog with a septad-foot pole. But it would’ve been nice to be doing something normal.
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