by Jon Skovron
“I suppose…”
“Good. You’re going by rooftop. Let’s see you apply those climbing skills of yours in a different setting.”
Sadie chuckled but said nothing.
Jilly looked like she wanted to protest, but Hope gazed down at her until she bowed her head. “Yes, teacher.”
“And hurry. Don’t make us wait for you.”
Jilly winced. “Yes, teacher.” She dropped back down to the wooden planks of the dock, hurried toward the nearest building, and immediately scrambled up the side.
“We’re ready, Henny,” Hope called to the front.
Henny cracked the whip at the horses without responding and the carriage began to move through the grimy, narrow streets of Paradise Circle.
Hope and Sadie exchanged a glance, wondering at their cool reception.
Paradise Circle hadn’t changed at all, and yet it felt completely different from the first time Hope had arrived here. She had looked with such a hard, judgmental eye on these streets before. As if she’d somehow been privy to a “right” way of doing things and the people who lived here had been doing it “wrong.” It was a strange idea to her now. She supposed she’d been trained to that lofty arrogance by the Vinchen. An idea that the world was merely a binary of right and wrong, good and bad. That idea had begun to erode during her two years at sea with Carmichael, but it was here on these streets that she’d really begun to understand that the world was not so simple.
“It’s good to be back,” she said.
Sadie turned from the window, and Hope was surprised to see tears in the old woman’s eyes. “That it is, my girl.”
They sat in silence except for the rattle of the carriage wheels as they watched the buildings roll past.
“What do you think it’s all about?” Sadie nodded her head to indicate the carriage and Henny.
Hope wasn’t sure how much Henny could hear, or if it mattered. “I don’t know. But I’m glad Jilly’s on that training exercise. Just in case.” If this was some sort of trap, she’d be outside of it, and able to report back to Finn what happened.
“Oh.” Sadie smiled, understanding. “You get more clever all the time.”
Hope shrugged. “Good teachers.”
The carriage passed the Rag and Boards, a dingy chaotic theater that showed more burlesque acts than plays. It was at that theater Red had incited the beginning of what would eventually be a full-scale riot. She and Nettles had been onstage with him, and Filler backstage working the flies.
Before that “performance” at the Rag and Boards, they had made their plans in the strange submerged basement of Apple Grove Manor. As the manor came into view, Hope noticed the outside had changed considerably. All the balconies and windowsills had been given a fresh coat of paint. Curtains had been repaired or replaced. The muddy weed patches had been cleaned out and flowers planted in their place. It was nearly morning, and the predawn light made everything seem strange and luminous.
“I ain’t seen the place look this nice since Jix the Lift lived here,” said Sadie.
The carriage stopped in front of the manor. Henny came around and opened the door for them.
“The Black Rose said to see her as soon as you got here. Didn’t matter what time,” he told them.
“The Black Rose?” asked Hope. “Is that the new ganglord of the Circle?”
“It is.” Again it seemed that Henny was holding something back. “You best go in.”
Hope and Sadie exchanged another uneasy look, then turned toward the manor.
“I’m here! I made it!” Jilly came staggering over.
Hope had wanted to get in before Jilly arrived rather than bring her into this potentially deadly situation. But when she looked at the girl, she couldn’t help but smile a little. Jilly was panting, her face red and sweaty. She had cuts and scrapes all down her arms and legs, and her feet, once again bare, were a bloody mess. But there was a crazy grin on her face. “I did it!”
“Well done,” said Hope. Then she turned back to the manor entrance. “Now, let’s find out who this Black Rose is, and what she’s done with our friends.”
Henny led them into the foyer and down a dim, candlelit hallway. Hope had only seen the basement before and she was struck by the stately grace of the old building. Intricately carved baseboards and doors. Murals of ocean life on the ceiling. She found the preoccupation with seals a bit unnerving, but she remembered that before she’d been attacked by a pack of them, she’d found them somewhat fascinating as well.
At the end of the hallway was a large, ornate door. Henny opened it and gestured for them to enter the sizable parlor room beyond. At one time it had probably been a place to host parties, but now it was dark and mostly bare. The only light was cast from the roaring fireplace in the back wall. In front of the fire was a high-backed chair facing them like a throne. The chair was flanked on one side by a woman in a ragged cloak and long, matted hair, and on the other side by a tall, thin man in a neat black suit and top hat. The person who sat in the chair was someone Hope recognized immediately and yet suddenly wasn’t sure she knew.
“Nettles?”
“It’s the Black Rose now.” Nettles’s voice was distant. “You took a new name, thought I might as well take one, too. Although Rose is actually the name I was born with, so maybe it’s not all that new.”
“You’re the one running Paradise Circle now?” asked Sadie.
“It was that, or let someone worse run it.”
There was a resignation in Nettles’s voice that worried Hope. “I think you’re an excellent person to run the Circle,” she said in a way she hoped sounded encouraging.
“Do you?” Nettles looked mildly surprised for a moment, then settled back into her distant look. “Of course. Because you don’t know yet.”
“Know what?” asked Hope.
“Filler’s dead.” She said it dully. As if echoing something someone else said. For some reason, that made it land on Hope even harder. It felt like an actual knife in her gut, cold and sharp. She imagined she tasted the blood. Then she realized she was tasting blood, because she’d bit her lip hard enough to break the skin. The iron tang filled her mouth and the pain gave her some relief, but not enough.
“How?” she asked hoarsely.
“Tortured to death by my brother.” Nettles’s voice was still distant. Almost toneless. Hope wondered if she might be in shock. As much as Hope loved Filler, she knew Nettles loved him more. Nearly as much as Red.
Thinking his name brought another stab of pain. Poor Red. He would be devastated when he found out. Hope could picture the look of agony distorting his cheerful face.
“Where…” Hope cleared her throat. “Where is your brother now?” An old hunger for vengeance boiled up into her chest. Perhaps she was not as far past such things as she’d thought.
“No idea.” Nettles’s hand strayed to her side. Hope noticed that her chainblade was gone, and there was a large bone saw leaning against the chair next to her. “But he won’t hurt anyone ever again. I cut off his arms and legs. And I tore out his tongue, although that was more because I was tired of hearing it.”
Hope struggled to grasp the enormity of what Nettles said so calmly. “You… tortured and mutilated him?” She tried to keep the horror out of her voice, but knew she was failing. “And you didn’t even put him out of his misery?”
“Can’t kill your own brother,” said Nettles. “Some things just aren’t done.”
“Nettie, I—”
“Nettles is dead. She died with Filler.” The ganglord of Paradise Circle leaned over and lightly touched the teeth of her bone saw. “Or maybe she was never real to begin with. Just a made-up name for a made-up person who played at being good. But see, it was nothing but balls and pricks. Only bad can come from bad. And that’s where I came from. Took me a while to grow up and accept it. I am the Black Rose. This is my Circle. And I’m never leaving it again.”
Hope remembered as a little girl, Hurlo telling h
er that darkness begat darkness. But rather than seeing it as an unchangeable fate, he had presented it to her as a grand challenge. She didn’t know if it was possible for Nettles to come back from whatever darkness she’d succumbed to. But it was clear that, at least for now, her friend wasn’t up to the challenge.
“That’s how it is now?” she asked finally.
“It is,” agreed the Black Rose.
They stared at each other across the empty space like two people who didn’t know each other. And perhaps they didn’t anymore. Hope and Nettles had been friends. But Dire Bane and the Black Rose… what were they to each other?
“Don’t worry about your crusade, though,” the Black Rose said. “Handy thing about running all of Paradise Circle, I got plenty of ships now. Not as many people, though. I had to kill quite a few to get where I am, so I’m a bit short on those at the moment.”
“We have people,” said Hope. “We cleaned out the Empty Cliffs and quite a few wanted to join my crew.”
The Black Rose’s mouth quirked into something that almost looked like a smile. “Of course you did. Getting to be more like a proper champion of the people every day. Things may have changed between us, but you and me got history and I won’t forget that. Nor do I want an army of the pissing dead marching into the streets of Paradise Circle. So I’ll give you what I can spare. Besides, I promised Filler I would.”
Hope stared at her for a moment, so many conflicting emotions rolling around within her.
“I gain a fleet, but lose my friends?” she asked.
The Black Rose nodded. “That’s about the length of it. Nothing in this world is free, Dire Bane. You should know that by now.”
“That doesn’t make the loss any easier,” she said quietly. Then she slowly turned and left, with Sadie and Jilly following silently behind.
Handsome Henny was waiting by the carriage when Hope, Sadie, and Jilly emerged into the morning light. He stood there for a moment, nervously shifting his weight back and forth, his eyes darting around. Then he abruptly looked her in the eye. “I’ll try not to let her fall too far down the hole.”
Hope gave him a tired smile and nodded. “Thank you, Henny.”
“Can I give you a ride back to the docks?”
Hope nodded. “Nettles was the one who set us on this course. Now we must make sure her sacrifice, and Filler’s, were not in vain.”
24
Merivale loathed sailing and ships and everything to do with them. She realized that in an empire composed of more water than land, this attitude was bordering on unpatriotic, so she kept it to herself. But she hated the cramped cabins, the stink of old fish and tar, and the way the world rocked sickeningly beneath her feet. A lesser person might have succumbed to seasickness, but Lady Merivale Hempist would never do something as unsightly as vomit, no matter how much her body urged her to do so.
The only relief was staying topside in the open air as much as possible. This was generally not something ladies of noble birth did on a ship, but the crew of the empress’s private yacht, the Great Endeavor, were accustomed to her eccentricities. The captain, an old salt by the name of Beverman, even provided her with a seal fur cloak so that the cold sea air wouldn’t give her a chill. She wrapped it tightly around herself now as she stared out at the frothy gray sea, only wanly lit by the early morning sun peeking now and then behind a low cloud bank.
“How many more days do you think it will take us to reach Lesser Basheta, Captain?”
Beverman scratched at his bushy white beard, his other hand resting on the wheel. “Two more days, my lady. Three if we run into bad weather.”
“I see.” These single-masted yachts were painfully slow, but anything larger would have drawn too much attention. It was vital at this stage that the biomancers not know their cargo or intention.
“It won’t be as bad on the return trip, my lady,” said the captain. “We’re fighting the prevailing current on the way there. On the way back, she’ll help us along.”
“That’s good to know,” said Merivale. “We may need to return in a hurry.”
“As you say, my lady.” The captain nodded, his eyes cast out to sea. Then in her peripheral vision, she saw him glance nervously at her. “Eh, how is our… guest faring?”
“About as well as one might expect for someone locked in the cabin of a ship for two days straight.”
“And you’re sure he’s… safe, my lady?”
She turned the full weight of her gaze on him. “As sure as you are that the ocean is safe, Captain. You worry about sailing, I’ll worry about our guest.”
The captain flinched. “Yes, my lady.”
Later that morning, Merivale had Hume load up a tray of food. She accompanied him down to the cabins on the lower deck. The yacht didn’t have much of a cargo hold because most of that space had been chopped up into small cabins so that the empress could go on long pleasure cruises or visits of state with guests when the need arose.
Naturally, Merivale had taken the largest cabin, the empress’s, for herself. The second largest had been given to Rixidenteron. She’d had a lock put on the door before they’d departed Stonepeak, but that was largely a formality. She had no doubt he could pick the lock if he wanted. But as a show of good faith, she didn’t chain him to the bed during the day, and he didn’t try to leave the cabin. They had both agreed, however, that it would be prudent to chain him up at night.
Even with the freedom to move around the cabin during the day, Merivale couldn’t imagine a less pleasant way to spend a four-day voyage to Lesser Basheta. She thought it likely that the hell waiting for her after death would look a great deal like that. If it had been her in that cabin, she would have been in a murderous mood by now. But when she and Hume reached his cabin door, she was surprised to hear laughter coming from the other side.
She rapped on the door with her knuckles. “My Lord Pastinas, is everything all right? Have you become hysterical?”
“No, no, Merivale. I’m fine. Come in.” There was still a lingering mirth in his voice.
She opened the door, curious to see what was so funny it could cheer up a man in his situation. She found him sprawled out on the narrow bunk with her copy of Thoriston Baggelworthy’s biography of Lady Gulia Pastinas in his hand.
“Is that what’s making you laugh?” She nodded her head to the book. “I thought it rather heartbreaking.”
Rixidenteron put the book down and accepted the tray from Hume. “Thanks, Humey, old pot.”
Hume bowed slightly and left the cabin.
“It certainly reads like a tragic tale,” agreed Rixidenteron, a mischievous sparkle in his eyes as he turned back to Merivale. “Probably because that’s how I told it to him.” Then he began eating.
“Am I to take it you were somewhat cavalier with the truth of your mother’s life?” she asked dryly.
“What can I say?” He took a bite of salted fish and chewed reflectively for a moment. “Anyone who takes a subjective recounting of events from someone who was only a child at the time, and doesn’t bother to verify or corroborate such a source, deserves to get duped.”
“Why didn’t you just tell him what really happened?”
“Because the truth is mine.” He shook his salted fish in her direction. “It’s all I’ve got left of my parents and I’ll be damned to every hell before I let the whole world take it from me. Especially for free.”
“And that is why you were laughing?” asked Merivale. “Because you got away with your deception?”
Rixidenteron shook his head as he stuffed a hunk of bread into his mouth. He held up the book again as he chewed. Once he’d swallowed, he said, “I was laughing at the bit at the end where old Thoriston tries to understand how wags talk in Paradise Circle.”
“Is it that off the mark?”
“Even when he gets the meaning right, his theories on the origins are downright fanciful. And the best part is that it had nothing to do with me. He did it all on his own.”
“I take it you don’t particularly care for Mr. Baggelworthy?”
“He helped me out in a pinch once, and at least he has some interest in what’s going on with the lower classes. So he’s okay, I guess. For a lacy.”
“And what of me?” asked Merivale. “Am I a lacy uninterested in the lower classes?”
Rixidenteron’s smile faded. “I don’t know what to make of you anymore.”
“Rest assured, the feeling is mutual.”
He ate in silence for a moment. “You really think this friend of yours can… cure me? Or free me? Or whatever we’re calling it?”
“I’m not particularly knowledgeable in this area,” said Merivale. “But even if Casasha can’t break the biomancers’ hold on you, she should be able to at least help us understand and perhaps control it.”
Rixidenteron’s expression grew bleak. “I’d rather just get rid of it.”
“Understandable,” Merivale said as kindly as she could. “But that option may not be open to us.”
Rixidenteron stabbed moodily at the food on his tray, all traces of humor now gone. “Yeah. I guess I need to prepare myself for that. Like it’s some kind of pissing disease I need to manage.”
“I’m sorry. I truly am,” Merivale said quietly. “I hope the woman you rescued by taking this curse upon yourself was worth it.”
Rixidenteron said nothing, but only continued to push his food around on his tray, as if his appetite had fled with his mirth.
Merivale kept Rixidenteron company for a little while, but she could only stand to be below for short periods of time. Then she returned to her habitual spot on the deck near the helm. She was reluctant to call it a quarterdeck on such a small vessel.
As the sun began to set, she instructed Hume to go down and chain Rixidenteron to his bed before he changed. Meanwhile, the captain gave the order to light lanterns fore and aft.
The captain hadn’t been pleased when Merivale informed him they would sail straight through to Lesser Basheta without stopping. She’d even enlisted enough sailors to have two full shifts. Granted, it made the small craft even more crowded. But Merivale was more concerned about the dangers of having such a potentially dangerous person aboard any longer than necessary. The captain had only agreed to night sailing if they could at least light lanterns. Merivale worried it made the yacht too easy for pirates to spot in open waters, but on that point Beverman wouldn’t budge.
