“I don’t think she cares.”
“I care. Look, she’s never going to be entirely comfortable with family things, but this is her family. I want her to understand that. What family means to her—meant to her—it has to change. We’re her family, now. And yes, I know she’ll take orders, especially in a pinch. But it can’t just be about that.”
“Why?”
Jay looked up, met Angel’s gaze. “You tell me,” she said evenly.
He grimaced, acknowledging her point. His chin dropped toward his chest as he slid, slowly, down the wall. “She’s afraid.” He looked up and added, “And don’t repeat that unless you want me dead.”
Jay laughed.
Angel didn’t. “She’s afraid of being happy. This—all of this—it’s like a reminder of everything she doesn’t think she is. She’s not comfortable when people are relaxed and happy.”
Jay nodded. Angel looked up to see Teller and Finch; they were watching him carefully. Sometimes he felt like everything was a test. But at the same time? He felt like passing—or failing—didn’t really matter.
“It’s hard, to trust.” He shook his head, clearing the wrong words, trying to grope his way toward the right ones. “I don’t mean it’s hard to trust you. I trust you. It’s . . . easy to trust you, Jay. You have a foul temper,” he added, still musing; he almost missed her grimace. “But it’s not an ugly temper. Mostly.
“It’s hard to trust . . . this.” He lifted a hand, waved it, encompassing in that gesture all of the den who weren’t actively part of this conversation: Fisher, Lander, Lefty, Arann, Jester, Carver. Encompassing, as well, the small, cramped room, the warped shutters and open windows, the plates on lap or floor, the bedrolls which had been tossed in a large pile in the corner—even the kitchen. Perhaps especially that.
He gazed at his knees. “I lost my family in Evanston. My family, the farm, some of my friends.”
Finch touched his knee. “You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she told him.
He knew. He knew Jay’s rules about the past. But he smiled at Finch as he spoke. “Not even my nightmares were as bad as the truth. And it took me months to realize that it was true: they were dead. I had no home, no life, no chores. The chores? I hated them, but they were what I did.
“You found me,” he continued, his gaze tracing wood grain until it ran into Carver’s leg. “I followed you home.” He kept the bitterness out of the words without effort; the shame still tinted them. “How long have I been here?”
“Four months, give or take a few days,” Jay replied.
Four months. “It feels longer,” he told her, not looking at her. “But it feels real. I wanted—I needed—to find a place to belong. A home. A family. But there are some days I wake up, and I see the signal fires burning, and I see the smoke of bigger fires, and I hear the bells ringing—and I hear them stop—and I know, I mean, I know it can’t last. This,” he added, again waving his hand around the room in a circle. “And sometimes, when I know it, I’m afraid to want it too badly because if I want it, something will take it away.” It was hard to say the words out loud.
Hard to hear them. But Jay had asked.
“Duster’s more afraid of that than I will ever be. And when Duster’s afraid something bad will happen, she tries to make something bad happen, because then it’ll be over. The worst will have happened. She’ll have something to face down or fight.” He looked up at Jay then.
Jay nodded, her lips curved in something that was almost a smile. Not a smile, though; it was heavy with some sadness, some worry, that a smile couldn’t quite hold. “And you said you didn’t understand Duster.”
“I don’t. But I recognize my own fear when I see it in someone else.”
“Fair enough. But it is really any better to have nothing?”
“No. But if that’s all you’re certain you’ll have, sometimes you think it’ll hurt less if you bring it on yourself.”
Jay looked at him for a moment, and then nodded. “Thanks.”
“For what?”
She stood, picked up the plate that still had mostly cake on it, and gave him a rueful smile. “It’s not the way I think. Sometimes I need the reminder.”
Angel rose as well. “How would you see it?”
She shrugged, made her way to the kitchen. “I lost everything,” she told him. “I should have been able to do something. I didn’t. Or couldn’t.
“But I wouldn’t have made it this far without help. I had help.” She nodded in the general direction of the den. “This is my family. The only thing that scares me, these days? I’ll lose ’em because I don’t do something, or because I see something but I don’t understand it in time. It won’t be because I’m afraid they’re important, or even too important—they’re everything I’ve got. I’m not ashamed of that.”
Chapter Two
6th day of Morel, 410 AA Twenty-fifth holding, Averalaan
SINCE NO ONE HAD BEEN STUPID enough to take up Carver’s bet, Carver was no richer when the apartment door opened in the morning.
It was impossible to open that damn door quietly, even on a bet; it was, however, possible to sleep through the creaking. If you were in the room, where Jay, Finch, Teller, Lefty, and Lander usually threw down bedrolls, there was a good chance you’d miss it if the person who opened the door was trying to sneak in.
Arann, Carver, Jester, Fisher and Angel usually took up the floor in the big room. Arann could sleep through a fire. Jester could sleep through a flood. Fisher and Carver paid attention, though. Angel could probably sleep through either a fire or a flood, but this was never put to the test; Angel was not asleep.
City time and Town time were measured slightly differently, in part because the Common required the farmers and merchants on Town time to actually travel to the City itself. The Port Authority had been on Town time; Terrick’s early mornings had been some part of Angel’s days for the months that he’d lived in Averalaan.
Four months with the den, in much more crowded quarters, hadn’t changed this. Admittedly, sleeping at all had been difficult for the first few days; Angel wasn’t used to this many people crammed into this little space for any reason other than deep and bitter cold. But after four days of almost no sleep, exhaustion did what comfort couldn’t, and after that? He slept. He told himself it was better than being alone and, mostly, he believed it.
Carver and Fisher were awake. They weren’t obviously awake, but their breathing shifted as the door slid open. They didn’t move, though, and Angel, propped up by arm and wall, slid quietly back to the floor.
The shutters were closed, but they leaked light in precise beams. Those beams didn’t reach the door, but they didn’t have to; Duster moved slowly and cautiously into the room. He could see her face for a brief moment as it was caught, and cut, by light; could see the slight darkening of a bruise across her cheek. Her lips were swollen, and her left eye, swollen as well. She had to step carefully if she didn’t want to wake Arann. Arann was about as easygoing as anyone in this den ever got—but he didn’t always wake well. And when he woke badly? You remembered that he was also the biggest person in the den.
Lefty could usually calm him down, but they took their cue from Lefty’s attempts, all of which involved keeping as much space as possible between himself and the not-quite-awake Arann. Arann frequently slept closest to the door because it was farthest away from anyone else.
Duster sidestepped him neatly, and with the practiced ease of long habit. She didn’t like to be confined. She couldn’t be. If she woke at night—and she often did—she would sneak out the same way she was now sneaking in.
She stopped for a moment, until the floorboards had settled, and then she retraced her steps slightly, and turned toward the kitchen. Angel could see that much, but not more unless he wanted to get up and follow her. He didn’t; he listened instead.
Heard the very quiet movement of dishes. A pause, another movement. In the darkness, the sounds gathered
, told a broken story. Plate against plate. Plate against plate. Plate against counter. No fist against counter; no swearing. Angel took a breath, a slow quiet breath; held it a moment. He heard something that wasn’t a plate hit the counter; wrong sound for a hand. It took him a moment before he realized what it probably was: Jay had left Duster’s present there, with the cake.
She had picked it up, put it down. Not with force this time; no one was watching.
He listened hard, and after a moment, heard movement, heard Duster walking quietly toward the room. She slept there—when she slept at all—between Finch and Jay. In another hour, it would be moot; they’d all be awake and tripping over each other’s feet. In two hours? Out in the Common, or anywhere else they needed to be.
He waited, listening, until Duster found some room; heard Finch’s sleepy mumble, Duster’s genial curse. It passed for an apology around these parts. He heard cloth rustling, wondered—briefly—if Duster was getting changed. Waited.
When it had been silent for at least ten minutes, he slowly pushed himself off the ground, and traveled the length of the wall, taking the same care that Duster had taken to avoid touching Arann.
He made his way to the kitchen.
The cake was still sitting on its plate on the counter; she hadn’t touched that.
But the present? Gone. She’d taken it with her.
He wondered if she’d open it.
Jewel hated mornings. In particular, she hated mornings that started—as this one did—with Duster’s cursing. If Jewel hated morning, Duster loathed it with unbridled passion. The fact that this morning occurred an hour after Duster had finally come home probably didn’t help; the fact that the night had occurred like an accident—and judging from Duster’s blackening eye and puffy lips, not a harmless accident either—helped even less. Finch was doing her best not to notice Duster’s face. Jewel, annoyed enough to be awake—again—didn’t care.
She shrugged herself out of her bedclothes, and out of the newest bedroll in the room, and scrounged around for clothing that wasn’t too dirty. She didn’t particularly relish the thought of laundry, but it was warm enough; they could head to the riverbank, and they could beat things into shape after they’d hit the Common.
Duster, on the other hand, was wearing pretty much the same clothing she’d worn yesterday, and the day before. It was distinctly dirtier at the moment.
“Jay?” Teller’s voice.
She answered, finished pulling her tunic over her head, and answered again. “What?”
Teller was standing to her left, crouched over the iron box.
“Never mind,” she told him. She knew what he was looking at. Or, more specifically, what he wasn’t looking at. Duster’s birthday had not been cheap. Or affordable, really. “Just dig out some of what’s there. It’ll get us through the week.”
He nodded, and picked through the coins.
Farmer Hanson was waiting for the den, as he so often did. The market guards were less obviously waiting, and made some show of checking for things like shirts and shoes; it was just on the edge of too crowded for it to be a good show, but they had to make their point.
Jewel shrugged her way past the guards, smacked Jester across the back of the head because he had that I’m going to do something funny expression and the guards had that We’ve already been here too long to find cheeky amusing expression, and walked directly to Farmer Hanson’s wagon. Duster followed close on, the way she always did; the only thing that got between Duster and Jewel in a crowd? Jewel’s shadow.
She knew it shouldn’t have been a comfort, but it was. She couldn’t count on Duster to be normal, or happy, or civil—but she could count on Duster. Sometimes, on the other hand, she could count on Duster to break the hand of a passing thief, and she’d gotten used to saying Don’t break anything the minute Duster swiveled her head in a certain way.
Arann pulled up the rear, as he always did, and Carver walked shoulder to shoulder with Duster. Of all of her den, it was Carver that Duster was most comfortable with. Carver and the newest member, Angel. Angel walked on Jewel’s other side, when there was room, and Jay watched him, briefly. He never tried to steal much.
Which was good, because they didn’t need to steal much just now; let some other hungry kid do the stealing and get away with it. If things didn’t pick up, they’d be stealing just ahead of winter. And stealing for ten? Way, way more trouble than stealing for one had ever been.
But she didn’t regret having the ten. She just hated not knowing how to keep them. And that was something she didn’t want to think about today. Because she could see, jutting slightly against the blouse of an oversize tunic, the pommel of a dagger, and she knew that Duster had not only opened, but kept, the present given to her.
She didn’t ask; no one would. It would be just like Duster to pull it off and throw it away, and in this crowd, it would be gone. But . . . still. She was wearing it. She’d kept it. That was a start.
That and, as Lefty had cheerfully pointed out, no one was bleeding.
She put a hand on Duster’s elbow, and when Duster looked at her, she signed, No trouble. Duster grimaced and nodded, but added, Won’t start any. Jewel knew she wasn’t going to get better from Duster today.
Jewel approached Farmer Hanson and waved. He shouted hello in between the sentences he was shouting at an older woman who had perfected convenient deafness, and she waited until he was finished.
He counted. He always counted, these days. “Where’s Finch?”
“Back home. With Teller, Lefty, Lander, and Fisher. With any luck, they’ll be down riverside, washing clothing so we don’t frighten the guards.”
“Mrs. Keppel said you had a bit of a run-in with Carmenta’s den?”
Mrs. Keppel, Mother be kind to her, had a very big mouth. “No, she had a bit of a run- in with Carmenta’s den. We had a bit of a nothing.” She turned half her attention to food. The carrots were small, but the potatoes were solid. There were some early berries as well, and Jay wanted them so badly she could almost taste them—but they were expensive, and she couldn’t buy enough for ten.
“Bit of a nothing?”
“No one was hurt. Besides Mrs. Keppel.”
“That’s three times in the last four months, Jay,” the farmer said.
She handed the basket, which was growing heavy, to Carver, and continued to pick idly through the stock. Lemons. Ugh. But, mindful of Rath’s advice, she bought them, thinking that even limes weren’t as bad.
“They didn’t used to bother the older folk,” the farmer said.
“That’s because the older folk generally have no money.”
“So what’s changed?”
Jewel frowned. “I’ve been wondering that, myself. Normally, they wouldn’t bother—the older people are more likely to call in the magisterians, if nothing else.” She shrugged. “But—there aren’t as many guards in the streets these days, and it looks like they pulled the best of them off the holdings and put them outside the Common gates.” She didn’t want to add the rest of the truth: Most of the dens, when things were lean, picked pockets and the odd bit of merchandise from people in the Common, which of course meant people like Farmer Hanson.
The farmer notwithstanding, she preferred thieving in the Common; the chance of a fight was minimal. But with the newer guards at the gates, it was hard to even get in on a good day. And on a bad day? No luck.
“So you’ve been running interference?”
“No. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Jay—”
She lifted both hands in surrender. “We can take care of ourselves,” she told him quietly. “And it doesn’t hurt us to keep an eye out for those that can’t.”
He was proud of her; she could see that. But he was worried as well. He barely counted the money she put in his hand, barely paid attention to the produce she’d slipped into the baskets.
“Jay,” he said, af
ter a pause that was just a little too long, “have you talked to Rath lately?”
She was instantly on her guard. “Not recently, why?”
Farmer Hanson didn’t answer for a moment. It was a long moment. “It’s nothing,” he finally said.
She lifted a brow, and then shoved hair out of her eyes. “Nothing?” “It’s none of my business.”
Jewel almost snorted. But he deserved better than that, this farmer with his inexplicable sympathy for the starving. “No,” she said quietly. “But it’s still mine. I’ll go see him.”
“Don’t mention my name.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she replied, with the hint of a rueful smile. She wouldn’t have to mention Farmer Hanson; Rath was no idiot. He’d guess.
Jewel split off from the rest of the den when they were near the edge of the Common. “Go home by street,” she told Carver. “I’ll follow later.”
Carver hesitated, which meant he stopped walking, which meant Angel ran into him, which caused the usual scuffle. Jewel reminded herself, while she waited, that she really liked both Angel and Carver. “Guys,” she said, when the reminder failed to be appropriately calming, “go home.”
“Carmenta—” Carver began.
“Carmenta doesn’t know about the undercity; he doesn’t know about the tunnels. I’ll take ’em most of the way back. And most of the way to where I’m going. I’ll be good.” She would be. The den, over the past eighteen months, had done both exploration and contingency planning; most of the exits and entrances into the maze beneath the City now had rope, a pack, and bandages. If Jewel had had the money, these little emergency supplies would also have included magelights. She didn’t. But she carried hers with her; it was small and of no apparent value unless it was dark. In the dark, however, its glow was unmistakable.
Duster split off from the den, and came to stand beside Jewel. Jewel sighed inwardly and shook her head. “Not you, Duster. I’ll take Angel.”
One of Duster’s brows drew closer to her hairline; both were so dark a brown in some light they looked black. But while she opened her mouth, no words came out, and when she shut it, it stayed shut. Thank Kalliaris for small mercies. Duster didn’t particularly like Rath, and although Duster had proved herself countless times over the last three years, Rath did not like Duster.
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