Had to be good.
Because—
Jay needed her. Jay needed them all, now. Even Lander, who didn’t talk much and couldn’t fight. Fisher had hit her, hard. But Lefty? Lefty, crippled, terrified Lefty, had gutted the den. Arann was still lost in silence and rage. Finch and Teller barely took their eyes off the damn door. Jester had gotten damn quiet the past few weeks. Lander’s hands were mostly still in his lap, and he’d never talked out loud much. All of them.
Even Duster. Damn it. Even her. How many times—she cornered by a building, this time, her palms losing skin to some of the only brick wall at the crossroads—had she wished he’d just go the Hells away? She’d never been good at numbers, and couldn’t count that damn high. He’d bugged her. His cringing. His hiding behind Arann or Finch. His stupid humor, when he bothered to try. Would have said she almost hated him, if anyone had asked.
So now, now, the little rabbit was gone. Finally gone.
And she hated it.
She hated it. Everyone else was lost, wandering around the hole he’d made in the den. She would’ve expected that. She would never have expected to be so damn lost with them. It made no sense.
There, Felstone Ave. Small alley between the standing buildings; gap in fence and a run-up you could use to get over it. They’d gain minutes there, if they were lucky.
She liked to think she’d never been lucky. But she was still here. Fisher was gone. Lefty was gone. No one knew where, no one knew how. If she died here, if Angel did, at least they’d know. Carmenta would probably leave their bodies in the middle of the damn street as a warning or a boast, or both.
But it’d break Jay. It’d break what was left.
Why do you care? she snarled at herself, drawing breath, feeling the dry walls of her throat try to stick together. Her hand fell to her dagger, as if it were an answer. Maybe it was. Maybe it was all the answer she could carry.
Jay should have let her slit Carmenta’s damn throat. She’d asked. She’d asked a hundred times. He was a danger. Duster’d always known it: Carmenta was what she knew.
But it wasn’t the only thing she knew, not anymore. She knew that they couldn’t get caught, couldn’t die. Not her—but also: Not Angel. Not Carver, not Lander. For Jay’s sake. For the rest of them. Because if losing Lefty hurt—and it hurt her, and she hated it—what would losing anyone else be like?
Worse. So much worse. She’d killed her uncle. She’d been savagely, fiercely, exultant. She’d left her kin, not that they cared. She’d never had anything to lose before.
How was this supposed to be better?
Duster and Angel came in, opening the door into the flickering light of a candle. They hesitated there, and Jewel glanced up; saw them looking, not at her, but at the floor, as if they were counting.
Chalk snapped in her fingers as her hand tightened; it wasn’t a loud sound, but they both looked up.
She asked the only questions that mattered. “Where’s Carver? Where’s Lander?”
They glanced at each other. She saw the bare hint of fear cross Duster’s face. Angel’s was shuttered tightly. Neither Duster nor Angel answered her question, and she pushed herself out of her chair. The chair toppled, the clatter followed by a silence that contained no breathing but her own.
No one was sleeping anymore.
“You were supposed to stay together!”
Angel met her gaze, held it a moment, and then looked away.
Duster bridled. “Carmenta had his entire gang out by the river. We ran into them. We ran.” She shrugged, but it was a stiff, jerky motion, no grace in it. “We split up. We thought Carver and Lander’d come back here.”
It had been a long damn time since Jewel had had to work so hard to keep her mouth shut. She did the work because the words that wanted out would be said to wound, and it would just be a transfer of pain and fear; it would do no damn good. In silence, she turned her back, took a breath, and picked up her chair. She pushed it halfway under the table, and then thought better of it, and pulled it out again.
When she could trust her voice again, she said, “Which way did they run?”
Angel answered. “We went to Taverson’s. They went in the direction of Fennel’s warehouse. We said we’d meet back here.”
Arann rose, shedding bedroll and the one thin blanket he often used as a pillow when it wasn’t too damn cold. “I’ll go.”
“No,” Jewel told him, struggling, still struggling, to keep the heat out of her voice.
He started to speak, and she lifted a hand, den-sign. “Carver could outrun Carmenta in his sleep. He knows the holdings,” she added.
“Lander—”
“Lander’s with Carver.”
“We could all go.”
Jewel looked at Teller. He had come out of the bedroom fully dressed, but that wasn’t surprising; he often didn’t sleep until she did.
“Go where?” she demanded.
“Fennel’s?”
“Carver’s not stupid enough to get boxed in there.”
“Duster said Carmenta had his whole den lying in wait. He might have no choice. We can all go.”
What good will you be in a fight? She didn’t ask. He heard it anyway.
And she hated that he did; hated that it seemed to be coming down to this, more and more: Worth was defined by the streets, and by what you could beat, or terrify. That wasn’t why she loved Teller. It wasn’t why she loved Finch.
As if all thoughts were shouts, Finch stepped quietly out of the bedroom as well, glancing at Duster. After a brief pause, Finch squared her shoulders and headed to the kitchen. Clinking plates were, for a few minutes, the only sound in the room. They were oddly comforting, even given the lack of substantial food to put on them.
Finch came back bearing that insignificant food to Duster and Angel, neither of whom had eaten. Angel, who ate anything, took the plate in silence. Duster stared straight through hers as if it were invisible.
“We’re not going out,” Jewel told them all. “We won’t find them.”
“You’re sure?” Teller asked.
Jewel nodded, because she suddenly was. It was not a happy feeling. “Duster,” she added, her voice lower, and wearier, “eat.”
Duster took the plate from Finch’s hand; Finch, knowing Duster, hadn’t moved it far. The cat came out of the bedroom as if aware that there was a very real possibility that Duster would simply drop the plate on the floor. Duster glared at the cat; Teller came and picked her up.
“We don’t eat Duster’s food,” he said softly.
Duster snorted and looked at the plate. But she didn’t eat, not yet. Instead she drew one sharp breath. “Jay—”
“No. You were right. Splitting up was smart. I’d’ve done it, if there were only four of us and his entire damn den was out. Eat,” she said again. “We can’t afford to waste the food, and we can’t afford for you to go hungry. We need you to be as sharp as you can be, especially now.”
Mollified, Duster leaned back against the hall wall and then slid down its surface to the ground. But she was quiet, for Duster, as if she’d been winded. Her anger was almost a legend in the den, but tonight it was brittle and easily broken. Not, Jewel noted, by hunger; Duster was pushing the food around her plate. Easy to notice, when there was so little of it.
“He’ll be back,” Jewel added.
Hours later, he was.
He opened the door into an apartment that was, as usual, carpeted with the sleeping; Arann, closest by far to the door, with a gap between him and anyone else who might be unlucky enough to roll over in their sleep. Keeping Arann off the streets had put an end to his sudden, terrifying rages—but if they’d ever thought he’d woken up badly before Lefty’s disappearance, they knew now just how wrong they were.
She’d heard the door; you couldn’t be awake in the den’s space without hearing it. Working at the table, working in the mess of candle wax with its flickering light, she listened for the sound of the floorboards’ creak. She he
ard Carver’s breathing, and she did not want to look up.
Because she only heard Carver.
And she knew, sitting in this not-quite-dark, that she could listen until Moorelas rode again, and she would only hear Carver.
Something broke in her. It didn’t feel strange, and it didn’t feel new; hadn’t she broken this way three times now?
She knew what Carver would say, and she made him say it anyway. She needed to let him talk; if she spoke first, she wouldn’t hold on to her words or her fury or her fear, and she knew they’d be aimed at him.
But she also let him talk because she wanted him to tell her that Carmenta had caught them, or had caught Lander. Because if he could say that, she’d believe him. And if she believed him, they could find what was left of Lander, and they could bring him home.
She asked him questions and he answered, but she didn’t really hear his words, and didn’t really hear her own, although she knew some of them were bad. She knew what Lander and Carver had done. She knew. But she made him tell her anyway, because even knowing it, she could try to lie to herself; she could try to pretend.
But Carver didn’t lie to her.
Carmenta’s den had boxed them in at Fennel’s. He and Lander had gone to ground in the maze.
And only Carver had emerged.
She slapped him. She didn’t even realize she’d raised her hand before her palm was stinging. He made no move to stop her or block her—and he could have easily done either. She stopped herself from hitting him again, but she didn’t know how, and she almost didn’t know why anymore.
But she understood Arann’s rage, his uncontrollable fury: it was, for a moment, her own. And she could not take it out on Carver. She couldn’t.
His eyes were already filmed with tears and certainty.
Gods, Duster had been right. They should have killed Carmenta ages ago. They’d had the chance, more than once, and it would only have taken once. Without Carmenta, Lander would be home.
She told herself that, and she believed it.
And she would make him pay.
22nd of Scaral, 410 AA Twenty-fifth holding, Averalaan
She woke up the next morning. The money hadn’t, thanks to Carmenta, increased. The night had been cold enough that the coins—the few that were there—hurt to touch for long. Hurt for other reasons, as well. Those, she kept to herself.
She led the den to the market and led them home in a grim silence. Everyone knew that Lander, like Lefty and Fisher before him, would not be coming back. They might have grieved openly, had Jewel given them time for more than a painful, painful silence—but she didn’t. Her anger was bright and hot and focused—and she hid behind it, holding onto it as tightly as she could. She’d lost three. She’d promised them some kind of home. She’d promised them some kind of safety.
And she’d failed. She’d failed them, and they were gone. Dead, she thought, and finally knew it. But the rest? She would never let go of them. She would never let them disappear again. She was going to talk to Rath, the minute she could get food home, and she was going to demand the answers she should have demanded when Fisher had first disappeared.
She was going to make him tell her everything he knew about the maze and she was going to make certain that whoever had taken her den-kin would never be in a position to do it again.
How? How will you do that? Her voice. Her Oma’s voice. Both bitter and slightly sarcastic.
I don’t know, she replied. Doesn’t matter how. I can’t fail them again. I can’t. I get to be the next person who dies. Just me.
As if it were a privilege, to die first. But wasn’t it? Wasn’t it better than being—than always being—the one left behind?
No one else, Kalliaris. If she had to lead them to the Free Towns as farm laborers, she would do that instead.
She took Carver and Duster with her; left everyone else in the apartment. Finch was talking quietly to Arann, but Lander wasn’t Arann’s problem in the same way that Lefty had been. Lander had been Duster’s. Jewel considered, briefly, leaving Duster behind—but Duster had never been a berserker. She had a foul temper, and a tongue to match, but she wanted, first and foremost, to live. She wasn’t stupid enough to start a fight she couldn’t win. She could be vicious; she’d probably be more vicious, if there was opportunity for it.
But today? Jewel wasn’t certain she’d even try to stop her. She wanted—they both wanted—someone to suffer for this loss.
And Jewel needed her. If Carmenta was out on the streets—and this was early, for his den—she needed Duster beside her. Duster and Carver.
“Angel?” Carver asked, but she shook her head.
“I want him here.”
“Why?”
“Because if anything happens here, he can think on his feet.”
“You’re expecting something to happen here?”
“No.”
But Duster and Carver looked at her, and so did the others, or at least the ones who’d heard.
“Jay?” Angel said quietly.
She shook her head. “I don’t know,” she finally told him. “I’m not—I’m not certain. I don’t know. But—I don’t have a good feeling.”
That was enough for Carver.
It was enough for the rest of the den, as well. They were silent, but they would have been silent anyway; Lander was gone. She knew they were looking at each other and trying to memorize everything, because they didn’t know who would be next. But so far, everything had happened out there. This was a safe place.
No, this had been a safe place.
“Just—be ready for trouble,” she told them. It was lame, but Angel nodded.
They didn’t have a lot of stuff here, but it would hurt to lose the bulky things: the bedrolls, the blankets. On impulse, she pocketed the magestone.
She glanced briefly at Arann, and Carver nodded. They left the apartment and took to the streets, blending in with the crowd. If Carver and Duster took the opportunity to rifle a few pockets, so much the better—for a twisted meaning of the word better—but she didn’t slow down much.
Duster walked the cobbled streets as if her footsteps could crack stone. Or as if she wanted to, and she did. She didn’t talk much, because there wasn’t much point. Jay was closed up like a bank, and Carver wasn’t a whole lot better.
Lander was gone.
Lander was dead. Jay hadn’t said it, but Duster knew her well enough to read it off her expression, to read it off the things she didn’t say. She was angry, and Duster understood anger. What Duster didn’t understand was how to let it go. How to bleed its edge. Lander was gone.
Lander, who she’d promised Waverly’s death. Lander, who had told her to do what Jay asked—to kill him quickly and cleanly—and come home. Lander who had been the only reason she had learned the stupid den-sign, because if not for his silence, it would have been a kid’s game, and Duster had never been a child. But Lander wouldn’t talk any other way at the beginning, and besides Jay, he’d been the only person she cared enough about to make an effort. Lander had suffered almost exactly what she had suffered. It had nearly broken him.
The others—Arann, Lefty, Teller, Carver, Angel—they’d come from different places.
But it was Fisher and Lander that Duster grieved for, and the only safe way to express that grief was to walk as if she could shatter the street. This was what caring for people got you. Pain. Loss. She wanted to punch something, or to stab it, over and over again, because maybe if she caused enough pain to someone else, hers would leave her the Hells alone.
She should have known better. Life hurt you, it always hurt you, if it thought it could get away with it.
No more, she thought. No more.
The thirty-fifth holding was one of the worst holdings in the old City, and of course, that’s where Rath lived. Jay took a few detours, and Carver and Duster followed, wordless, as she did. She had that look on her face and she didn’t slow down for a second.
Carver glanced at Duster
once or twice, and Duster forced herself to shrug. But she was uneasy; they both were. Jay wasn’t even paying attention to the streets anymore. Duster had started off angry, and that was fine, but somewhere in between home and here, anger had been edged out by something like fear: Jay was in a hurry.
You couldn’t argue with Jay when she was in a hurry, and Jay in a hurry was always a bad sign. Something was coming. There were three of them. Jay wasn’t bad in a fight, but she wasn’t Carver or Duster.
But nothing came. No Carmenta. No other nameless, faceless den intent on carving its rule in their flesh. The air was stale, breath was too damn short. Lander was dead.
They reached Rath’s, and Carver headed up the steps to the main entrance, but Jay caught his arm, shook her head. They went down the steps, instead, to the old door that led directly into Rath’s place. He never used it. Hells, they’d never used it. Carver glanced at Duster again, and he muttered something about knocking; Duster kicked him before he’d finished.
Jay opened the door, and it scraped along the frame as she dragged it.
Jay went straight to Rath’s room. Carver split off to search one room, and Duster, the other. They didn’t expect to find anything, although if they’d tripped over Rath’s corpse, it wouldn’t have surprised Duster much; Jay was that damn tense. Jay had told them to search the apartment, and Duster suspected this was an ill-thought attempt to get them out of the way while she rifled through Rath’s real room.
Duster briefly glanced into the kitchen, and then made her way to the room that she had shared with Jay, Finch, and sometimes Teller. She entered the room; it was now mostly storage, and even then, mostly empty. There wasn’t much here to steal, and if there had been, she wouldn’t have bothered. This wasn’t home anymore, but it had been, and while Rath had never liked her much, he’d let her stay.
Because of Jay.
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