City of Night

by Michelle West

She walked farther into the room and crouched by the wall, touching the floorboards.

  This was where she had lain the first night she’d come to the den. That night, hand on her dagger, she’d pretended to be asleep, evening out her breathing, thinking of stealing the money Jay left lying around in her unlocked iron box and making a run for it. Wanting it, Duster thought, but never enough to do it. Jay had known, and Jay hadn’t cared much. Now, Jay said, is all we have.

  And what if what you wanted was more than now?

  She closed her eyes for a minute; leaned her forehead against the wall. It was cold. Lander. You wanted this, for us. For me. I never asked you why.

  And never would. Even if he were still here, she knew she wouldn’t. Wasn’t in her. Never had been. But here, in this empty, quiet room where everything had started, she wanted to know. She wanted, for a minute, to be the kind of stupid person that could care enough to ask.

  The floor creaked, and she rose, hand dropping to dagger as she turned.

  Rath stood in the door, watching her. His eyes were dark and cold, and his lips were turned up in a half smile that seemed oddly—wrongly—familiar. Something about it. He was still tall, but his expression, even with that cool smile, was so remote and so watchful she froze.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked softly.

  She shrugged. “We let ourselves in. You were out,” she added.

  “Obviously. You’re not here alone.”

  She shrugged again, and this time, his eyes narrowed as he stepped into the room. He caught her arm—her dagger arm—and his fingers were tight enough to bruise. The hair on the back of her neck rose; she almost tried to break free.

  But she didn’t. Rath was clearly in a mood, and only Jay could fix that.

  They found Carver first. Rath was even less amused to see Carver in the drill room than he had been to find Duster. He grabbed Carver with his free hand, and dragged him out. The two of them trailed in his wake as he walked down the hall to the rooms that had always been off-limits to anyone but Jay, and sometimes Teller.

  “I guess you can’t go home,” Carver said, with a grimace.

  Duster said nothing, but she noted, with grim satisfaction, that it was Carver Rath released in order to open the door.

  “Jay,” Duster said softly as they were more or less pushed, by the shoulders, into Rath’s room. It was as much of a warning as she could offer. Jay, back to the door, didn’t take it.

  “What’s the problem?” Jay touched the papers on Rath’s table. Duster remembered that he’d worked there, rather than at the desk.

  “I was hoping you could answer that,” Rath said, pulling whatever conversation there was out of Duster’s hands. “What are you doing in my place?”

  Jay froze for a second. Then, lowering her arms and taking her hands away from Rath’s precious letters, she turned, slowly, to face him. To face all of them. Four people in the enclosed space made the room feel smaller than it ever had.

  Jay must have felt it, too. She folded her arms tightly across her chest, planting her feet across the floor as if she expected to be hit, and needed the balance. “Came to talk to you.” Duster glanced at Carver, but Carver, brow furrowed slightly, was watching Jay.

  “And it was so important you had to pick the lock instead of waiting?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And these two?”

  “Look, you know the situation with the maze. I had to come here on foot. I don’t do the thirty-fifth on my own. No one smart does.” She looked as if she might say more. Didn’t. This time, when Duster glanced at Carver, he glanced back. Lifted his hand in a brief flutter of fingers. Jay’s worried. Something’s wrong.

  Yes.

  “What was so important?”

  Jay flinched. “Lander’s gone as well.”

  Rath didn’t look surprised. He didn’t look anything but pissed off. “When?”

  “Yesterday. Early evening.”

  “And?”

  “We—we think he was followed into the maze. Carmenta’s gang.”

  “I see. Were you there?”

  “No. Carver was.”

  Duster glanced at Carver as Rath removed his hands from their shoulders. Duster’s fell to her dagger. The gift she hadn’t wanted. The gift she wouldn’t let go of, ever. They’d all been there then: Fisher, Lefty, Lander. Watching while she swore. Waiting for her to come back after she’d stormed out. They’d known. And this wasn’t some cheap, rusty castoff. It was a damn good knife. It had cost them. If they’d never bought the knife, they’d’ve had a few more weeks. But they wanted her to have it.

  She wanted it now, as well.

  Rath turned to Carver. “Carmenta’s den is?”

  But Jay answered instead. Her voice was clear, and it was like ice; it made Duster frown. Then again, sunlight on the wrong day could make Duster frown. It just didn’t make her cold. “Twenty-sixth holding. They nest above Melissa’s place, near the Corkscrew.”

  “There’s no maze door near the Corkscrew,” Rath said quietly. His eyes were narrowed, and nothing that had happened so far had taken the edge off his expression. Duster had always known he was dangerous. But this danger felt different.

  She glanced at Jay; Jay wasn’t looking at anyone but Rath, and her expression made clear that she saw—or felt—what Duster did.

  “You’d know,” Jay told him as she shrugged. Stiff shrug. “But it doesn’t matter. If they know about the maze, they’ll be in it like a pack of rats. We’ll lose our advantage. And you know Carmenta. Word of the maze’ll hit the streets like rain in a sea storm.” She tightened her arms across her chest and watched him.

  Duster watched her, and kept her expression as flat and neutral as she could. What the Hells was Jay talking about?

  “I see,” Rath finally said, after a long, cold minute. He lifted a hand to his eyes, pressing his fingers against his lids. His arms were stiff, rigid. When he lowered them, he exhaled, and his expression was different. Less cold, Duster thought. But not kinder. “Go home, Jewel. I’ve kept out of the maze for long enough now. I’ll find Lander for you. If he’s injured somewhere in the maze, he’ll have left some sort of trail. If there’s something there . . .” He turned to Carver. “Where did you say you entered the tunnels?”

  He hadn’t.

  Duster couldn’t keep the frown off her face. This was wrong. The whole conversation was wrong. Jay’s anger, Jay’s fury—it was gone. And what was left felt a whole lot like fear. But Jay held it down.

  Whatever was frightening Jewel hadn’t taken hold of Carver. He shrugged. “Fennel’s old space. At the edge of the holding.”

  “The warehouse?”

  “Whatever. It’s not used for much right now.”

  “Good. Ladies, gentleman. If you’d care to depart?” He pointed to the door of his room, which was slightly ajar.

  “What?” Duster said softly.

  “Get lost.”

  They all converged on that door as if they could fit three people through its frame at once. Duster’s breath was short and shallow; Jay didn’t seem to be breathing at all. Carver glanced at both of them, and signed, but Duster missed it, the gesture was so fast and so understated. They walked down the hall to the familiar, bolted door; Carver reached above Jay’s head and pushed the bolts open.

  “Where are you going?”

  They all started. Jay turned as Rath walked toward them.

  “You told us to get lost,” Duster replied, hand on the knob of the apartment door.

  “Use the underground.”

  No one moved.

  “Well?”

  The silence lasted for a minute. They let Jay break it, because it was Rath. “We don’t use the maze,” Jewel told him quietly. Her hands were by her side, and she signed: Get ready to run. But she was still and she sounded calm.

  “I’m not telling you to go very deeply into the maze. Jewel, don’t let the events of the last two weeks turn you into a frightened child. The tunnels are the safes
t way through the holding. Use them.”

  Duster took a step forward; Carver grabbed her arm. With his free hand he signed a simple no, and since there was no way to sign Who the Hells does he think he is? Or He can’t talk to Jay like that, her own hands were motionless in reply.

  “No,” Jay said again. “Carmenta’s gang is probably wandering around all through it. I won’t risk it. And I won’t risk any more of my den- kin to it either.”

  Rath stared at her—glared, really. “Carmenta’s gang doesn’t know about the maze.”

  She met that glare and held her ground. “They don’t have to to get lucky. Seems like they already have,” she added bitterly.

  He looked as if he wanted to say more. Hells, he looked as if he wanted to kill someone—and wasn’t particular at the moment about who. But he didn’t try, didn’t move. After a long damn minute, he said “I’ll meet you back at your den, either with Lander, or with news of him. Don’t get yourself killed on the way back.”

  “Thanks, Rath.”

  They spilled out of the apartment door, and pushed the boundary between a walk and run in their haste to leave the building. No one spoke a word. The front door of the building itself wasn’t locked at this time of the day, and had it been, it was a crappy lock that even Teller could pick, given enough time. Carver pushed the door open, and Duster, hand dropping to the comfort and familiarity of her dagger hilt, stepped into the streets of the thirty-fifth. Carver followed.

  Jay waited until they were clear, and then she closed the door behind her and leaned back into it for a minute. It was only a minute; she straightened, plastered a really fake smile across her face, and began to stride down the streets. She wasn’t being careful either; it was as if the thirty-fifth no longer held much fear for her.

  Since it held the same people, more or less, that they’d taken detours to avoid, this said something. Duster didn’t wait to find out what the something was; she’d never been much for subtlety.

  “What was that about? Carmenta hasn’t come anywhere near the maze.” She walked to Jay’s left, taking up her usual position; she also glared at an alley or two as they walked past the openings.

  “Carver,” Jay asked, instead of answering Duster’s question, “are we being followed?”

  Carver shrugged, and said something random. He repeated the phrase, and then laughed; Jay laughed as well. Duster understood what they were doing, but didn’t join them. Then again, she didn’t usually join them when the laughter was genuine either.

  They followed the streets, Duster wincing at Jay’s expression, which was so fake it was practically its own sign. But after a couple of blocks, each of which took them closer to the end of this godsforsaken holding, Carver signed, Yes. Followed.

  “Who?” Jay said, voice low.

  Carver hesitated for a moment, and then shrugged. “Old Rath.”

  “Kalliaris.” Jay stumbled. Duster grabbed her arm before she could take a spill onto the cracked cobbles, and held her up until she found her feet again. She was white, and she was shaking. “Smile. Smile on us, Lady.”

  Carver and Duster exchanged one long glance. They all prayed to Kalliaris at one time or another; gambling, thieving, taking a risk. All of them. But they almost never prayed out loud, and if they did, it was bad.

  How bad? Duster thought. She opened her mouth to ask. Closed it. Felt Jay’s fear invade her, as if it were a disease.

  Jay didn’t hear the question, because Duster didn’t ask it—but she answered it anyway, in her fashion. She was walking, but she was walking badly, the way she did when she’d woken in the night because of a nightmare. “Duster, go home. Now. Take a route so twisted even your shadow couldn’t follow you. Get everyone out.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t argue with me!” Jay took a deep breath. Held it for a second, and spit it out, wrapped around more words. “Get everyone out! Take the iron box and leave everything else. Find a place out of holding to hunker down, and then send a message to us. Send it. Don’t come yourself.”

  The silence fell like night. Duster struggled with it. Struggled with the trembling in her arms, in her chest, the certainty of danger. Not starvation. Not cold. Worse. She wanted to tell Jay to send Carver, but she couldn’t force the words out.

  Don’t trust me with this. Don’t trust me with them, Jay. What she said, instead, was:

  “Where?”

  “The trough.” Taverson’s place was one of the few watering holes the den felt at home in. It didn’t deserve the nickname they used. Nicknames were like that. “If we’re not there, or you don’t hear from us again, the den is yours—and it’s your responsibility to keep it safe. Stay out of the maze; never use it again.”

  “This have something to do with Rath?”

  “Yeah.” Jay brought her hands to her face, and rubbed the sides of her cheeks. “I don’t know who that was back here, but I do know it wasn’t Rath.”

  “What?”

  “Rath’s dead. Now go, Duster, or we’ll all end up that way as well.”

  Rath—or whoever it was that looked so much like him—followed Jay and Carver when Duster split off. But he’d glanced at her as she did; it was a quick glance, and in it, she felt herself weighed, as if the single look was a scale. He hadn’t hesitated, and he’d barely paused, but he’d noted her, noted where she took off running.

  He hadn’t followed.

  He hadn’t had time to make sure someone else did. She clung to this as she began to make her way home. She didn’t go straight, but she didn’t take as long and twisted a route as Jewel had demanded; she didn’t have the time.

  The one thing Rath had taught them all was this: the ability to travel, quickly, while being tailed. He’d also taught them to notice tails, to watch for them, by pointing out the little things that were often wrong. The man who smelled like a bar but who seemed too alert and aware. The woman who lingered in doorways in clothes that advertised availability, but who somehow failed to engage a customer.

  Duster had paid attention while pretending to ignore him. She cursed herself for her need to impress him by her display of obvious boredom, because she wasn’t completely certain that she’d learned enough. Wasn’t certain that she wouldn’t have learned more if she’d just given him the whole of her attention.

  Gods, she could be so damn stupid.

  Carver should have done this. The den—they all knew Carver, and they all trusted Carver. She’d done damn little to earn their trust—what would they say when she burst into the room and told them all to clear the Hells out? To follow her?

  Her hand fell to her dagger. It was a comfort, its pommel warm with sunlight. She could threaten them all, round them up. If Arann stayed sane, it would work. Or she could just tell them that Jay had sent her—but would they believe her?

  She used everything Rath had ever taught her, now—because she was afraid. That was the truth, beginning and end. She had never seen Jay look like that before, and even if she wasn’t blessed with Jay’s vision, she knew what it meant.

  She glanced over her shoulder. The streets seemed like streets; she’d crossed the boundary of the thirty- fifth on her way to the twenty- fifth, cutting corners around the thirty-second to do so. In all of this, ducking across yards, where they existed, and around stalls and shops where they didn’t, she wondered if she’d seen enough. If she’d avoided enough.

  She hated it. The worry. The fear. It was all wrong.

  What the Hells was she doing, anyway? Why was she running to the den, when something this big was up? She didn’t even understand it. Rath was dead. Jay had said Rath was dead.

  But Duster, thanks to Haval, knew enough about makeup and pretend to know that the man who’d plucked her out of her old bedroom was Rath. It wasn’t makeup. It wasn’t just clothing and dye. The only thing it could be—if Jay was right—was magic.

  Magic could kill. It could kill them all, yes.

  But it could kill her.

  She slowed her stride
, hands shaking as she made her way up Wright Street. She cornered it cautiously, and avoided one teetering wagon that was dangerously close to the building fronts. She stopped as the shadow of the wheels rolled past, long and crenellated against the uneven stones of the street.

  There, in the shadows cast by wagon and by the unknown, Duster finally admitted the truth: She had wanted the den. She had wanted a home. She deserved neither.

  Maybe this was her punishment: to have it only so she could lose it. Because she knew, and Jay knew, it was gone. Maybe it had vanished with Fisher, and they’d all been too damn stupid to acknowledge it. When had she gotten so stupid? She could run home—but all she’d be doing would be clearing it. Scaring people out into the streets who didn’t have the brains to survive there.

  She shouldn’t go.

  She’d only have to leave one way or the other, and this way, she’d be safe. Her hand hit her dagger hilt almost reflexively, and paused there. She didn’t look down at it; she didn’t have to. A birthday gift. Her only birthday gift. She’d hated it. And wanted it. That was her life. It was never just one thing, never just the other; it was always dumb, always complicated.

  She turned; the wagon was long gone, and the streets were full of people. None of them seemed to notice her, much.

  Godsdamnit.

  She started to run.

  She didn’t stop until she reached familiar turf, and even then, she slowed just enough to catch breath. Carmenta and his den weren’t ranging the streets—not that she could see, and given their den, you could see them swaggering a mile away—and she made the front door without pause. She slid into the familiar daytime darkness of the stairwell, and then bounded up those stairs, too numb to pray. Even if she’d been able, she wouldn’t have been certain what she would be praying for.

  But the door was still shut, and when she swung it open and staggered into the familiar large room, with its spread collection of bedrolls, blankets, plates, and crumbs, she saw the den look up. Everyone except Jester, who was talking to Arann and Angel while lying against the window-side wall.