‘And that’s you?’
‘No!’ He was awfully quick to deny it. ‘Garnet was the last Power. He died recently, at the same time as the Floralia parade. He…took my powers from me years ago, and they all came crashing back when he died.’ He smiled, but without humour. ‘Have you ever seen anyone hopped up on hot ice or sainthood?’
Velody had been to enough bad clubs with Delphine to recognise the names of the party drugs he referred to. ‘More than I’d like.’
‘Well, a major dose of animor after a five-year drought had a similar effect on me. Hence the babbling lunatic who tore the Duchessa’s dress and came after you in the middle of the nox. I’m sorry about that, by the way.’
Velody drained the last of her water. She was unbelievably thirsty. Garnet. Something in that word, that name—it meant something to her. She had thought as much the previous nox when Ashiol had been rambling. An image flitted through her mind briefly, a laughing youth falling naked from the sky, but then it was gone.
Ashiol leaned forward and refilled Velody’s glass from the jug.
‘But you are going to be the Power and Majesty now, aren’t you?’ she asked. ‘You can take control of the Creature Lords, keep them away from us?’ This was really what she wanted to know.
‘I’m not the only Creature King in this city. There’s one other, who might be more suited to be Power and Majesty.’ He was watching her carefully.
‘What happened to me in the alley?’ she asked, deliberately switching the subject to make him think she was satisfied with his answers so far.
‘You came into your power. Unusually late, but stronger for it.’
Velody thought of the Floralia parade, of the light that had invaded her, and the colours in the sky, and the Ducomte screaming as scars poured off him, scars that no one but she could see…
‘Why didn’t I start babbling like a lunatic?’
The steak arrived, sizzling on large skillets. Velody stared at it. The meat was rare, oozing with blood. ‘I can’t eat that,’ she said, her stomach turning over.
‘Would the demoiselle prefer something else?’ asked the waiter.
‘No, the demoiselle would not,’ said Ash.
Velody glared at him as the waiter moved docilely away. ‘I’ve been out with men like you before,’ she accused. ‘Like to be in charge, don’t you?’
Ashiol looked amused. ‘This isn’t a date.’
She picked up a knife and fork to cover her embarrassment. ‘Forgive me if I got the impression I was being seduced.’
Ashiol began sawing into his steak. Blood spurted from it, splashing the bright white paper tablecloth. ‘I thought I was being generous. Answering all your questions.’
‘You still haven’t told me why Poet and Dhynar attacked me and my friends.’
He crammed a slice of meat into his mouth and licked his lips. ‘That isn’t one of the questions you asked me.’
‘Did you send them after us?’
‘No.’
‘How can I believe you? I don’t know anything about you except you’re a mad, rich aristocrat who likes eating meat with a pulse!’
Ashiol chewed and swallowed the rare flesh with evident enjoyment. ‘If you don’t believe anything I say to you, Velody, what is the point of asking me questions?’
She glared at him, and then at the revolting mess on her plate.
‘It isn’t compulsory,’ said Ashiol.
‘Eating steak?’
‘Turning into a babbling lunatic. You asked me why you didn’t, in the alley. Or even at the Floralia parade. It’s not a common response. You don’t have to worry about going mad.’
‘That’s something, I suppose.’ Velody cut a slice from her steak, but the welling blood made her feel faint. She laid the utensils down again. ‘So I’m one of you. Your Court. I’m like you.’
‘I don’t think you’re quite like anybody.’
‘Do I have to be part of this? Can’t I make it go away?’
‘No, you can’t.’
‘I’ve lived twenty-six years without turning into a pack of little brown mice. Why can’t I just go back to how things were yesterday?’
‘I’ve never known anyone who could go back. Once the nox is under your skin, it’s with you forever.’
The savoury smells from her plate were driving Velody to distraction. Without looking, she speared a piece of meat into her mouth. It was hot but still raw in the centre and released a warm gush of blood over her tongue. The scent and taste of it flooded through her body and she was shocked by how good it felt. She cut off another small piece and ate it, forcing herself not to gobble.
‘What was it like for you?’ she asked, to distract Ashiol from extending his patronising smile into a comment that might force her to stab him with her fork.
‘What was what like?’
‘Coming into your power. For the first time.’
‘Oh, that.’ Ash gulped down another mouthful of meat with a swallow of wine, and started slicing more. ‘I was eleven, nearly twelve.’
‘So young?’ The meat was so warm and moist that it tasted alive in her mouth.
‘It usually happens between eleven and fourteen, when we start growing into our adult body. I was living in Diamagne at the time.’ Velody allowed her confusion to cross her face and he grinned at her. ‘Don’t you know your royal history?’
‘That’s Delphine’s hobby.’
‘Ah. Well, my mother was the Old Duc’s second child, and I was born into one of those appalling arranged marriages that royals like to inflict upon each other. My mother was widowed young and found herself a nice country Baronne as her second husband. I was brought up on the Diamagne estate, with an ever-growing number of half-siblings.’
Velody was slicing her steak into larger and larger pieces, for the pleasure of tearing them up with her teeth. How had she never known before how good meat tasted when it was red and bleeding?
‘I can’t imagine you in the country,’ she said. ‘You seem so citified.’
‘I can hurl a hay bale with the best of them. My childhood was all very rural and idyllic, so naturally I was bored out of my skull. Garnet too.’
‘Garnet the Power and Majesty?’ Velody faltered as another memory invaded her—hands holding her wrist, on a balcony, a kiss…
‘That came later. When we were growing up he was just the son of the cook and the groundskeeper, my best friend. We did everything together—hunting, fishing, setting fire to things. We were like brothers.’
‘How…idyllic.’
Velody was paying far more attention to the steak than to Ashiol. The pool of blood no longer repulsed her—on the contrary, she was quite happy to wipe her slices of meat into the warm red juices before putting them in her mouth.
‘We didn’t know what he was at the time, of course,’ said Ashiol, and Velody had a feeling she had missed part of the story, but didn’t like to ask him to repeat himself. ‘Just some elderly tramp who made his way to the estate to die. We didn’t even know his name. Later, when we knew all about the Creature Court, we tried to find out who he had been, but no one had heard of an old Creature Lord in Aufleur. He must have come from one of the other cities.’
Velody was trying to eat at a leisurely, ladylike pace. The urge to just cram the lumps of flesh into her mouth was terrifying. She had lost the taste for water and started on the wine. That was wonderful too, warm and red and spicy. Everything had taken on a rosy glow.
‘My mother insisted on bringing him in and giving him a bed,’ Ashiol went on, lost in his own story. ‘Garnet and I were being punished for something—’
‘Setting fire to something kind of something?’ Velody asked, to show she was paying attention.
‘Something like that. She set us to watch over him while she sent for the local dottore. While she was gone, the old man died.’
Velody paused in her chewing. ‘Of what?’
‘I don’t know. Being old? When they cleaned him for burial late
r they found so many scars on him it was surprising he was still in one piece. Anyway, he died, and something happened to Garnet and me. A power of some kind ran through us both—so strong that we crashed into the wall. When we woke up, we were different.’
Velody realised to her horror that she was already two-thirds through the enormous steak, while Ash was less than halfway through his. She really was going to have to slow down. She drank some more wine, then carved another piece. You only live once.
‘Different how?’ This was what she wanted to know, the real story of what they were.
‘Cats,’ said Ashiol succinctly. ‘They followed me everywhere after that. The estate filled up with all the local strays. They couldn’t get enough of me. I didn’t know why, until one day I got angry and turned into them.’
‘Into the cats?’
‘Not those cats, just into cats. I wasn’t all that tall then, so I became about eight or nine moggies, mostly black. These days it’s closer to fourteen, or fifteen if I’ve had a big dinner. I didn’t tell anyone at the time, not even Garnet. I discovered that in cat form, I could spread out, go to half a dozen different places at once.’
‘Let me guess—you used your new skill to eavesdrop on conversations and to spy on the upstairs maids?’
Ashiol grinned. ‘Well, I was twelve. Then the gattopardo arrived, and I found out that it wasn’t just me.’
Velody used a slice of meat to mop up some of the blood that was congealing on the plate. ‘What’s a gattopardo?’
‘Mountain cat, gold with white spots. No one had heard of them in our region. They’re only native to the far southern mountains in Camoise. We worked out that it must have been travelling for three months to get to us—or, to be precise, to get to Garnet. A month later, two more showed up, fawning over him the way the stray tabbies fawned over me. I told him the truth then, about being able to shape myself. I showed him how to do the same.’ His face went distant, troubled.
‘Wishing you hadn’t taught him?’
‘Wouldn’t have made any difference. Comes out sooner or later. Look at you.’
‘Mmm.’ A sudden thought struck her. She laid her knife down. ‘So I should have come into my power more than a decade ago. Why didn’t it happen before now?’
‘You got angry. That’s how it usually happens the first time.’ Ashiol frowned. ‘I don’t know why it didn’t happen earlier. There’s something strange about it.’
Velody reached for her knife again, only to realise that her skillet was empty except for a cool puddle of red moisture. ‘Oh, help. How did that happen?’
Ashiol laughed. ‘You were hungry. I told you so.’
‘I’ve never been that hungry before.’
‘Shaping takes a lot out of you, particularly the first time. If you hadn’t dosed up on meat and blood, you would have been flat on the floor inside an hour, probably for days.’
She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘And you knew that.’
‘Aye.’
‘What does the red wine do?’
‘Tastes good. And it helps you relax.’
‘Why do I need to relax?’
Ashiol finished his glass, smacking his lips. ‘Because I’m going to be telling you some things later that will make you feel very stressed. Do you want dessert?’
‘What essential nutrients will that provide?’
‘None, but it might keep you from gnawing your way through the table while I finish my dinner.’
Velody sighed, and suppressed the urge to lick her skillet clean. ‘I’ll stick to the wine.’
26
In the alley outside the bistro, Macready argued with Crane. ‘You should be at home, laddie-buck. Your face is starting to look like my mam’s best minced lamb porridge.’
‘Thanks,’ said Crane, pulling his cloak tightly around him. It was nearly summer, but the nox air was still chill on the skin.
‘You don’t need to be here.’
‘Yes, I do.’ Beneath the bruising and swelling that turned the young man’s face into something both horrible and unrecognisable, his expression was resolute. ‘I couldn’t leave her alone with him. We don’t know how stable he is.’
‘And what am I, chopped kidneys?’
‘You know what I mean. It’s not like that little episode the other nox was the first time he’s gone crazy on us.’
‘And if he does it will take at least two of us to hold him back,’ sighed Macready. ‘Aye, lad. I know what you mean.’
He also knew that if Ashiol was really trying, he could kill them both in a heartbeat. Crane knew that too.
‘I can sleep later,’ Crane said stubbornly. ‘Right now, I want to be near her.’
Macready gave his younger partner a quick look. ‘Choosing sides already?’
‘She doesn’t know anything, and he’s throwing her into a scorpions’ nest. She needs us more than he does.’
‘Is that so?’
‘We have to learn how to balance our loyalties again. It’s a long time since we’ve had more than one King in the city.’
‘A few days ago, our Ashiol entered the city and Garnet sent you to spy on him,’ said Macready, who had certainly not forgotten that particular detail. ‘Not so long ago, it seems to me.’
Crane looked uncomfortable. ‘I didn’t say it was easy. The balancing.’
Macready clapped his hands together to warm them up. ‘Saints and angels, how long does it take to gnaw your way through a side of beef?’ He cast a dirty look at the bistro.
‘Jealous?’
‘Last bit of steak I got my teeth into, lad, was boiled and sliced and baked in wet pastry. Of course I’m fecking jealous.’
There was movement in the bistro. From their position, they could just see Ashiol getting to his feet, helping Velody on with her long coat. ‘Cosy,’ Crane said. ‘Just like any other couple honouring the Sweetheart Saints.’
Macready looked at the lad. ‘You wouldn’t be interested in the demoiselle yourself at all?’
‘I’m worried about her. She doesn’t know what she’s getting herself into.’
‘Neh, she’s strong, that one. Even before she went monster on us, she was the self-reliant type. If you’re feeling protective, look to those lasses of hers.’ Macready had not forgotten the sight of Delphine crumpled and white against the wall, nor the torment on Rhian’s face as she crawled into Velody’s arms. Those were the ones who needed looking after. Damaged, both. And not your responsibility, Mac.
‘Kelpie’s keeping an eye on them,’ Crane said, his gaze on Velody as she left the bistro, her arm tucked awkwardly into Ashiol’s.
‘Not exactly what I meant,’ said Macready.
They waited a pace or two after the Kings had passed their alley, then set off after them. There was no place for chat now, not if they were to stay unnoticed by Ashiol. He had told them to go home, to curl up in their nests and rest, leaving Kelpie—the only one who had slept in the last two days—to play sentry in Via Silviana.
Despite the distance, Macready and Crane could hear something of what was being said up ahead in the quiet street.
‘I have another question,’ Velody said, her voice a little muffled as she pulled up the collar of her coat to keep out the cold.
‘Go ahead,’ said Ashiol. He sounded almost chirpy, Macready thought. Must have been one hell of a steak.
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why Creature Lords and Creature Kings and Powers and Majesties and courtesi and sentinels? Why rats and mice and feraxes and cats and perfectly ordinary people turning into big black flapping monsters? What’s the point of it all?’
There was a long pause, during which Macready had to stop himself from sniggering.
‘Good question,’ said Ashiol.
‘Can you answer it?’
‘Give me a minute.’ Ashiol changed direction, his leather coat—Poet’s coat—swishing as he dragged Velody into a side street. ‘Better yet, I’ll show you.’
> ‘Show me what?’
The lass was half-laughing, which had to be a good sign, Macready thought. He never again wanted to see that terrible look on her face when she had lunged at Ashiol with murder in her eyes and Jeunille in her hand. Perhaps she was starting to see the man as an ally rather than an enemy. It was the worst mistake she could make, but the lass wasn’t to know that.
Crane surged ahead after them, too hasty. Macready grabbed the lad’s sleeve and together—gently, my lad—they both peered around the corner.
Velody was all the way laughing now. ‘You can’t be serious.’
She and Ashiol stood at the corner of a solid-looking building with expensive copper piping up one side of it. Macready assessed the climbing potential of the wall and the roof, then grinned to himself. To think his mammy had wanted him to take up a respectable trade, like carpentry or butchery.
‘An easy climb,’ Ashiol protested.
‘I can’t go around climbing onto people’s roofs! I’m wearing a dress. And it’s…undignified!’
‘Trust me,’ said Ashiol, cupping his hands for her to put her foot into. ‘If you’re going to understand our world, you have to spend some time on rooftops. I promise not to look up your skirt.’
Looking dubious about the whole situation, Velody placed her boot in Ash’s hands and launched herself upwards, hands grasping at the piping.
Macready covered his face with his hands. ‘I can’t watch. Did she fall?’
‘She’s doing fine,’ said Crane, a note of wonder in his voice. ‘Not bad at all.’
Macready removed his hands from his eyes and stared at Crane’s bloodied and swollen face. ‘Don’t you topple for her,’ he warned, trying to ignore the feeling in his stomach that told him this was all, already, inevitable. ‘She’s so far above you that you can’t touch her shoes. There’ll be tears before bedtime, and during, and after.’
‘Sorry,’ said Crane, as Velody made it safely to the roof. ‘What did you say? I missed it.’ He smiled proudly. ‘Did you see how easily she got over that tricky bit of guttering?’
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