Anhaga

by Lisa Henry

  Min’s stomach clenched as he and Harry passed.

  Anhaga.

  The word was as sharp as a curse in his mind. Anhaga was a fishing village. It lay several days north of Amberwich. Min had never been there. And nobody in their right mind wished to go there. It was said the Hidden Lord walked in Anhaga. There had been a time when the village had been full and prosperous. A time when Min could remember his mother proclaiming proudly that she served her guests nothing but the finest snipe eels fresh from Anhaga. And then the Hidden Lord, king of the fae, had come. Anhaga sat on the edge of his shadow kingdom now. The Hidden Lord walked its streets at night. Those who had fled Anhaga had come to Amberwich with nightmares clinging to them like wraiths. Those who had stayed… well, Min didn’t know why anyone had stayed. He wondered if they were in the thrall of the Hidden Lord now, and if he summoned them to dance with him until they died and then feasted on their entrails like his puppet counterpart did.

  “Min?” Harry’s voice was thin.

  “Yeah?”

  “We’re being followed.”

  Min squeezed the boy’s thin shoulder. “’Course we are, kid. You think the Sabadines will let us out of their sight? They’ve been following us since we left their house.”

  Harry’s mouth turned down, and his shoulders stiffened. His gaze sharpened, and Min slowly let his arm slip away from him. When Min sidestepped a pile of horse manure in the street, Harry was gone.

  Min continued on, smiling at the thought of the confusion that must have caused in the men following them. Harry was fast on his feet and had the ability to vanish in a crowd. He was as quick and clever as a fox. A fox with a ridiculously large blind spot when it came to a beautiful girl, but a fox all the same. Min had been sixteen once, and not that many years ago, but he’d never been a fool for a pretty face. Perks of being raised in a brothel. The mysteries of sex had never been even remotely mysterious, and by the time Min had been old enough to get the accompanying urges, he’d already developed a well-honed sense of cynicism and the ability to not think with his dick. Harry had yet to learn that lesson. Min hoped he lived long enough.

  Harry was clever, though. He looked the part of a boy who was still soft around the edges and used that to his advantage. Older men often overlooked Harry and always underestimated him. He’d saved Min’s skin more than once with his sharp eye, his quick mind, and the knife he carried hidden under his shirt. Well, the knife he usually carried. Min doubted the Sabadines had let him keep it.

  Now, as Min continued down the street, he had no doubt that Harry had doubled back and was getting the measure of the men following them.

  Harry was back again within three blocks, falling into step beside Min as though he’d never left.

  “Two,” he confirmed. “They walk like soldiers. One has yellow hair and pockmarked cheeks. The other one is a brown dog.”

  Min snorted at that. Harry’s description of anyone particularly nondescript was a brown dog. The streets of Amberwich were full of mutts indistinguishable from one another. Both the four-legged and the two-legged variety.

  “You can do better than that, Harry.”

  Harry grinned. “Fine. A pale fellow. Pointy chin. Eyes like piss holes in the snow.”

  “That’s my boy,” Min said and put an arm around him again.

  The gesture of comfort was perhaps mistimed, serving only to remind Harry of the curse burned into his skin. Harry’s grin faded as quickly as it had appeared, and he ducked his head.

  When Min had first found him, Harry had been so desperate to prove himself useful and so afraid of being cast out that he hadn’t dared raise his voice in dissent. It had taken a long time for Harry to realize Min wasn’t going to ditch him if he talked back, or hoarded all the blankets on a cold night, or ate the biggest half of a stolen pastry. It took a long time for him to realize that Min expected loyalty, but that there was a lot of wriggle room between loyalty and abject deference. Of course, Min had never been deferential to anyone in his life, and so it seemed an unrealistic standard to hold somebody else to, particularly a child. And Harry had looked so terrified the moment Min had seen him first, he had no wish to ever see an expression like that on the boy’s face again.

  He hadn’t, until today.

  He hugged Harry a little closer. “Let’s go home, kid.”

  Harry nodded.

  SABADINE’S MEN followed them to the Footbridge Tavern. There was no harm in that. Anyone who ever tried to reach Min found their way to the tavern eventually. Min and Harry entered via the front door, then slipped out through the kitchens and into the narrow alleyway behind that stank of refuse. They made their way quickly to the house and trudged up the uneven, squeaking steps. The stairs were dark even in the middle of the day, but Min and Harry were surefooted on their home territory. Min unlocked the door to the garret room, and Harry slipped in underneath his arm.

  “I’m sorry, Min,” he mumbled, flinging himself down onto the bed.

  Min crossed the floor to the window. He watched the alley for a moment to be certain they hadn’t been followed and then pulled the shutters closed on the sunlight.

  Harry lay curled up on the bed, his right cheek pressed into the lumpy pillow.

  “I know,” Min said. There was no point assuring the boy it wasn’t his fault. It was, and they both knew it, but even Harry couldn’t have foreseen that falling in love with the wrong girl would lead to a death sentence. For them both, probably. Because as much as the small, selfish part of Min wanted to just ignore the problem until it went away—next full moon, according to Aiode—Harry was family. He couldn’t just let him die without at least trying to get Edward Sabadine’s grandson back.

  Min sat on the end of the bed and tugged his boots off. Then he stood again and padded across the gritty floor to the table. There was half a loaf of bread left. Min picked it up to inspect it. It was stale, but not yet moldy. He tore a corner off and chewed it into softness before swallowing.

  Harry watched through red-rimmed eyes.

  “Hungry?” Min asked.

  Harry shook his head.

  Min tore some more bread off and then stretched out on the bed beside Harry. Harry kept his back to him, his skinny body a tense line. He held himself stiffly for a moment longer and then abruptly rolled over and flung an arm over Min’s stomach.

  Harry smelled faintly of something floral. The lingering notes of a girl’s perfume, perhaps. Min wondered if she was very pretty, this Talys Sabadine, and then smiled ruefully. Of course she was very pretty. Harry had impeccable taste. He wondered if she was clever, too, and if she liked to laugh. He wondered if she loved Harry in return, in that desperate, all-consuming way of the very young and the very stupid. Min hoped she did. It seemed a shame to die for just a pretty face.

  A little under a fortnight until the full moon, until the sorcerer’s curse killed Harry. A little under two weeks to try to abduct an unwilling prentice from under the watch of his hedgewitch master and haul him all the way back to Amberwich from Anhaga.

  Fucking Anhaga.

  Well, Min had never backed down from a challenge before, right?

  When this was done, though—in the unlikely event he and Harry survived—Min was going to tear Edward Sabadine’s scrawny old throat out and then piss on his bloody remains. Nobody fucked with Min like that. And nobody—nobody—fucked with Harry.

  “What are we gonna do, Min?” Harry’s blue eyes brimmed with tears.

  Min ignored the twisting in his gut and forced a cocky smile. “What else? We’re going to go to Anhaga.”

  Chapter 3

  MIN SAT at his usual table in the back corner of the Footbridge Tavern and nodded at Freya as she slid a drink in front of him. The beer at the tavern was thin and bitter, but it was cheap. He also had an understanding with the owner, Swann, that if he didn’t always pay his tab immediately, he’d pay it eventually and add in a little extra for the inconvenience. That arrangement had been borne out of years of frequenting t
he place. Min doubted Swann offered the same latitude to many of his other regulars.

  “Was that Harry I saw you with earlier?” Freya asked. “You two swept through here like a whirlwind.”

  “Had a couple of dogs snapping at our heels,” Min confirmed.

  Freya pursed her lips and nodded. She knew better than to ask for details. “Harry all right?”

  Min wondered how much Auric or Aulus had blurted to the neighborhood about Harry’s run-in with the Sabadines. “We’re working on it.”

  Freya was about as warm and comforting as an iron spike through the guts in the middle of winter, but she had a soft spot for Harry. She nodded at Min, her thick brows drawing together in concern, and then stomped back through the gathering crowd toward the kitchen.

  Min stuck his finger in the layer of thin foam on top of the beer and then sucked it off. Swann might be waiting a little longer for his money this month. Anhaga wasn’t just a dangerous proposition, of course. It also didn’t pay a single copper. Because fuck Edward Sabadine, that’s why.

  Min watched the customers for a while. A girl strutted around, showing her ample cleavage and her saucy smile in equal measure to the young men who’d come to gape wide-eyed at the combined spectacle of poverty, low breeding, and bad manners. Good luck to the girl. Min hoped she stole their purses after fucking them.

  A fight erupted in the doorway and was broken up by a glaring Swann and his glaring son. The combatants were ejected forcefully from the premises and left cursing and muttering.

  It didn’t take long at all for Robert Sabadine to find him.

  Min pushed the opposite stool out with his boot and then studied Robert Sabadine over the rim of his mug. The stirring of heat in his gut wasn’t entirely down to his aversion; Robert was a handsome man, with sharp edges Min might have enjoyed testing in all sorts of interesting ways. He set his mug down and then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, scraping stubble. “Figured I couldn’t get rid of you. Like dog shit on the bottom of a shoe, aren’t you?”

  “Are you this polite to all your clients?”

  “My clients don’t usually threaten to kill my nephew if I refuse them.” Min leaned back in his chair and shrugged. “I mean, I love that boy.” He raised his brows. “Not enough to marry him, of course, but it takes all kinds to make a world.”

  Robert pressed his lips into a thin line.

  “I need horses,” Min said. “And provisions. And coin.”

  “You’re in no position to make demands,” Robert said.

  “Actually,” Min said, “I am. You think I have no leverage here because your pet sorcerer put a curse on Harry? Oh, that ensures my compliance, but I promise you it doesn’t ensure my success. If you actually want your little prentice hedgewitch returned to you, you’ll make sure I have horses, and provisions, and coin.”

  Robert inclined his head.

  “But you were already going to agree to that before you came here,” Min said, taking another sip of his beer. “In fact, the only reason you even argued was because I caught you by surprise. You didn’t expect me to know I’d need horses. How disappointing for you to come all this way only to find out that I already know your nephew is in Anhaga.” He tilted his head curiously. “I’ll bet you’re the sort of man who really enjoys seeing the flash of fear in another man’s eyes.”

  “You make a lot of unfounded assumptions, Decourcey.” Robert narrowed his eyes. “Yes, I am here to tell you about Anhaga and to offer you whatever you need to travel there. I’m also here to tell you that I’ll be going with you.”

  Min almost choked on his beer. “No. Harry and I work alone.”

  “That’s not acceptable,” Robert said.

  “What’s not acceptable,” Min growled, “is expecting Harry to spend any more time with some fucking asshole who had him cursed.”

  Robert had the grace to look slightly uncomfortable. “That wasn’t my idea.”

  “I’m sure,” Min agreed. “If it had been up to you, he’d be lying in a gutter with his throat slit, right? All because he dared get his grubby paws on a Sabadine.”

  A muscle in Robert’s jaw twitched.

  “Harry and I work alone,” Min repeated. “That’s not negotiable.”

  “I will ride with you as far as Pran,” Robert countered. “I have business to attend at my family’s estate.”

  “As far as where?” Min asked.

  Robert looked at him askance. “Do you even know the way to Anhaga?”

  “No,” Min said and drained his beer. “I just figured we’d turn north and follow the stench of the fae all the way there.”

  “You joke about the Hidden Lord?”

  Min shrugged. “Not much fucking else I can do about him, is there?”

  Afterward, he liked to imagine it was grudging respect that flickered briefly across Robert Sabadine’s expression.

  It probably wasn’t, though.

  THE NEXT morning dawned cold. A customary haze of smoke lay across the city. Min and Harry dressed and headed to the tavern for breakfast. Harry wore his hood pulled up and rested his chin in his hand as he ate. His thin fingers covered the curse mark on his cheek. He was pale and quiet and chewed his lip more than he chewed his breakfast.

  “Eat,” Min told him quietly, even though his own food sat heavily in his gut.

  After breakfast they returned to their garret room to pack their scant spare clothes and a book or two for Harry. Harry struggled with the straps of his satchel and watched Min haul the iron collar and shackles out from underneath the bed. Harry’s mouth turned down in distaste. Min didn’t blame him. Min had once spent two weeks wearing the contraption in the debtors’ prison after a small misunderstanding over an unpaid bill and a large misunderstanding about how willing his mother would be to drop everything to secure his immediate release. Apparently she’d thought those two weeks would teach him a lesson.

  The collar and shackles should have been removed once Min’s debt had been paid. They hadn’t been, because technically Min hadn’t been released. Instead, he’d charmed his way out. Well, out of his cell and into the warden’s wife’s bedroom. From there it was only a short drop to the street below. Min’s next stop had been a friendly blacksmith. Then he’d gone immediately to visit his mother, in order to repay her the only way he knew how: petty revenge.

  “Want to get out of here, kid?”

  It wasn’t altruism that had saved Harry that day. It was coincidence.

  Min wrapped the collar and shackles in his spare clothes and packed them into his own bag. The chains rattled as he hefted the bag onto his back.

  They headed back down the stairs. Min found himself trailing his fingers along the thin walls of the house, as though he was trying to leave his mark on it, or say a silent farewell. He wasn’t sure which. He wasn’t sure it mattered.

  They walked down the alley toward the Footbridge, their boots kicking up dust.

  “Have you ever been outside the city, Min?” Harry asked worriedly.

  “No. Do I look like a farmer to you?”

  Harry’s mouth quirked in a smile.

  Min saw plenty of trees on his brief visits to the Shrine of the Sacred Spring, thanks, which he generally only used as a shortcut through the valley anyway. Min was a creature of the city, of brick and stone and narrow streets. He had no desire to leave the protection of the city walls, and of the Iron Tower. Min might have hated the Gifted, but he recognized the truth: it was the king’s powerful magic-users who protected Amberwich from the Hidden Lord. Beyond the reach of the Iron Tower, it was said the Hidden Lord moved unhindered throughout the land.

  Min and Harry cut through the tavern and walked out the front door into the street. They waited there in the shade, watching people moving up and down the street and going about their business. Min saw a few faces he recognized and a few he didn’t.

  They hadn’t been waiting long when they heard the sound of hooves and saw Robert Sabadine and his men approaching on horseback.r />
  “Holy shit,” Harry whispered.

  At first Min thought he was worried about the horses. Min himself wasn’t exactly confident of his ability to climb on one of the animals, let alone control one. Then he caught a glimpse of the girl riding alongside Robert. She was dark-skinned, with twists of brown hair falling down past her shoulders. She was lovely.

  “Talys,” Harry said, eyes wide.

  Min put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t.”

  Because whatever Harry was thinking, it was bound to be a bad idea.

  Except Talys was evidently capable of coming up with her own bad ideas. She swung down from her horse while it was still ambling forward, dodged her father’s abortive attempt to grab her, and rushed forward.

  “Harry!” She skidded to a stop in front of him, her eyes widening at first and then filling with tears. She reached out with a shaking hand to trace the curse mark on Harry’s cheek, while Harry wrinkled his nose and blinked rapidly.

  “Talys!” Robert snapped.

  Talys stepped back from Harry, regret written across her face. She put space between them, their linked fingers falling away. Min wished he could hate her, except she was exactly as heartbroken as Harry. And then he remembered she would have an entire lifetime to regret Harry and found that she wasn’t impossible to hate after all.

  “You brought your daughter,” he said, staring up at Robert as he drew closer.

  Robert’s mouth thinned, and he jerked his head in a nod toward the rest of the group. “Pick a mount.”

  There were two riderless horses. One brown with white patches, and one black. They were big. And tall. Min was suddenly certain he’d be dead of a broken neck before they even left the city. His heart thudded.