by Lisa Henry
“Master Robert requests you join him for dinner when you are ready,” the woman said, looking their travel-stained figures up and down pointedly. “I shall send up hot water.”
“Thank you,” Min said, flashing her his most rakish smile and bowing slightly.
That seemed to mollify her somewhat, or at least fluster her. She retreated pink-cheeked.
Harry slumped down onto the bed, tugging his boots off. “Fuckers.”
Min didn’t know if he was talking about his boots, about the Sabadines, the fae, or the universe in general. With Harry it was sometimes better not to ask.
Min sat down beside him and pulled his own boots off. Then he stood and shoved his breeches down, and sat again to unlace his tunic. He sat around in nothing but his shirt until a boy came with the promised hot water, then pulled that off and began to scrub himself down. He stank of sweat and dust, and horse. Then, the water dripping from him, he rummaged through his things for some clothes that, although not clean exactly, were at least a little less ripe.
When he was finally dressed, Harry was washing, his skinny body angled awkwardly away from Min’s gaze. Min lay on the bed and flung his arm over his eyes.
“So, we’re alive,” he said.
Harry snorted. “So far.”
Clever boy. No way were they out of the figurative woods yet. Edward Sabadine seemed like the exact sort of asshole who’d go back on his word, just because he could. It made Min uneasy that he had no leverage over the old man now Kazimir had been delivered into Robert’s custody. It had rankled from the beginning, though. Min hated to be powerless, precisely because men like Edward Sabadine relished it so very much.
Min heard Harry drop the washing cloth back into the basin.
“We’re doing a lot better than I thought we would,” Min said.
“Tell that to Kaz.”
Min almost pulled his arm away from his face. “Harry. Don’t.”
Clothing rustled, and then the thin mattress dipped, and Harry jabbed a finger into Min’s ribs. Min lowered his arm. Harry’s wide eyes were full of misery.
“Harry, someone has to lose,” Min said. “You or Kazimir. And it’s not going to be you. Fuck them, but it’s not to be you.”
Harry nodded, his mouth pressed into a trembling line. “It’s not fair, though, Min.”
He sounded so young that Min’s heart clenched.
Min sat up. “Come on, let’s go and eat.”
He kept a hand on Harry’s shoulder all the way down the stairs.
MIN HADN’T been expecting a family dinner. Robert Sabadine sat at the head of the table, with Talys on his left and Kazimir on his right. There were two more places set, one on either side of the younger Sabadines.
Well, how fucking awkward.
Min steered Harry firmly in Kazimir’s direction and took the seat next to Talys himself. She looked at him almost reproachfully. Fucking teenagers. It was getting too close to Harry that had got them all in this damn mess to begin with.
Min didn’t need to glance at Harry to know he was looking at Talys with hopeless longing. He turned his gaze on Kazimir instead. Kazimir was wearing a clean white shirt, with the edges pulled up through the iron collar like a ruff. He sat with his hands folded on his lap, his eyes downturned, and didn’t look at Min. Min thought of the boy from the hut last night, eyes bright with fear, voice shaking, who still found the courage to demand the wisps count. Perhaps the shadow realm was a dreamscape after all; there seemed to be no trace of that boy in the Kazimir who sat across from him now.
“Decourcey,” Robert said with a nod.
Min nodded back.
A small parade of servants brought dinner: a cabbage and leek pottage, roast chicken, and turnips and carrots glazed with honey. The wine was thin but sweet and tasted of rose hips. Min couldn’t decide if this was how the rich ate or how country people ate. Possibly it was a combination of both.
Robert sipped his wine. “Kazimir didn’t give you any trouble?”
“Not at all,” Min lied pleasantly.
Robert gestured at his nephew vaguely. “And the iron?”
“A precaution,” Min said, stabbing a chunk of carrot with his fork. “Even a common hedgewitch might have a few nasty tricks up his sleeve.”
Kazimir raised his gaze at that and met Min’s.
Harry said nothing. Good boy.
Let the Sabadines discover Kazimir’s necromancy themselves. They’d kept enough secrets from Min.
“And because of his fae blood, of course,” Min added with a lazy smirk.
Robert’s expression shuttered.
“Ears like those,” Min said. “They stand out like the balls on a dog. Still, it might have been useful for me to know something like that before I went to Anhaga.”
“His blood is irrelevant,” Robert said.
Min doubted that very much, actually. Not when the fae had stopped at Kallick’s door every night on their eerie ride through Anhaga. “Is it?” He gave his fork a jaunty twirl. “I suppose I’d tell myself the same thing, in your shoes.”
It was unfair, probably, to needle Robert about the fact he was marrying his own nephew when Kazimir was listening as well, but when was Min going to get the chance otherwise? He met Kazimir’s dark gaze and felt queasy guilt stirring in his gut.
“It is irrelevant,” Robert said, a hard enough edge to his voice that Min figured it was time to shut his mouth. Min was a slow learner at times, but he usually got there in the end.
In the silence that followed, Talys cleared her throat and leaned across the table toward Kazimir. “Cousin, I hope—”
“Don’t call him that,” Robert snapped.
Talys’s eyes widened, and she sat back quickly. Min had the impression her father rarely took such a harsh tone with her. He could see the moment her surprise transformed into mulishness. She set her fork down and jutted out her jaw. “What shall I call him, then? Stepfather?”
Oh yes. Min could see why Harry had fallen so hard for this girl. She was clearly his mouthy, disrespectful soul mate.
Robert slammed down his knife and stood so quickly that for a moment his chair seemed in danger of toppling. He cast a withering look at Kazimir before turning his icy gaze on Talys. “You will not speak of him, and you will not speak to him. He is no family of yours. He is nothing more than the spawn of the creature that raped my sister.”
He flung his napkin down on the table and stormed from the room.
The door slammed shut behind him.
“Well then,” Min said awkwardly. “I can see why you didn’t want to come home.”
Kazimir didn’t reply. He sat, his head bowed, while tears ran down his cheeks.
“YOU’RE SUCH an asshole, Min,” Harry said as they climbed the stairs to the bedroom.
“I am very aware of that, thank you.”
Dinner hadn’t lasted long after Robert’s abrupt departure. Within moments servants had appeared to escort Kazimir and Talys away. There had been no offer of dessert.
“You shouldn’t have said that thing about blood. I know you hate the Sabadines, but making Robert angry will just make things worse for Kaz!”
Min sighed. “Yes, thank you again, Harry. I do realize that now.”
When they entered their room, Harry closed the door behind them and rounded on Min quickly. Min had expected to see anger blazing in the boy’s eyes. Not… not something that was quite so calculating and curious.
“You didn’t tell Robert that Kaz is a necromancer.”
“Why should I? He didn’t tell us he was fae.”
Harry narrowed his eyes. When he spoke, his tone was thoughtful. “You want him to surprise them. You want him to get out of this somehow.”
“I don’t,” Min said. “But so what if I did? What he does and doesn’t do is their problem, just as soon as we get that curse mark off you.”
“You hate the Gifted.”
“Maybe I hate the Sabadines more.” Min sat down on the bed and eased
his boots off. “Anyway, what does it matter? They never wanted him back for his hedgewitch powers. They wanted him for his fae blood, and they’ll keep him in iron because of it. He won’t be given another chance to reanimate the dead or whatever else it is necromancers do.”
“It’s not fair, Min.”
Min didn’t reply to that. Of course it wasn’t fair. And of course Harry already knew that. He didn’t need Min to confirm it or, worse, to demand he grow the fuck up. Min had no idea where Harry had picked up the notion that life ought to be fair or just in any way—his damn books, probably—but he wasn’t going to be the one to knock the last of the shine off Harry’s improbable naivety. Life was already proving itself well and truly up to the task.
He lay down, and Harry flopped onto the bed beside him.
“It’s not Kaz’s fault he’s a necromancer,” Harry said at last. “People don’t choose their Gifts. It’s not his fault he’s half fae either.”
“No, it’s not his fault,” Min agreed, although it seemed the sort of crime Robert Sabadine would make him pay for. Bad enough that Kazimir was being forced into an incestuous marriage with the man, but Robert clearly hated him as well. Min wondered if the best Kazimir could hope for was cold indifference from his uncle.
“I hate them,” Harry muttered. “I hate the Sabadines.”
Min smiled slightly at that, because he knew it wasn’t entirely true. There was one Sabadine at least that Harry didn’t hate. And, Min suspected, if Harry had made it all the way to Anhaga and back, curse mark burned into his cheek, and hadn’t managed to summon up any resentment at all for Talys Sabadine, he doubted there was very little that could change that now.
“Go to sleep, Harry,” Min said, because there was nothing else to say.
MIN DREAMED he was back in Anhaga, this time on one of the fishing boats in the harbor. He looked up at the village clinging to the cliff face like a tick on a dog and tried to see Kallick’s house. It was impossible, though, with the boat rocking and rocking and rocking….
Min opened his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake!”
Two faces peered back at him in the gloom.
“I don’t have many rules, Harry,” Min said. “But if I did, I like to think that fucking a Sabadine under her father’s roof while sharing a bed with me would be somewhere at the top of the list. I also like to think it would go without saying, but, well, here we all are.”
“We were just talking!” Harry whispered indignantly.
Min snorted. “Next time take your hand out of her underwear before you try and feed me that bullshit.” He rolled away from them and rose to his feet. “I’m going for a walk. When I get back, you’d better be alone, Harry.”
He was sure they were sharing a soulful gaze in the dark.
“Because,” Min said, tugging his tunic on over his shirt, “now we’ve brought Kazimir back to the warm embrace of his loving family, not only do we have no actual leverage left to make sure they lift your curse, there is also no reason to stop her father from slitting your throat if he finds her in bed with you.” He shot Harry an intense glare that he knew was wasted in the darkness. “But I’m sure you already thought of that.”
He left them whispering frantically to each other and slipped outside the room.
The house was dark, and Min worked his way carefully toward the stairs. His thoughts drifted toward Kaz, and he wondered where the boy was sleeping. If he was sleeping. A knot of guilt as heavy as lead sat in his stomach. The guilt was to be expected. Min would learn to live with it, and gladly, as long as Harry survived this. And yes, perhaps there was a small part of him that hoped Kaz could somehow escape the clutches of his family. It was out of Min’s hands, in any case.
Min felt his way downstairs.
Of course, the guilt of handing Kaz over to the Sabadines might actually be negligible compared to the guilt of knowingly unleashing a necromancer onto Amberwich if Kaz did find some way to slip his iron chains, but Min couldn’t bring himself to care. If Kaz did somehow manage to slaughter the entire Sabadine family, good luck to him. Min was sure the king’s sorcerers could band together and take him down before he came after anyone else. Anyone who, say, might have helped in that whole messy abduction thing.
Besides, after seeing Kaz crying at dinner, it was somewhat difficult to imagine him as a crazed necromancer, filled with darkness and flame and burning with the need to take bloodthirsty vengeance. Not exactly impossible, but somewhat difficult.
Min probably wouldn’t feel so blasé about the possibility if he weren’t a void.
A faint glow of flickering light came from the dining room. Min turned and climbed the steps again. He had no wish to disturb whoever was still awake.
He reached the top of the stairs and saw a slim figure darting away in the darkness: Talys, with her robe billowing around her as she moved. She looked a little like a wraith, or some insubstantial creature conjured from mist and winter’s breath.
Min took a step forward and was almost brought down by the cat that suddenly curled around his ankles.
When his heart had stopped trying to hammer its way out of his chest, Min bent down and scooped the cat up. He regarded it narrowly in the gloom. “Is there nothing in this house that doesn’t want to kill me?”
The cat was gray. Most cats were gray in the darkness, Min supposed. He saw patches of what might be color under a better light. A speckled little tortoiseshell, possibly. Its rib cage rumbled under his fingers.
Min set it down again. “Go on. Piss off.”
The cat gave a plaintive mewl and vanished down the stairs.
Min was about to return to the room he shared with Harry when he saw a faint glimmer of light spilling from underneath a door at the end of the passageway. His breath caught and his skin prickled before he realized this was nothing more than ordinary candlelight and not the same eldritch light that heralded the presence of fae magic.
The light grew for a moment, and Min saw a figure silhouetted briefly in the doorway before the door was closed again. Robert Sabadine. There was no mistaking the way the man carried himself.
Sons of Rus. The passageway was busy enough tonight to feature in a particularly bawdy comedy about young bed-hopping wives, ardent student lodgers, and oblivious old cuckolds. Any moment now someone would wave their naked ass at the laughing audience.
Min stood still in the darkness, silent and unmoving—a particular skill of his honed over years of practicing burglary—and waited until Robert vanished. Fortunately in the opposite direction of Min. There was skill, but there was also luck.
Min was about to return to the room he shared with Harry when he was brought up short by the sound of a muffled sob.
Fuck.
Min treaded quietly down the passageway, forcing his trepidation away. He was no doubt stupid for seeking out Kazimir now, and Min was usually the opposite of stupid, but… but he was guilty. And guilt was as strange and uncomfortable to him as this total lack of common sense.
“Kaz?” he asked in a whisper, twisting the latch and pushing the door open.
Kazimir was lying in his narrow bed, arms at his side, wide eyes fixed on the ceiling. A lamp burned on the little table beside the bed. The room was otherwise bare and even smaller than the guest room Min shared with Harry.
“Kaz?” he asked again.
Kazimir turned his head slowly. His dark eyes shone, and his cheeks were damp. His throat bobbed as he swallowed, and then he looked back at the ceiling again.
“What did he do?” Min asked, hating himself as soon as the question was out. Because Kaz could regale him with a litany of crimes against Robert Sabadine, and Min could do nothing about it except share in the blame. Still, he stepped fully inside the room and closed the door again.
Kazimir turned his head again and blinked at Min. “Did you ever think you had a destiny?”
Min couldn’t help his sudden smile. “No.”
“Not ever?”
“Only children believe
that,” Min said. “Children, and lovesick teenagers, and possibly men born in powerful Houses.”
Kaz’s smile was brief. “Oh, so you’re letting me have it on a technicality?”
Min snorted.
“And which am I?” Kaz asked. “A child or a man born in a powerful House?”
“Not a lovesick teenager?” Min asked, stepping closer to the bed.
“No.” Kaz quirked his mouth in something not quite a smile.
“Well, you’re half Sabadine, half fae, and you’re a necromancer,” Min said. “On the balance of all that, how can you not have a destiny?”
“I think that rather than a destiny of my own, I’m to be a footnote to my grandfather’s.” Kaz exhaled slowly. “It would be better, I think, if my uncle didn’t hate me.”
“Yes,” Min agreed quietly.
“He must have loved his sister very much,” Kaz murmured. He shifted slightly, and Min heard the rattle of a chain. Of course. Of course Robert had chained the boy to the bed to keep him from running, although Min knew there was no way he would. Not with the threat of the fae hanging over him. Kaz was a little fox caught between two traps, and this one just happened to be the less terrible. “I wonder if she would have loved me.”
Min had no answer for that.
“I used to watch them from my window,” Kaz said, a wistful tone creeping into his voice. “Mothers and children.”
“Not all mothers are the same.”
Kaz’s brow furrowed. “Are you saying that because your mother is a, um, a….”
“A whore,” Min said with a soundless laugh. “You can say the word, Kaz. And no. That’s not the reason. I don’t hate that she’s a whore. It put food in my belly when I was a squalling little brat, after all.”
Kaz’s eyes widened. “I meant no offense.”
“I took none,” Min assured him, and for a while they regarded each other in the silence.
In that moment the shutters rattled suddenly, and Kaz all but flew out of bed, only to be brought up short by the chain connected to the iron band around his neck. He made a choking sound and dropped to his knees. Min hurried forward to support him; the boy could hang himself if he wasn’t careful.
