by Julia Knight
Haban—the name rang a little warning bell in the back of Holden’s head, brought to mind an expansive girth, a booming laugh and a tent in the corner by Herjan’s temple. “The trader. He sold me a way to get after Van Gast. Why?”
“After the Yelen caught Haban with the diamond, they put him in the cells. They knew he’d got it from Van Gast because there’s no two diamonds like that in the world. It was part of the dowry payment, for the trade deal between the Yelen and Remoria.”
Holden searched back, into the fog of his memory, back to when he’d been bonded, before seeing Josie again had woken him up. Van Gast had stolen a ship, the Sea Witch. That had been the start of everything. The Master had been livid for the loss of bride, of dowry, of pride. He supposed the Yelen were too—the marriage was to have been part of a trade deal between the Remorians and the Yelen. The dowry had been huge—and stolen.
“Ten thousand sharks,” Tallia said. “He’d be turned in for sure, with that much on his head. But Rillen—”
“Who’s Rillen?” Holden asked. “You wouldn’t give me much before, but you know him, that’s plain.”
“Son of one of the council, brother of the man Van shot in Bilsen. He wants to rip Van Gast’s throat out. Or maybe torture him some first. When the mages came and made an offer to the Yelen, they wanted Van Gast too—and Rillen’s father wants Van Gast bonded before they put his head on a pike. It was Rillen after Van Gast in the square. Rillen—I don’t think Rillen connects to anyone. He only pulls them apart.”
Holden remembered Van Gast laughing when Holden said it was too dangerous to come here, brushing off his fears and saying it would be fun. “The square—yes. Gilda told Rillen who Van Gast was.”
“Because she’s Haban’s niece, and I think Rillen offered her his freedom in return for Van. All I did was leave the note from Josie. I swear. I was supposed to leave the ship after that, but I stayed. Because of you.”
He wanted to believe her, he did. Yet he knew he shouldn’t, knew that he was as hopeless at spotting a lie as he was at lying. He’d never had the opportunity to practice. Van Gast had left him here, with her in the brig, and already he’d gone too far letting her out. If she was the traitor…
Think the way you used to, in straight lines. Forget the way she smiles at you, forget the way you want her to keep touching you. The way she makes you want to smile. Remember, back when you were a commander. Order. Answers. Maybe Gilda was the one trying to turn in Van, but there was something else here. Something bad for Van, and for him too perhaps.
“So why were you in the square? Why were you watching Van Gast, following him, because that’s what you were doing, isn’t it?”
“I told you, my family. I went to see them.”
A lie that wasn’t a lie, he’d thought before. “Did you find them?”
A teasing pout from her, half amused, half annoyed. Even now she couldn’t dim her bubbly nature. “You didn’t give me much of a chance. I found Josie for you, for Van, though, didn’t I?”
Finally, she finished dressing the cut and pulled her shirt back down. “Aren’t there other questions you should be asking me, like who Josie is running the twist on, or where Ilsa is?”
“Never mind Ilsa—”
“But I do mind. And I mind that Rillen is the one after Van Gast, because that’s who Josie is trying to con, and if Rillen recognizes him, if he knows who they are before they can try the twist—I promise you, Holden, I may hate Van for what he’s put Josie through, but I don’t want him dead. I just want him to leave my sister alone to be happy. Maybe squirm some first.”
The lamp-lit darkness was soft as velvet when she stopped, the silence a shroud around them. Holden wanted to ask, to blurt out, “Sister?” but didn’t get the chance.
Someone rapped on the door, urgent and insistent, making them both jump. When Holden opened it, Guld scurried into the little circle of light.
“Holden, you—you’ve got to do something!”
Holden started, feeling guiltily ashamed but not sure why. Guld was a wreck—his hands wrung together so hard that the knuckles cracked and his stutter became more pronounced as the words blurted out of him. “It’s V-V-Van—they’ve, um, got him, in the c-c-cells. You have to do something!”
Holden gripped one of Guld’s shoulders, thin, bony beneath his fingers. “Calm down. Deep breath. That’s it. Now, start at the beginning.”
“Van—he asked me to keep an eye on him, um, them. It’s tricky, because the Remorian mages, well, they can do things to block me. Only they’re still quite weak and, um, well… Sorry. Anyway, so I kept an eye on him. The picture was a bit grainy and I didn’t get much sound, but I could see him, and, um, Josie and Skrymir. Josie turned him in!”
“Are you sure?”
“Look, I’ll show you.” As always, when Guld concentrated on his magic, the stutter disappeared. He murmured a few words under his breath and a light grew in his palm, a silver ball that swam with all colors and none.
The light swirled, confounding the eye so that Holden had to look away. When he looked back, a blurred image was playing across the surface. The inside of a large room, the Yelen palace he assumed. Some sort of party. Just on the edge of hearing, Josie’s voice whispered, “Ten thousand sharks was just too good to pass up.” Then Skrymir, dressed oddly, stormed toward a discreet corner, his face as dark with anger as a storm cloud. One fist delved into the corner and came out with Van Gast.
The picture shimmered and twisted so that Holden’s stomach rolled, then it cleared again. Van Gast stood with a bloody nose and a fat lip, glaring into a face Holden didn’t know. The words “Van Gast” ghosted out of the spell and then guards cuffed him and dragged him off.
“That’s Rillen,” Tallia whispered. “He’s got what he wanted then.”
“There was more, but that’s the pertinent bit,” Guld said. “Van’s in the cells. The Yelen cells. No one gets out of there.”
“But why would she?” Holden glanced at Tallia but she looked as perplexed as he felt.
“That’s not how it was supposed to go,” she said. “Not quite. Rillen wasn’t supposed to know who Van was.”
“Josie’s pissed at him, you know that,” Guld said. “Wants to make him pay, I expect. Women are like that. Um, present company excepted, I’m sure. But you can’t ever tell what Josie will do. You’ve got to do something.”
“How do we get into the palace?”
“Well, um, no. Sorry. Those mages are weak still, but strong enough to stop that. I was lucky to get what I did with the scrying spell. If I tried to get us in, we’d probably end up splattered over half the docks.”
Holden ran his hand over his hair. “There has to be a way. Has to be.”
“I can get you in,” Tallia said and Holden whirled to face her. She looked up at him with dark, soulful eyes, searching his face for something. She held out a hesitant hand for his. “Only—” She shook her head, as though clearing out dark thoughts. “I can get you in, Holden. It’s getting out that will be the problem.”
Holden tried a smile, but it felt awkward and stretched. “Not with Van Gast around. Not a cell in the world can hold him, that’s what they say, right?”
Her smile was tremulous, the bottom lip aquiver, and tears lurked in her eyes.
“Tallia, I—”
“It’s all right, Holden.” Again, her hand on his, warm and smooth. “I just don’t want to see you hurt, that’s all.”
He couldn’t still the thrill at her touch, or the way her tears made his heart ache, or the way he wanted, very badly, for her not to be the traitor she seemed. He covered his confusion with gruff words that came out harsher than he intended. “I’ll not be the one getting hurt. But what’s to say I can trust you?”
Her tears fell slowly, mesmerizing him, spearing him with the thought that he’d caused them. “Nothing, except you won’t get in without me. Please. I want to help. It’s—my family are in there too, in danger, the only family I have left.�
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Not for the first time, Holden wished he had Van Gast’s little-magics. An itch behind his ribs to know whether she was trouble, whether he should believe her or not. In his heart he wanted to, but his head—his head told him that there was a good chance she wasn’t telling him everything, and that was dangerous. Tears are the sly woman’s weapons. Someone had said that to him once, and he knew it for truth. His heart told him one thing, but his head ruled him in this.
He hardened his heart against Tallia’s tears. She had tried to betray Van, and him. Perhaps. There was something more to Gilda coming back, that was sure. Maybe they were in it together. Or in it with Josie. Whichever, she hadn’t told him the truth yet.
Remember that. Don’t trust her, use her. It wasn’t his voice that sounded in his head, it was the rich, rolling, commanding tones of the Master, dead now but still with the power to rule him, if he let him.
The Master had ruled his life up till now. Now it was up to him, his head, his heart.
“All right, Tallia. How do we get in?”
Chapter Fifteen
Van Gast was thrust into a fetid cell in a jangle of bells and blood where he hit the floor face-first. It had taken four guards to get him here, though with his hands cuffed behind his back there was little he could do except make their lives as difficult as possible. And hope this was all part of the plan Josie hadn’t quite got round to explaining. He’d hidden the key by sliding it into his breeches and wiggling until it fell into his boot.
Which was a problem, because a rough hand dragged him up and began slicing off his clothes with a knife. “Hey, that’s my best shirt!”
“Not anymore.”
The shirt ripped along the cuts and dropped to the floor, followed by the corset, which was a relief at least. One of the guards picked the shirt up and rifled through it. The two knives he quickly pocketed for himself before he squinted at the little square of cloth in the dim light, ripped it into quarters and threw it on the floor. Van Gast kept his gaze sharp, looking to see where they fell. Almost all he had. Except the glass wedding dagger. The one the guard was lifting up to the faint moonlight from a tiny light-well in the corner, which was all that lit the cell.
The guard snorted in disgust. “Bah, only one, that’s no good. And it’s not got the oil in. Sodding worthless.” With a casual flick of his wrist, the dagger shattered against the wall, and shattered Van Gast’s hope too. The cloth and the dagger, all he had, the only tangible things to show that he had a chance with Josie. The only things that actually meant anything to him, apart from maybe his bells. They could have taken the rest, burned it all, he wouldn’t have cared. But now his hope lay in tiny shattered specks on the floor.
He didn’t struggle as they wrenched off his boots, shook out the daggers, the key, and took them, patted down his breeches and found only his set of bones, which they left. There wasn’t much point in struggling. Violence would do him no good right now, what he needed was smarts. What he needed was Josie.
As a final gesture they moved the cuffs so that his hands were in front of him, and threw his bells back at him through the grill when they’d banged the door closed. “If you’re lucky, Forn will drown you before Rillen gets his way.”
They set off back down the corridor, laughing at their joke and rattling the bars of the other cells as they passed.
What the fuck had Josie’s plan been? She must have realized they might take the key. Was the plan still on, or not? Van Gast hadn’t liked the way her face had paled when Rillen knew him, the almost-missed twitch. She hadn’t expected it, he was sure. Maybe she’d thought they wouldn’t search Mr. Ibsen. But her plan had been to get him in the cells. Why?
Think man, think.
He scuffled among the dank straw, trying to find what was left of the cloth. Stupid, really, but that piece of cloth, that glass dagger had been his focus for long enough now, they were part of him. All he found were a few bits of glass, not even big enough to make a handy weapon.
She needed him in the cells. He wasn’t here so she could get the bounty, she hadn’t turned him in. Yet. He had to believe that or go crazy. She had a reason, a plan, even if it’d gone a bit tits-up. Plans always tended to. Still a chance to salvage it, if he could work out what it was.
Damn you, Josie, why do you always have to play so close to your—admittedly very fine—chest.
Because it was more fun that way. Good point, although Van Gast wasn’t seeing much fun right now. So, she wanted him down in the Yelen dungeons, where rumor said some men had spent decades not quite dying. She’d given him a key, which they’d taken off him, naturally. What was down here? Revenge and money, that was what she was after. Money, he and Josie were always after money, always the forefront of any plan, the harder to get, the twistier they had to be, the better the fun, the bigger the thrill. The Yelen had plenty of money…
Where was the safest place to keep it?
Kyr’s mercy. It hit him like a boulder in the back. He generally paid little heed to rumors—too outlandish for the most part, embellished in the retelling, again and again. Rumors were worth nothing against actually seeing the damn money. But there was one rumor about Yelen treasure that always stayed mostly the same—they kept their money in the dungeons. No one really believed it, of course, because it was just too far-fetched. Besides, no one ever came out of the Yelen dungeons. Alive, anyway. So who started the rumor, who knew what was in there?
Thing was, the Yelen palace hadn’t started off as a bastion of trade. Less than a hundred years ago, it had been a merchant’s house. Looked good, not really safe as such, because merchants were all about appearances, and kept most of their money at the counting house in any case. One or two secure places, but not enough for the wealth of a council who couldn’t afford to—or just didn’t—trust the merchants and moneylenders they made their money from. Hence the tightly controlled area around it, and only the most influential traders allowed inside.
From the little Van Gast had seen, the palace was a building full of gaps—open archways, deep-set windows with no glass to let in the breeze, hardly a door anywhere. Until you got to this part, the part they’d added later, using slaves to dig down into the sandstone. Burying most of them there too, in damp darkness, in the little pools of water that seeped from the river through the stone and even now were making Van Gast’s body one whole, soggy ache. He tried not to think of the state of the water from the Est River, and what might be in it.
All this led to one conclusion—Josie had worked out that the rumor was true. The Yelen kept their wealth and it wasn’t in the opulence above. No, the money was down here, somewhere, and everyone knew there was only one way into the Yelen dungeons—get arrested. Of course, everyone knew there was only one way out too—get executed. If you were lucky.
So what the fuck was she planning?
It didn’t take long to find out. The sound of heavy doors bounced along the dark corridor, and a lantern sent flickers of light through the grille. A familiar voice boomed along with the bang of the door, and Van Gast had never been so glad to be sworn at.
“So where is the little bastard?” Skrymir said. “I want him strung up by the balls for what he did to my wife.”
Van Gast peered through the grille. Skrymir was shouldering his way along the corridor, all bluster and offended sensibility. Van Gast was quite impressed—he’d always taken Skrymir for just another bull in breeches. Handy to have at your back, but no finesse. Josie had been teaching him, obviously, because he was quite convincing. There she was too, walking a step behind, all prim and demure, except she was having a hard time keeping her grin to herself.
She caught Van Gast’s eye and tipped him a sly wink, one that loosened the tight feeling round his heart, before she straightened her face, held a kerchief to her nose and spoke to Rillen. “You keep your dungeons full. And dirty.”
“And the Gan don’t?” Rillen said. “These cells are kept for the enemies of the Yelen. An attempted assassin here,”
he waved a hand at a grille, “a dishonest trader trying to rob us there.” Another offhand wave.
He seemed normal enough, this Rillen. Van Gast had met a thousand men like him. Officious, pompous and vicious in the name of the law. Nothing new—except the itch, the burn, the scream in his chest that was telling him to run, run now, anywhere, just away from him. Possibly it was just his allergy to Oku’s justice, but he thought it was more than that this time.
“Are you sure this is wise?” Rillen was saying. Van Gast was sure he could spot a smirk in the gloom.
Skrymir shrugged, almost knocking his shoulders against the walls. “Wise? It’s not a matter of wisdom, but of justice. You know that the Gan revere Oku above all?”
“Of course, justice, oaths and vengeance. I understand that. But—”
“Then you’ll understand that I want to beat seven shades of shit out of this Van Gast. Then I want you to hang him, the worst death for a Gan. No honor.”
“As you say.” Rillen reached for something in his tunic, and Van Gast almost couldn’t bear it—the itch in his head, the desperate need to run, grab Josie, get the fuck out of port while they still could. Only he couldn’t—locked up, cuffed. No doubt a dozen guards or more between him and the way out. He had to wait, see what Josie was planning.
Rillen moved—and so did both Josie and Skrymir. Josie’s gun was in her hand from the gods knew where before Van Gast could even register it. Skrymir’s sword was halfway to Rillen’s throat.
The staggered clicking, as of multiple pistols being cocked, followed by a flash of flame and a bang that almost deafened Van Gast in the narrow corridor, stopped them both. Skrymir jerked backward and slammed into a wall with a surprised look. His tunic had a jagged hole in the chest, black and leaking blood, the mail beneath a mangle of rings.
Either side of Van Gast, cell doors opened and gunmen, Yelen guardsmen, came out. Every pistol pointed at Josie.
