I swallowed. Stars, this was all so much more complicated than I’d ever imagined. “But they don’t have any reason to think I’m one of yours,” I said. “So maybe they will come to the Hole anyway.”
“Word’s already out on the street that you’ve joined ranks with us. The city has eyes, kid. You can’t spend a day skadding about with Coins and Hayli and expect no one would notice.”
“Damn,” I said. “What can I do? You’ve got to hold off on whatever you were planning to do to Durb.”
“And risk Vanek Meed’s anger?”
“He’s got nothing on you, right? Does the Clan have a supplier? How do you stay here in this building?”
Derrin shifted. “The Clan owns this building. The coppers can’t clean us out.”
“Derrin.” I took a step closer to him. “You kicked me out. Didn’t even give me a chance to make my case. And now you want all those people crowding in here?”
“I don’t know what Rivano wants to do with them. All I know is, I see a strange mage hunting for Rivano, it gets me suspicious. That’s all.”
“Can’t say I blame you for that,” I said.
I kicked at the desk leg, my thoughts spilling over each other in a flood. Maybe I should tell Kor about all this…because surely he would know what to do. Or maybe he would laugh me to scorn, and tell me he knew I’d get in over my head. Maybe I should warn Tam and Zip that their supplier was in danger…or maybe I should find Alby Durb himself before Derrin or his lackeys could get to him.
“Will you give me time to think this over?” I asked Derrin. “I got myself into this mess. Give me a chance to work my way out of it.”
He studied me thoughtfully a few moments. “All right. You’ve got three days. So, think fast.”
Chapter 16 — Tarik
I stopped outside the palace well within sight of the guard, standing with my hands in my pockets and my shoulders thrown back. It took him only a moment to notice me; I could identify the precise moment he saw me by how his expression turned to vinegar. He strode down the steps and measured me carefully.
“Back again?” he asked.
“Couldn’t stay away,” I replied.
I gave him a smile laced with venom, but he just snorted and shook his head. “Mr. Kor isn’t in at the moment. You can wait here for him to arrive.”
I glanced around as if the notion bewildered me. We had a fountain in the center of the circular drive—a grey monstrosity of an orb surrounded by clawing horses. Griff and I had sat on the lip of that fountain often enough (and thrown each other into it more times than I could count), but it wasn’t the most hospitable place to send a guest. Even if that guest looked like me.
“It’s raining,” I said.
“What else is new?”
I frowned and held out my hands. “I’ll catch my death.”
“You can sit inside the guard post,” he said, glaring at me. “But no trouble from you, understood?”
I mocked a salute but he didn’t even wait to see it; he turned and tromped up the steps, and opened the narrow door of the guard post. The cramped little space barely gave room for a high, narrow desk and a sitting stool, but at least it was out of the rain and the wind. I shoved the stool against the wall so I could lean my back against it, and propped my filthy boots on the desk. The guard faced the drive, apparently determined to ignore me.
After a while I tried to Cloak myself, and called to the guard, “Sir, can you see me?”
He turned and gave me a stern look. “Of course I can.”
“Figures,” I said.
He turned away, bristling as he heard me rustling the papers stacked on the desk.
“How about now?” I called.
“Yes,” he said, sounding bored.
I whistled a bit and examined the wireless transmitter that took up most of the desk. For something called wireless, there were cords everywhere. A headset lay to one side, like a pair of worn nickel and leather earmuffs, with a small device resembling a miniature microphone tucked underneath. The rest of the desk was a jumble of wires, brass knobs, steam and transducer gauges, and glass tubes. I twisted one of the dials and the steam gauges spiked and fell, but disappointingly, nothing else happened.
After a while I reached deep inside for that sense of necessity that had enabled me to Cloak the last time, and asked, “Now?”
“What’s your game—”
His voice died and he scowled into the guard post. I grinned, triumphant. Finally. Finally I’d managed to Cloak without needing real fear for my life driving me—a significant advantage.
“Where’d you go?” he hissed, releasing his pike to grab for his rifle.
“Oh, don’t fuss,” I said, leaning forward to shake myself out of the Cloak. “I didn’t go anywhere.”
He stared at me, some mixture of disgust and fascination warring in his eyes. “Don’t do that again,” he growled. “Or I will lock you in cuffs.”
“Cuffs.” I smirked at him. “Cuffs can’t stop me.”
He turned suddenly back to the drive, coming to stiff attention. I peered out and saw, to my dismay, Griff and Samyr climbing up the palace steps.
“You can’t seriously think there’s anything to it,” Griff said as they drew closer. “I think it’s a load of gobshi—”
“Griff!” Samyr interrupted, turning pink. “Not here.” She glanced at the guard and noticed me behind him, and all the blood rushed from her cheeks. “What’s he doing here again?”
“He’s waiting to speak to someone,” the guard said.
Griff met my gaze. “Who here would want to speak to him?”
“I’m sitting right here,” I said. “I do actually speak Cavnish.”
I jumped off the stool and slipped out past the guard.
“Hey, get back there, boy,” the guard snapped. “I didn’t say you could move.”
I ignored him. “Brought reinforcements this time?” I asked Samyr, nodding at Griff.
“You’re a Jixy?” Griff asked. “What can you do?”
“You really want to know?”
“Please tell me it’s something good,” he said, surprising me.
“Griff!” Samyr hissed. “Come on. We need to talk.” She tugged on his elbow for emphasis.
Griff didn’t move. “Well?”
I concentrated, and watched the blood drain from Griff’s face—my only signal that I’d succeeded in Cloaking again. Somehow, I thought it would be safer than changing my face, especially because I’d already played the disappearing trick on the guard.
But Samyr turned a perfect shade of white.
“You’ve got to arrest him,” she whispered. “Lieutenant, you have to arrest him now.”
“I can’t bloody see him,” the guard said. “Why?”
“When the King…when the King got shot…they said the assassin disappeared. Just like that.”
I watched the horror spread over the guard’s face, and cursed myself for my stupidity. I knew the difference between a Ghost and a Cloak, but most people didn’t. But I couldn’t move, because as soon as I did, I would reappear, and the guard wouldn’t waste a moment before clapping me in cuffs.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized Kor had just arrived, riding up on a striking grey horse that looked far finer than I might have expected. He handed the horse over to a groom and came striding up the steps like a thunderstorm.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, stopping beside the guard.
“Don’t move,” the guard said. “We believe there might be an assassin nearby. The one who shot His Majesty.”
Kor glanced around briefly, one brow arched. “Really.”
“He was just here. That boy, the one who came looking for you the other day.”
Kor looked utterly unimpressed, so finally I sighed and shifted my position.
“I’m not an assassin,” I said, but I’d barely got the words out before the guard spun at me.
Instinct took over. I crouched and rol
led under his pike, kicking his knee and wrenching the weapon away from him. Samyr gasped and ducked behind Griff as I leveled the blade at the guard’s throat, but Kor just laughed.
“Help the man up, Shade,” he said. “And give me that before you hurt somebody.”
Stars, if he can get me out of this mess…
I tossed him the pike and bent to help the guard up.
“Mr. Kor, explain this,” the guard said, straightening his uniform jacket.
“This kid isn’t the one you need to be worried about. He’s got some tricks, but he’s not dangerous.”
The guard limped, red-faced. “I beg to differ.”
Griff just goggled me, wide-eyed and speechless.
“I’m not that dangerous,” I said. “That was self-defense.”
“You will vouch for this boy’s innocence?” the guard asked Kor. “Because if you can’t, I’m arresting him now.”
“I vouch for him. Believe me. He wasn’t the shooter.”
He shot a dark glare at me, which I knew meant in Kor-speak, You and I are going to have a chat. Won’t that be lovely?
I gave him my most charming smile. “The flyboy asked what kind of Jixy I am,” I said. “So I showed him. If I was really a blue fin, do you think I’d be daft enough to flash about my secrets?”
“Maybe,” Griff said, belligerent.
“Oh, bog off, y’ vutting—”
“Civil tongue!” the guard said, cuffing me in the back of the head.
I grinned at Griff, daring him to retaliate. Griff wasn’t terribly hard to provoke, not with that hot-head of his, but this time the presence of the guard, Kor, and Samyr seemed to be enough of a force to keep him cool.
“Come on,” Kor snapped, grabbing my elbow and sending a static charge down my arm.
I jerked free and bowed to Griff and Samyr, and strode after Kor into the palace. Luckily the angry lady guide was nowhere to be seen, so Kor marched me in utter silence through empty corridors until we reached the steps to the subterrane. Back in our familiar training room, he slammed the door shut and spun to face me.
“What the hell was that?”
“Keeping up appearances,” I said, shrugging.
“That’s not what I meant.”
He swiped off his hat and threw it onto the table, striding a few paces back and forth.
“It can’t be,” he muttered. “Was he right?”
“You’re not making sense,” I said. “And besides, you already knew I could disappear, so what’re you so sore about?”
He glared at me as if he had half a mind to slap me, but I knew he wouldn’t. He might throw an honest punch to teach me a lesson, but he would never slap my face.
“Yes,” he spat. “I knew about that. But that’s not what I saw when the guard turned on you.”
“What d’you mean?”
He scrubbed his hands over his face. “The guard’s pike jumped. It jumped. It should have sliced you clean down the back, even with your stunning acrobatics, but it didn’t. It moved out of your way.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He cursed under his breath. “Your mother. I need you to tell me all that you know about her and your father.”
“You work for them,” I snapped. “What else do you want to know?”
“Tell me about your heritage. Your magical heritage. God knows she never talked to me about it.”
“She never talked about it to anyone. I don’t know what her gift was. I always assumed it was something unimportant,” I said, a vague uneasiness creeping into my thoughts.
“You really never asked?”
“Why should I have?” I asked. “What difference would it have made? I was all but forced to forget what gift I had. Why would I have cared what hers was?”
The answer didn’t seem to impress him, but he just rolled his eyes and asked, “And your father’s? You never cared to know about that either?”
I stared at him, bewildered. “He hasn’t got a gift, you dundering idiot. I’d have thought you’d know that better than anyone.”
“Watch your tongue with me, kid,” he said, then paused and frowned at me. “I’m not talking about the King.”
A cold prickle crept over me, slowing time to a sluggish crawl, dreamlike, surreal.
“Explain what you are talking about, then,” I said, voice low. “Now.”
For a long moment we just stared at one another, me expectant, him disbelieving.
Finally he shifted and said, “You didn’t know? You honestly never knew?” When I didn’t move he ran his hand over his head and leaned back against the table. “Wasn’t expecting that. All right, look. The magery gene is what they call a recessive quality.”
“Go on.”
“It means, both your parents have to be mages for the gift to be passed on. And parents who have more than one gift are more likely to pass on multiple gifts to their children.”
I tried to speak; my voice wouldn’t come.
“Tarik.” A moment, then, “Shade!”
I snapped my gaze to his face, but I couldn’t see him. My whole world was crumbling around me, and he expected me to pay attention to him?
“You mean…”
“I’m sorry, kid. I thought you knew.”
“No one was ever allowed to talk about magic around me,” I whispered. “I had no idea. My father…Trabin isn’t my father?”
“You’re lucky his pride is bigger than his hatred of magic. Admit he was cuckolded, and by a pair of mages at that? Never. And I’m sure he did love Elanar, even after he learned the truth.”
I frowned; Kor had no manners, but calling my mother by her name seemed brazen, even for him.
“You’ve known all along?”
Kor smiled, bitterly. “Yes.”
“Do you know…” I swallowed. “Do you know who my father is?”
“Was,” he said. “He’s dead, Tarik. I’m sorry.”
I sat down in the chair in the middle of the room, burying my face in my hands. Why’d you tell me this when my father isn’t even alive? Why couldn’t I have gone on believing Trabin was my father? Oh, stars. No wonder he has always hated me.
“He was Istian,” Kor murmured. “You look a lot like him right now. Spitting image, really.”
I grimaced.
“I never knew what kind of mage he was. But if I know Elanar, I know she would never fall in love with a nobody, no matter what his secular titles were.”
“What was his name?”
He stared at me long and hard, his fingers twitching on his sleeves. “Do you want to know this? Are you sure?”
I shuddered and nodded. “What difference does it make now?”
“All right.” He leaned forward, clasping his hands loosely between his knees. “His name was Eyid.”
I reeled back as if he’d struck me. All my breath shattered, leaving me gasping. “Eyid? My father was Godar Eyid? The one…the one they say…”
“The one they say we assassinated? Yes. That Eyid.”
I remembered, suddenly, my mother’s sudden pallor when Eyid’s death had come up at dinner, so long ago.
“Oh God,” I said.
“Yes. Now you’re beginning to see.”
I ground my palms against my eyes, my throat on fire, a hollow in the pit of my stomach.
“Kor.” I swallowed, hard. “Is it true? Did we assassinate him?”
He plucked his hat from the table and turned it in his hands. “I don’t know. I honestly don’t. That’s one secret I don’t think I’d have been privy to.”
“You said my mother never talked to you about her magical gifts,” I said. “Why would she have?”
“Because I’m her damn brother, that’s why.”
That was too much.
I stood, throwing back the chair and holding out my hand to ward him off, and stalked from the room. But I didn’t get far. I stopped in the cold, sterile corridor, bracing my hands on the wall and muttering every obscenity
I knew, trying to choke back the burn of tears because I’d be damned if Kor came out of that room and found me crying like a blithering girl. I leaned my head against the wall and dug my hands across my skull, hating the roughness of my shaved hair, wishing inanely to be Tarik again, just for a moment. But why? Tarik was just as much a lie as Shade.
I was a lie. All my life. No wonder deceit came so easily to me. It ran in my veins.
A light static prickle showered across my shoulders, and suddenly I realized that Kor was there beside me, his arm around me.
“I’m sorry, Tarik,” he said, tightening his grip. “I’m so sorry.”
Before I could stop him, he pulled me into a fierce hug. I wouldn’t break down, but I didn’t pull away either. Kor’s sincerity stunned me. After a moment he clapped me on the back and released me.
“You’re better than your past,” he said softly, gripping my arm, “and you are not your parents’ sin. They were wrong to keep that secret from you, but it doesn’t change who or what you are. Or what you’ve accomplished. Honestly, Tarik, I didn’t think you’d survive on the streets, much less thrive. If I hadn’t known you, I would never have guessed you were playing a part when I saw you on the steps up there. You’ve got a talent.”
“A talent for lying.”
“It’s still a talent,” he remarked, bland.
I leaned back against the wall, staring up at the white electrical lights. I wanted to think about anything else, talk about anything else, to distract myself from the revelation. And when Kor didn’t push the topic, for once I found myself grateful to him.
“I made a mistake,” I murmured.
“Congratulations,” Kor said, his voice a little rough.
I glanced at him in surprise but he had his face turned aside.
“I found out who the stavo is,” I said, and related the unlikely events that had led to the discovery, and how Derrin had reacted.
“Vanek Meed!” Kor cried when I’d finished. “You went and talked to Vanek Meed. Stars, Tarik, but you’re crazier than I thought.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Last time I gave you advice, you didn’t follow it.”
The Madness Project (The Madness Method) Page 29
