Cold light spilled through the line of shattered south-facing windows, pooling around pallets of supplies. The warehouse wasn’t as abandoned as it looked; the pallets hadn’t been there yesterday. Joren probably used the place to store and move his goods far from the prying eyes of the authorities, which made the warehouse even less of a neutral meeting ground than I’d thought before.
As we wove our way through the maze of canvas-draped boxes, I caught sight of Joren and a handful of toughs grouped together in an empty patch of floor. My heart hitched. Kor had taught me enough to make me realize how Joren would have us with our backs to the towering stacks of supplies, which was as good as putting us up against a wall. I gritted my teeth and stepped out onto the floor in front of them.
Joren had five men with him, all armed with rifles. I didn’t look, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if a few others were hiding in the shadows. Joren alone carried no weapon. That was the only way I guessed his identity, since they all wore black coach hats and fine tweed suits cut in the latest fashion. Besides the rifles, the other men didn’t seem particularly dangerous; Joren obviously hadn’t hired them for their muscle. Oddly enough, I rather thought he was the biggest man of the group.
“Is this a joke?” Joren snapped as we stepped clear of the crates. His close-set eyes latched onto me. “You’re just a blithering kid.”
“What did you expect?” I asked, keeping my voice as cold and level as I could.
“I expected I’d be meeting an equal.”
I grinned. “Do I frighten you? If you want to call in some more reinforcements, I can wait.”
His cheeks paled, then flared bright red. “That’s not—” he started, but apparently thought better of letting me bait him. He was too late, though. I’d already witnessed the damage. “Don’t get cheeky with me, kid.”
We still stood a good twenty paces from each other, close enough that I could see the twisted look on his face, but not so close that we could talk comfortably. The way his men watched us, hands tight on their rifles, I knew better than to walk forward uninvited. But I wanted to smile, because I could sense the other lads behind me, not hanging back by the pallets, but knotting close around me.
“Can we talk, Joren?” I called. “I’m not keen on wasting my time here if you won’t listen.”
“Scram, kid,” he said. “You’re in over your head.”
“Funny, I heard the same thing about you.”
The words had barely left my mouth when all of his men shouldered their rifles, staring down the barrels of the guns straight at me. And before I could think what I was doing, my hand flashed out and clenched in a fist, and the guns wrenched from the men’s grips to clatter on the floor.
Pain stabbed through my head and all the world spun, but somehow, barely, I managed to keep from staggering to my knees. Through the fog of my vision, I saw Joren’s face turn a perfect shade of white. The men stared at me, then at their guns. I could tell they had half a mind to reach for them again, so, ignoring the way the world was shattering around me, I reached out and pulled the weapons across the floor, bringing them to our feet.
Moments dripped away in thunderous silence. None of my lads reached for the guns, but they didn’t need to. A couple of Joren’s thugs lifted their hands and took a step back, leaving Joren unprotected.
“Well?” Joren asked, hands twitching. “You’ve made your point. So talk.”
I flicked a glance back at the others and held up a finger. They stayed put while I crossed the floor to stand in front of Joren, and Joren’s men kept backing away until the two of us stood all alone.
Joren’s gaze fixed on my mark. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to leave the Bricks alone.”
He looked as if he had a mind to laugh, but to his credit, he just met my gaze and said, “What does Rivano care about the Bricks?”
“I believe he’d say that’s his business.”
“Why should I do anything for him, for you?”
I smiled, faintly. “I could make it painful for you if you don’t.”
“Oh,” he said, forcing a spiteful laugh. “I’m not afraid of you mages.”
“You misunderstand me.” I took a step closer to him, even though it meant I had to look up at him a bit, and said, voice low, “You’re not an honest man, are you?”
His face drained of color, slowly. “What do you mean?”
“Do I have to spell it out?” I flicked a pointed glance over his shoulder at his thugs. “Should I call them over here so they can hear, too?”
“No,” he hissed, his hand flashing toward me. “How could you know about that? How could you possibly?”
“Maybe I can read your mind,” I said, acidly.
“All right, look.” He stepped right up to me, so close that it took all my will not to take a pace away from him and regain my space. “What do you want from me?”
“I want you to forget any debts the Bricks owe you. I want you to forget they exist. I want you to keep the buyers from harassing them. And I want you to stop this grafting operation you’ve got going on. It isn’t just.”
He gave me a pale kind of smile. “You think anything that happens down here is just?” he asked. His pupils widened, his shoulder twitched. “And tell me why I shouldn’t kill you right now? Would make things a mite easier for me.”
“They’d kill you before I hit the ground,” I said, staring him straight in the eye. “I think you’re too much of a coward to risk that.”
He studied me a long moment in silence, eyes narrowed up a little, something like pity or fear in their depths. Then, surprising me, he shook his head faintly and murmured, “And you’re too young to be so hard.”
“I survive,” I said, not even sure myself what I meant.
“It’ll kill you one day, kid, or bring you to ruin. Damn, why am I telling you this? You come in here, threaten my men, threaten me, and I’m offering you advice. How does that figure?”
I couldn’t answer. My heart stung with a bitter ache like grief, and I couldn’t say why. Before I could stop myself, I looked away, staring at the grey light pooling under the nearest window.
“You’re not from this city,” Joren went on. “Don’t lose yourself here, or this place will bury you.” He hesitated, then added, almost whispering, “If you’re lucky.”
It happened too fast. One second I was staring at the patch of daylight, the next I was staring at Joren, lying flat on his back with his face bloodied by my fist. My hand throbbed, the shadows darkened, and I just stared and kept staring at him, because I couldn’t believe what I’d done. I had no notion why I’d struck him. I should have held back; I had no cause.
“Don’t mock me,” I said, reaching down and pulling him to his feet.
I didn’t want to meet his gaze. Shame burned through me. He’d shown me consideration, not mockery, and I…I’d proven that I deserved his contempt. I turned away, shaking out my fist, ignoring how he stood there watching me, his hand pressed against his lip and nose to catch the blood. Even from across the room I could feel the lads gaping at me, but I wouldn’t look at them either.
“Hold up a minute, kid,” Joren called.
He didn’t even sound angry, so I risked a glance at him over my shoulder. When he just beckoned me with a finger, I steeled myself and walked back to him, trying not to appear as ashamed of myself as I felt.
Don’t apologize, I could hear Trabin telling me. We don’t ever apologize, even if we’ve made fools of ourselves, or we will only look weak.
“Listen,” Joren said, holding a handkerchief to his face. “Did Rivano tell you about me or did you find out about it on your own? Does he know?”
“Should he?” I asked, measuring him evenly, while everything inside me cringed at myself and the horror that flickered in Joren’s eyes.
“If I give you some information that Rivano will appreciate, will you keep it to yourself?” he asked.
“Depends on what kind of infor
mation, I suppose,” I said.
“I know a fellow who’s got some dirt on the royal family. Name’s Branigan. Get a meet set up with him, and he’ll tell you more than you could hope for. If Rivano and that blockhead lackey of his—what’s his name? Kantian? If they’ve got any hope for a revolution, they’ll want to hear what Branigan has to say.”
I didn’t say a word. But as soon as Joren fell silent, I turned to go.
“Can I have your word?”
I didn’t fancy meeting a gunman in the alley some night, so I shifted a half step back and met his gaze. “Your secret’s safe,” I said, as though he should have known better. “Don’t ask me again.”
Before he could call me back and ask me for any weightier promise I didn’t want to give, I stalked across the room, past the other lads, and out into the dismal cold that matched the numbness in my heart.
Chapter 3 — Tarik
“You should have seen him, too,” Coins said, laughing around a mouthful of sausage. “Big old tough, flat on his bum. His eyes were about as big as this plate, too.”
I stifled a smile. The story kept getting bigger with every dinnertime retelling. It’d been a few days since we’d met Joren, but somehow none of the kids got tired of telling or hearing about it. Sometimes I felt that I needed to hear it, too, to remind myself that it had really happened, and that I’d—somehow, miraculously—survived.
I still couldn’t quite figure out how I’d disarmed his men. I knew I’d drawn on the same reserve of power that had moved the guard’s pike on the palace steps, but beyond that, I knew nothing…only that the pain in my head throbbed worse than ever, until I believed nothing short of a glass of brandy would drive it away. That hadn’t helped either; I’d tried, and it had only made it worse.
“What’d you do to Joren, Shade?” Bugs asked. He had his feet up on the bench under him as always, crouching like the carved grotesques on the drain pipes. “Did you kill him?”
I tipped my mug of water toward him. “No.” I left it at that a moment, then met his eye and added, “Though I think he rather wished I had.”
Bugs hooted and bounced on his feet, and gulped down half his cup of water.
Before he could holler anything else at me, Anuk leaned over and asked, “Did we get the meet set up with Joren’s informant?”
“What informant, Shade?” Bugs asked, jostling my arm.
“Someone who says they’ve got dirt for Rivano. Royal dirt.” I tried not to shudder as I said it, because ever since the meet, I’d been worried sick about what kind of vicious information the man Branigan might be spreading about my family. I glanced at Anuk. “We’ll meet at Chancy’s tomorrow afternoon, and I’ll explain everything.”
He opened his mouth to reply, but stopped when someone came behind me and laid a hand on my shoulder. I jumped, always afraid Hayli would forget to keep her distance, but she hadn’t come down to dinner yet, and no static charge traced down my arm at the touch. Bobs stood behind me, eyes wide in his round face, a slip of paper in his hand.
“Shade, someone left this for you.”
“What? Who?” I asked, slinging my leg back over the bench so I could stand up.
Hayli walked into the mess at that moment and took one long look at Bobs, then me, and without even the ghost of a smile she headed for the food line.
Bobs was shaking his head, his cheeks pink with embarrassment. “I div’n get a good look at him. Just some kid. I was sitting on post and he showed up and div’n seem like he belonged and he asked if I knew you and I said I did and he asked if I’d take this to you so I said I would.”
He stopped and drew a long breath.
“He knew about the Hole?” Derrin asked, arms folded, trying to glare at me and Bobs equally.
“No, dan’ think so. He looked lost, so I asked what he wanted, and that’s what he said.”
Derrin met my gaze and held out one hand, beckoning. “Let me have a look.”
I shrugged as if I didn’t care. Bobs handed him the paper and bolted, and everyone else waited in silence while Derrin unfolded the note and scanned it.
“All right,” he said, and gave it to me. “Makes no sense.”
I retrieved it and read the single line scrawled in an all-too familiar hand: Remember the sea wall.
“How ominous,” I said, and shoved the paper in my trouser pocket.
Jig watched me, curious, but he didn’t speak. I couldn’t quite make sense of Jig the last few days; he still didn’t seem particularly friendly to me, but he was always first to volunteer when I asked for help, and the last to leave my side when we got back. It rather confounded me.
“What’d it say?” Bugs asked, bouncing on the bench. “Shade! What’s the secret note say?”
“Remember the sea wall,” I said, knowing Derrin would only be suspicious if I didn’t answer. “I’ve got no notion what it means.”
“What’s a sea wall?”
“Well, it’s a wall that holds back the waves. Some are built by people, but some are just cut in the rock from the sea. In Istia, there are huge stretches of cliff that are old sea walls, but you wouldn’t know because the water pulled back a long time ago.”
“Did you ever gan to a sea wall?” Bugs asked.
I met his eager gaze with as dark and somber a glance as I could conjure. “Once,” I said. “But no one would know about that. At least…”
I lifted a shoulder in a shrug and settled back onto the bench, applying myself to my plate of bangers and mashed potatoes until everyone else lost interest. When the other kids had finally disappeared into the lounge for the evening, I took my chance and slipped out of the Hole as quietly as I could. But halfway to the gate I heard footsteps behind me, and I turned to find Hayli there, tailing me. She had a skittishness about her, as though she’d just fly away like a bird if I gave her the wrong kind of look. Somehow I found myself smiling at her.
“Evening, Hayli,” I said. “Heading out?”
She paused, tilting her head to study me, her eyes narrowed and suspicious. I wondered why, until I remembered I was still smiling. That would be enough to make me suspicious, too, so I turned my head aside and stared at the ground.
“Are you?” she asked. “That was a bit rum, that note.”
I stuck my hands in my pockets and kicked at the pavement. “Well, someone’s trying to track me down, I guess.”
“Someone you want to avoid?”
I met her gaze. “Someone who ought to know enough to avoid me,” I said, pitching my voice as low as I could.
Her eyes widened, but she just wandered a step closer and asked, hesitant, “You want some company?”
“I need some time alone,” I said. “Nothing to do with you, Hayli. Just…I’m still getting used to being surrounded by folks all the time.”
She nodded, giving me a half-hearted kind of smile. “I get that. Be safe,” she said, and backed away.
I waited until she’d disappeared into the Hole and the door had settled behind her before strolling out through the gate, with a two-finger salute to Bobs. I had to walk as if I knew where I was going, but I had no idea how I would find Zagger in the dark streets, when Zagger probably didn’t even know where he was. But I’d barely reached the nearest alley when a small hand shot out of the shadows and grabbed my wrist.
“Shade!”
I peered through the darkness, but couldn’t see the face belonging to the hand.
“Who’re you?”
“He’s waiting to talk to you. Two streets north of the Bricks.”
The hand released me, and I heard a scuffling in the shadows, then nothing. I let out my breath and headed east toward the Bricks’ building, my fingers fiddling with the hilt of the knife in my sleeve. He might be Zagger like I expected, or it might be some kind of trap. I didn’t care to be surprised.
Two streets up from the Bricks, I found Zagger right where he was supposed to be. He leaned against the wall near a rubbish bin, just outside a circle of misty lamplight
. I could tell he was trying to blend in, with a tattered cap and threadbare scarf, but just his posture made him stand out. Even though no one else was wandering the streets just then, I kept glancing over my shoulder like a thief, expecting to be found out.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I hissed, coming up alongside him. “If anyone saw us together it could completely blow my cover.”
“Nice to see you too,” he said.
He studied me with furious attention, as if that could somehow teach him exactly what had happened to me over the last few weeks. I softened a little.
“I am glad to see you.” I shoved my hands in my pockets, trying not to feel so self-conscious about the way I must have looked. “How’d you get word to me?”
“Kor helped. That was one of his lads who delivered the message.”
I frowned up at him. If he’d asked Kor for his help…
“What’s wrong, Zag? Why are you here now?”
“Slight problem,” he said. “You’ve got to come back.”
“Can’t. What’s such an emergency?”
“Someone started a rumor that you got killed abroad.”
I flinched. “What?”
“They’re saying that’s the reason none of the foreign papers have mentioned your visit.” Zagger shifted. “Some people are even saying your father did it. Sent you away to have you offed in some corner of the world where it would look suspicious.”
“You must be joking,” I murmured, my blood chilling. The idea was so outrageous, so preposterous…
“I wish I was.”
Your father. Even Zagger didn’t know the truth. Or maybe he did, and he just thought I still didn’t know. I wondered what he would do if I told him. If I wasn’t Trabin’s son, but the son of a traitor and an enemy mage…I shouldn’t have a royal bodyguard. I should probably be arrested, for that matter, or at least publicly stripped of my title and inheritance.
I sighed and crouched down next to the rubbish bin, letting its bulk shield me from the wind. Zagger eyed me strangely as I did. Funny, I think he had too much pride to get down there with me, shouldering up to the trash for warmth.
The Madness Project (The Madness Method) Page 35
