“So. Got a ken?” I asked.
He stared, and I laughed.
“Sorry, that was mean,” I said. “What’s your suggestion?”
“The Kalethelia ball is tomorrow night,” he said.
“So they’re home.”
I’d lost track of the days. My family always returned from Lamanstal in time for the festival of Kalethelia, throwing a huge ball on the last day of the week. I wondered what the world would say to see me returning unexpectedly in time for the social event of the year. I rubbed my hands and scowled. The ball had always been a prime opportunity for mischief for Griff, Samyr and me in the past, but I was a man now. I’d be asked to dress the part and make an appearance, and behave the way a prince ought to behave. Nothing could possibly have sounded more tedious.
“Can I tell your father you’ll come back?” Zagger asked, shifting his weight.
I squinted up at him. “Why, is he that nervous?”
“Frantic,” he said.
“Doesn’t sound like him.”
Zagger shrugged. “Well, be fair. He’s never exactly been in this position before.”
He actually dropped into a crouch beside me then, but not without shooting a warning glare at the rubbish bin as he did.
“Listen…are you doing all right?” he asked. “You look half frozen.”
I grimaced. “Is it that obvious?” I hesitated, considering, then finally nodded. “Fine. Tell him I’ll make an appearance.”
Zag let out his breath like he’d been holding it. “Thanks,” he said. “Maybe it’ll shut up those yammering press monkeys.”
“You’re screwy,” I said. “You know it’ll just get them all wanked.”
He grunted. “I’m not even going to pretend I understood that.”
I got up, not bothering to dust myself off. The rain would take care of the dirt, anyway.
“I have to go,” I said, avoiding the slang to spare him the strange grief lurking in his eyes. I clapped him on the shoulder. “It was good to see you, Zag. Really.”
“You too. You’ll…you’ll let me know if you need anything, right?”
“Sure,” I said, and knew he didn’t believe me.
Suddenly he slung his coat off his shoulders and dumped it in my arms.
“What the hell, Zag,” I said. “I can’t take that.”
“Of course you can. It’s not marked, it’s just a coat.”
“What’ll I tell the skitters?”
He grinned a little and sauntered off, saying over his shoulder as he went, “You’ll think of a story, I’m sure.”
I waited until he’d disappeared, then pulled on the leather coat. Warmth had never felt so good before, even if the coat was impossibly large. And suddenly I really didn’t care what the other kids thought. Maybe it would just add to that mysterious, distant aura that I’d somehow found myself creating.
Chapter 4 — Hayli
I listened to the whistle of the ten o’ morning train from the safety of my cot. The boys would all be heading out to Chancy’s, and part of me wanted to join them more than anything. But the way Shade had been acting lately, twitchier than usual the last few days and colder than ever, I wasn’t sure if I could stomach it. I knew why Rivano wanted me and Derrin to keep a goggle on him, but sometimes I wished he hadn’t picked me. Jig or Anuk could have done just as fine a job.
The train whistle had barely faded when Pika traipsed into the barracks, streaked with dirt like a coal bug. She crossed straight away to me, kicking soot from her breeks and boots as she walked.
“Hayli! Where’s Derrin?”
“Talking to Kantian, I think,” I said, sullen. “Dan’ bother trying to find them. They’ll just give you a bum rush out the door.”
She giggled and plopped down on the foot of my bed, scattering dirt all over the blanket. “What’s bothering, Hayli? You look like you got crosswise to a lemon.”
I laughed and pulled up my knees. “What d’you think of Shade, Pika? Do you still think he’s…empty?”
Her eyes narrowed up a bit, and I sighed. Shade still wasn’t her favorite topic of talk.
“Can’t figure him at all,” she said. “Still got no ken why he’s hanging about here. He dan’ seem to like any of us.”
I sighed. And that was the heart of it right there.
“Yeah,” I said, hugging my knees, “and I think he grobbing hates me.”
“No he dan’,” Pika said. She scowled at me a bit, digging her chin into her arms. “But he’s scared of you.”
“What d’you mean, scared of me? Shade ain’t scared of aught.”
Pika shrugged. “I’m just saying. He’s scared.”
I shoved off my cot and ruffled her hair. “I think you’re silly. Scram.”
She stuck her tongue out at me and bolted, scattering soot everywhere, leaving me all alone again. I waited till she’d good and gone, then slipped out of the Hole and made my way down to Chancy’s, because for all I wanted to sulk at my cot, I couldn’t let the lads have all the fun without me.
Chancy’s joint sat on the river bank down past the Station, where the streets weren’t quite as abandoned as they were out by the Hole. It had been a decent looking place, once, with brick and beam walls and green awnings for setting about on nice days, but now it just had a saddish kind of face about it, likely because so few people went there anymore. Mostly kids from the Hole hung around Chancy’s, so he’d given up thinking he had a hard bar for the local roughs, and took to making short beer and sugar candy to serve the kids too young for the real stuff. Business is business, and money don’t smell, he’d always said, and so long as we could pay or work, he mostly ignored us being there.
It’d always been that kind of joint, anyway. No rules like up northside where you had to have the right look to get a seat. The place felt perpetually dusty, like the inside of a mill, with faded floors and faded walls covered from corner to corner with the kind of rebel slogans that the coppers would never stand to see. I’d never figured Chancy for a rebel himself, but I knew a lot of the older lads played at being revolutionaries here in the shadows, meeting over stale beer and stolen cigos, imagining the handful of them could actually change the world.
When I wormed my way through the door, I found Anuk and Jig with a couple others up at the bar, all of them staring at me coming through the door like they thought I’d be someone else. I disappointed them, I could tell. They kind of all turned around and went back to talking, and none of them even tried to say hullo to me.
I hopped onto a stool next to Anuk.
“You seen Shade?” he asked, turning.
I shook my head. “Not since last night.”
“He was supposed to be here ten minutes ago.”
“So, he’s late,” I said.
Red shot me a nasty glare. “Shade’s never late.”
I prickled, just. But I didn’t get to think about why, because at that minute the door opened and Shade slipped in, quiet and shadow-like. He didn’t even glance at any of us. He leaned on the bar in a fine black greatcoat I’d never seen, and Chancy came out quick as rain to serve him.
“Hullo, Taumir,” he said. He rubbed at the bald patch on his head, and wiped the sweat from it on his apron front. “Care for something?”
I sniffed. We all had to shout at Chancy for a good five minutes these days to get him to give us aught.
“Brandy,” Shade said, and we all gawped at him.
Chancy’d never serve him that, I thought, but he did. And Shade slipped a two-kip note across the counter as if it were nothing.
Finally Bugs couldn’t keep quiet any longer. He looked about to bust out of his skin, he was that excited.
“Shade, where’d you get that coat?” he asked, almost hollering it at him.
Shade took a sip of the brandy, then set down the glass and stared at it a good while. “The last fellow didn’t need it anymore,” he said.
We all caught our collective breath, but he didn’t seem to notice.
Sometimes…sometimes I hated him. Hated him and that silence of his, when it felt like that silence should not exist. Because when he got like this, I imagined he didn’t care a jot about any of us. We didn’t even exist for him.
These moments made the other moments feel like a lie—as when he taught Bugs how to fight, or jibed Anuk and Jig just to get their hackles up…or those precious moments a few nights past when he’d come to kick the leather ball around the enclosure with me in the moonlight, when the wee skitters had gone to bed. We’d laughed and talked about all and everything, the way that made me smile when the other kids complained about how Shade never talked. And I wanted those moments to be real more than anything, but how could he really care about us and treat us like this?
Maybe, though…maybe the silence and the stoniness were just a mask, as if his gift meant he always had to hide something, even if he was just being himself. I knew how much a gift could drive a person. I sure knew how much mine influenced me, making it so I never knew quite what I was. Or who. So what would being a Mask do to a person?
I studied Shade quietly, and not for the first time I wondered if Derrin was right. How could you trust a Mask? How could you ever know if aught about them was the truth? I knew what Shade would say to that, though. He’d look me straight in the eye, and in that low, sea-wild voice of his he’d say, “We all wear masks.”
Bugs was still hounding him, because he never even noticed Shade’s silence. He just took it as a matter of course, and kept right on yammering at him. Sometimes I wondered if that was why Shade was so fond of him.
“Where’d you get the kips, Shade? From the dead guy?”
Shade turned to him then with a hard, strange gaze. Then a little smile quirked his mouth and he went back to staring at his drink.
“What’s the plan?” Anuk asked. “We still got the meet?”
“Just confirmed it with Branigan’s lackey,” Shade said. “We’ll head out tomorrow night at the dead hour. It’s the only time he’d agree to.”
They nodded, and watched all agog as he drained the brandy and slipped out of the bar without another word to any of us. I scowled at my knees. He hadn’t even glanced at me. Not once. Not even a little. Stars, I grobbing hated him.
Still, it didn’t keep me from jumping down and rushing out of the bar after him, not caring what the rest of the boys said about me. He wasn’t hard to find, not with that enormous coat and his pale hair. The streets here weren’t crowded anyway, but he stood out like a giant the way he walked.
“Shade!” I shouted, because I had a wee bit too much pride to go running down the street on his heels.
He turned. I kind of expected him to nod and keep walking, but he actually stopped and waited. I took my time catching up to him, watching the street so I didn’t seem too interested.
“Hayli,” he said as I reached him.
Then he turned and walked on, so I fell in step beside him.
“You lads got something gannin’ down tomorrow?” I asked.
“Nothing big. Just a chat with some folks.”
“Branigan. The one who has dirt on the royal family?”
He shot me a strange glance, and I hoped I didn’t look quite as sick as I felt. Somehow I just kept thinking about the assassination attempt, and how the Queen had wept, and how angry Tarik had been. I’d never been much of a loyalist—I’d never been much of an anarchist either—but I realized I didn’t want Shade finding out bad things about the ruling family. The King might be a royal mess according to the lads at the Hole, but he was our royal mess, and Shade was Istian. He didn’t have any business knowing their secrets.
“That’s the one,” Shade said.
I jutted my lip and shoved my hands in my trouser pockets. “The fellow you came to Brinmark to have words with,” I said. “Was that his coat?”
He smiled a little and tipped his head back. “No.”
“You div’n just off some bloke for his coat, did you?”
This time he turned to glance at me, slowing up just a step. I couldn’t gauge the meaning in his eyes. It flitted between humor and hurt, and maybe just a bit of conceit.
But all he asked was, “What do you think?” and kept walking.
“I dan’ think you did it,” I said, skipping a few steps to catch up. “I bet you got some uppity lady-girl who thinks you’re a doll, and she gave it to you.”
He laughed at that, tugging a smug grin to my face.
“Not quite,” he said.
“You ganna gan to the plaza for Kalethelia? A lot of the kids are.”
“Are you?” he asked.
I blushed something fierce and stared at the ground. “Maybe. Not sure. If it’s just Jig and Anuk, I dan’ na if I could stomach it.”
He opened his mouth, got a rather peculiar look on his face, and then turned away with a scowl. “I’m not going. I’ll be out.”
“You should. I’ve heard it’s pretty spectacular.”
“It’s not really my kind of thing,” he said, a stray scrap of sunshine flaming off the white of his mark.
“I could gan with you tomorrow.” I clacked my teeth shut, but the words were already out.
“No.”
“Why not? You’re letting Bugs gan with you. Bugs! He can barely buckle his own boots!”
“Bugs isn’t coming.”
My feet stopped. “Oh.”
When he realized I’d quit following him, he turned around. “Getting Alby Durb’s name was enough for Derrin, but it wasn’t enough for Kantian. If I don’t get this juice from Branigan, that’s it. So I’ve got no choice. Believe me, if it were up to me, I’d just walk away and leave this whole business alone. This kind of gossip means nothing to me. But I have got to see Rivano, and this is my only chance.” He studied me quietly, neither warmth nor ice in his eyes. “That doesn’t mean I’ll risk anyone I don’t have to, though. Don’t ask me to risk you.” He took a step back and murmured, “Nothing’s worth that.”
Then he turned and strode away, leaving me stunned and speechless in the street.
Chapter 5 — Tarik
The kids were all in a fuss at dinner, going on and on about our upcoming meet with Branigan. I had knots in my own stomach, but they had nothing to do with meeting a petty crook who claimed he had dirt on my family. In a few moments I’d have to make my escape, and return to Tarik’s life for the first time in what felt like years. Suddenly—strangely—I wondered if I would remember what I’d been like. How I talked, how I acted. And I’d have to put on that mask again, and keep up the pretense in front of all of Brinmark’s high society.
I took a long sip of water and resisted the urge to check my pocket watch, again. Only a minute could have passed, because Bugs was still eating and usually he inhaled his food in five minutes flat.
“What’ll you do to Branigan, Shade?” Bugs asked. “Are you ganna do what you did to Joren?”
“What’d he do to Joren?” Hayli asked, shying from my gaze.
She’d been avoiding me the last few nights, so it didn’t surprise me that she didn’t already know. I knew she wasn’t happy with me. I hated it myself, how I treated her. How I had to treat her, because I knew as soon as I let down my guard…I would be lost. Maybe Hayli was a Moth, but for me she was the candle. I didn’t know why. I could never get myself to make sense of the way the world tipped sideways when she came into the room, or the way her smile put the sun to shame. She was just Hayli— lost but confident, unsure but dazzling. A wild-eyed girl with the joy of the stars in her veins.
A slow burn crept over my cheeks, but I forced myself to concentrate on my mask, to keep the blood from touching Shade’s face. If only she knew.
“Tell her, tell her!” Bugs hollered.
I jerked my head up, realizing at the last moment that Bugs was talking about Joren.
“He pulled the toughs’ guns straight out of their hands, like,” Jig said. “From across the room.”
I held the cup to my lips, because I could feel Hay
li staring at me now, and I didn’t trust myself to meet her gaze.
“Shade, how…” she started, but never got around to finishing.
I flicked out my pocket watch and checked the time, then swallowed the rest of my water and slid off the bench.
“Later, kids,” I said. “I gotta scram.”
“Where you going, Shade?” Anuk asked.
“None of your business.”
“Oooh,” Bugs said. “Shade’s got a secret.”
“Shade’s got lots of secrets,” I said, and left the table.
I could feel Hayli’s gaze following me as I left the mess, but to my relief she didn’t get up. Getting myself into the palace was going to be hard enough without worrying about someone tailing me. Especially her.
Zag met me with the motorcar at South Brinmark Station, a great cloud of steam idling around the corner and away from the lamps. I wore his coat and a hat he had left for me in the alley, a fashionable sort of thing, wool felt and narrow-brimmed. In the darkness, no one would see that my face wasn’t my own.
As soon as I was settled in the back seat, we set off, and I hid my face in my hands as we passed under the street lamps so that I could bring my features back to normal. Then I focused on my body, because in the tailored dress suit I would have to wear to the ball, there was no way I could hide behind Shade’s muscles.
I sucked in a pained breath as my senses constricted to my old body, head pounding and eyes stinging. I watched Shade’s rough and bloody-knuckled hands become smooth and refined, and moved each finger, joint by joint, like they were brand new. It had been so long since I had felt with Tarik’s hands, moved with Tarik’s legs. I flexed my arms, drowning more than ever in the broad sleeves of Zagger’s coat. I felt like a stranger.
Zagger darted a glance over his shoulder and grinned a little when he saw me—me—sitting there.
“It’s good to see you, Your Highness.”
“It’s good to be back,” I said, and added under my breath, “I think.”
I buttoned the long coat closed down its length, to try to hide as much of my rags as possible. We were drawing close to the palace now, and Zagger slowed the motorcar before we reached the gate.
The Madness Project (The Madness Method) Page 36
