by Jaida Jones
I clenched my fists, but he was right. I wasn’t used to working alone.
That didn’t mean I could work with just anybody, either.
“In any case, we obviously can’t stay here tonight,” Thom said. “So we’re just going to have to finish up our business and leave.”
“You mean sneak out before we pay for fucking this place up?” I asked. I didn’t believe it. My baby brother, suggesting we skip town? Never. He was too fucking self-righteous for that.
Thom flushed. “That’s hardly what I—I would never in a thousand—Rook, such behavior is downright wrong, and we—”
“I sure as shit don’t have the money,” I said.
Thom wilted like a daisy. “Neither do I. I suppose there’s always…” He turned his back on me to fish around in his pack. It took him a while to find whatever he was looking for, since the bag was stuffed with papers and reading material and that bastion-damned quill collection—all of which he was gonna have to ditch if he really planned on coming with me—but finally he must’ve found what he was looking for, because I saw his shoulders slump. “Here,” he said, holding out his hand. “I’m just as much to blame for the…position as you are, and it’s time I started paying for myself in these situations.”
He looked too damn much like a kid—so much that I didn’t even move to take whatever it was he was holding out for me. It was like he’d found a ha’penny on the street and he was proud of himself; the money was his, but he wanted me to have it. I’d seen this already and I’d never wanted to see it again.
“Here,” he repeated, and I snapped out of it.
The object in question was his badge of honor. It was gold, and it was worth more than this entire place.
Gestures like this were either stupid or self-centered, and in his case, I had to believe it was a combination of both.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “Don’t make fucking sacrifices.”
“But I thought—”
I shook my head. “We’re sneaking out. You keep that. I’ll figure something out. Why don’t you write to th’Esar and say, ‘Your esteemed hero broke some tables, and in recognition of his service to the crown, could you kindly reach into your deep fucking pockets and bail him out?’ Something useful he could do, for any of us, anyway.”
Thom snorted. When I looked over, I realized he was laughing. “I wish I could,” he said finally. “But like you’d say…I don’t have the balls.”
“And I can’t write,” I said. “So I guess we’ve gotta get out of here, huh?”
“Sooner rather than later,” Thom admitted, closing his hand back around the badge and shoving it somewhere into his bag, so I knew that I’d won that argument, at least. Good. Anything less’d be bad for my ego. “Though before we skip town entirely, I’d like to make use of the postal service—send off a quick letter to someone trustworthy, just to alert them to what we’re doing and to ask if they’ve any advice to help us along. I…” He hesitated. “I think it’s a good idea.”
“Right,” I said, ignoring the fact that my kid brother was the sort of person who thought we had time to write letters before we ran out on our inn bill. “Fine. Whatever.” The only thing we had to worry about at this point was Piss Pants waking up and rousing a few of his friends, but I could take care of whatever the country had to throw at me.
I’d show ’em what it meant to have even a piece of a dragon around.
“I thought I might write to Adamo first,” he said, when it became pretty clear I’d finished with all I had to say. “He’s the only mutual acquaintance among our experts, and Balfour says…”
“Do I look like I’m in the mood for a game of Balfour Fucking Says?” I asked, somehow managing not to kick our room door open, since that’d have attracted more attention we didn’t need. “Write the damn thing, I don’t care who to. Just make sure they know their ass from their ball sack and don’t waste time.”
“All right.” Thom nodded, looking momentarily hurt that I didn’t care to hear the entire contents of whatever cindy love letters he’d been writing back and forth between here and the capital. He sat down at the desk, pulled out a sheet of paper, and picked out a quill from the bunch—the one he used all the fucking time, so that I didn’t know why he’d even brought the other ones along in the first place.
I couldn’t sit—I was too fucking keyed up—so I settled for pacing back and forth, probably distracting him, but the letter didn’t have to sound pretty. It just had to make sense.
Meanwhile, I planned our escape.
We could probably get to the stables easily enough from our rooms, but the innkeeper’d have to be an idiot not to lock his horses up at night. I had no problems going it on foot, but then I wasn’t weighted down with a collection of Volstov’s finest quills and ink like some people too stupid to know what it meant when you said “pack light.” I had a blister on my palm and I started picking at it angrily.
“Tell him about the scale,” I said. “And how we’re goin’ in no matter what he says and if he thinks he’s keeping me from going after her, then he can take this letter and stick it up his—”
“Dear Adamo,” Thom said loudly, already writing, though I was pretty fucking sure he wasn’t putting in anything I’d said.
“Tell him to use whatever fancy ’Versity clout he’s got to help us, understood? No point in turning fucking professor on us if he’s not gonna help when it really counts. I know you’ve got your own experts and shit to write to, but it wouldn’t hurt to have him grease the fucking wheels for us before your letters get there, would it?”
“Oh, for the love of—Honestly,” Thom said, scratching something out and reaching for another piece of paper. “This isn’t at all how you dictate a letter.”
“Gee, I’m so sorry, Professor! Guess all those little missives I expertly composed while saving the fucking country from the Ke-Han hordes never reached you,” I snapped. It turned out I did have a little bit of extra temper in me after all.
“Mm,” Thom agreed. Shameless little Mollyrat wasn’t even listening to me, but scribbling away like writing a letter took his whole focus. Maybe it did. Hell if I knew.
“Hurry it up,” I said. Lucky we’d never really unpacked in the first place, and one of us had gotten a little sleep in. Then I stopped pacing. “You thought about how Adamo’s gonna write back to us now that we’re skipping town?”
That paused his quill sure enough, but only for a minute, then he was back to writing like I hadn’t even said anything. “I have a friend who left Thremedon to study languages in Tarkhum. It’s a little farther south—desert country, you know—but it runs close to Ke-Han territory. I’ll tell Adamo to send his response there, and we can aim to make it our next destination.”
It was a good plan, and it actually made sense.
Maybe taking him along wasn’t gonna be a complete waste after all.
MALAHIDE
Down in the dirtiest part of Molly was where the fishermen netted bodies out of the water. They sold fish, of course, but also rings torn off bloated fingers, scraps of leather not too badly damaged by the water, and whatever information they’d heard from whatever corner they’d been lurking on the night before, and all the rest of the news that had come in with the tide. Molly specialized in certain truths—inescapable truths about poverty and wretchedness—but there was something to be said in praise of idle gossip. For the longer you held it up to the light, turning it this way and that like a piece of glass, the closer it approximated a diamond in the rough.
All it took was patience and the proper angle.
The only difficulty with heading down to Molly was trying not to look like you were anything more than broken glass yourself. But I was fond of masquerades, and this was one of my favorites. It was close enough to my own meager beginnings that the thrill of pretending to be who I really was coursed subtly through my veins, and ached at the metal box placed within the hollow of my throat, through which I now cast my unexpected voice.<
br />
I had practiced it alone in my quarters—in lodgings as far as could be from Mollyscum—like a puppeteer whose puppet was herself. The Esar’s commands would not afford me time to become accustomed to the proper way of it, but I could not allow myself to sound rusty or unusual, either. It took an entire night before the full-length mirror to remember how it was to speak, but at last I’d managed to make this act seem natural, compensating for differences in pitch, feeding the mechanism with false emotions.
It all reminded me that I was not what any man would call a beautiful woman. My nose was too strong, my neck too thick, and the rest of me too slim and unshapely. My lack of beauty but my wealth of composure was what disconcerted the Esar so much when we were together—and indeed what concerned most men with whom I spent any amount of real time beyond the most perfunctory curtsy.
But this was all conjecture, my theories on why I was treated as I was. These insights helped me in my charades, but little else.
I had money—a great deal of it—and the dragonscale. Now, dressed in breeches and boots that were rotten enough not to be stolen off my feet, I found myself in Molly all over again, listening to the fishermen gossip on the wharf while a few Mollyrats eyed me, wondering if I was worth the drop or not.
The fishermen didn’t recognize me; no information would flow until I’d broached the topic myself, offering them an olive branch, or at least something to go on.
Pitching my voice deep, I said, “Evening.”
“Evening,” one of the men said to me. They smelled of brine and salt and aged skin, weathered beyond repair. And so young. I leaned back on the rotting wood, as though anyone could ever be comfortable in a place like this. “You’re looking for something, then? It’ll cost you.”
“Pity no one here has money,” I said.
We all shared a friendly, bitter laugh. You could approach someone worlds apart from you by offering them, like a handshake, a simple truth from their own lives. I kept with me like a memorized prayer a list of every truth, belonging to every sex and race, from high and low, marsh and desert and country farm. This was where I excelled. I kept my smiles hidden and my eyes on the water, an uncomplicated rhythm.
“I’d drink to that if I had drink on me,” the fisherman said.
“I have something else for you,” I said. “I’ll be honest about my purpose, but here it is.”
Out of the folds of my peacoat I took it, the scale, wrapped in paper to keep it smelling clean. The fisherman closest to me leaned in tight and I couldn’t risk him touching it, so I unwrapped a little corner like it was a toffee and let him see the color of it.
Down in Molly, everyone recognized a dragon. No matter what form it took, no matter how small or how big. They were a possessive lot. I covered my clue back in paper and hid it once again on my person like a magic trick, pretending I was pocketing it while I slipped it into a fold inside my sleeve.
“I’m selling,” I said. “One day, I’ll be rich. And when I am, I’ll come back here and buy you all a round. But that’s only if I can sell.”
The fishermen whistled together in unison. “That’ll either make or break you,” one of them said. “Th’Esar’d cut your throat for peddling that.”
“Did I tell you, Nor,” one of the fishermen told his friend, “about the time I bounced that boy on my fucking lap? Didn’t go by Rook then, did he, but he’s still one of ours all the same.”
“I remember ’im,” Nor answered. “And there wasn’t no bouncin’, either.”
“Where are you selling that piece to, anyway?” the fisherman asked, eyes on me without warning; they were gray and keen, the only sharp part of his whole blunt face. That would matter to them. “You thought about that?”
“Money’s worth about as much as honor, these days,” I answered, all part of the plan. “I wouldn’t sell the second one for the first, though, I promise you that. I just want to know what the market price is.”
“So you’re lookin’ for a key to the market, hey?” Nor asked.
The fishermen were quiet for a long minute, listening to the river. Somewhere, in the far distance, it spilled out into the sea. I could smell that, too, despite how little pleasure it gave me.
“I’ll vouch you,” Nor said finally. Something moved in his pocket; it was a knife, and he was threatening me. “So don’t let me down, newf.”
“Thanks, Nor,” I said.
“Don’t mention it,” he said, in a way that meant he expected me to mention it quite often. Talk was cheap in the city’s first and second tier, but in Molly it was just about all anyone could afford. They couldn’t get enough of it. “This way, then.”
I followed him, letting my worn boots fall heavily on the uneven cobblestones and tramping straight through puddles of muck that, under normal circumstances, I’d be going out of my way to avoid. I wasn’t bothered by these things the way most other women of my standing might have been, however, which I supposed was one of the elements that made me so good at my job. I allowed Nor to walk ahead of me, since even in the dirtiest Molly alleyways, all Volstovic men liked to feel they had something up on the younger generation. But I didn’t mind walking slowly, since it would aid me in memorizing the area. If it proved necessary, I could return here at any time I liked without Nor for an escort.
He paused before a ramshackle building, this one given the distinction of having brick walls instead of wood, though the mortar between them was crumbling and their red color had faded into a dreary shade of gray. It was the most unimposing building I’d ever seen, as though it had been assuming since it was built that time or calamity would tear it down again.
I waited, hands in my pockets, as Nor knocked on the door, then took off before anyone could answer, looking at me over his shoulder and gesturing for me to follow.
“Been raided by the Provost’s wolves a couple times,” Nor explained. “Seems old Dmitri’s had more time on his hands now that the war’s over and all. Can’t be too careful; everyone needs a trick or two in case the wolves start sniffing.”
I nodded, mindful of my surroundings as we stepped off the main street in case there was some mischief at hand. I was well acquainted with Provost Dmitri. In fact, we’d grown up in the same home for unwanted children, smack-dab on the border between Charlotte and Miranda, though not so obviously that it would remind the more frivolously minded citizens of the consequences of visiting Our Lady of a Thousand Fans too often. He’d been something of a companion to me in my lonelier times, and though I’d never sought out companionship, I couldn’t call it anything other than that.
More than our distinguished background, however, we also shared a common bond in that our value as citizens of Volstov was measured in direct correlation with how useful we could prove to the Esar. Dmitri was a handsome man, if overly serious, and he refused to ignore the darker corners of Molly the way a sane man might have. I liked him, or was at least somewhat amused by his stubbornness, but my opinion was not a popular one among these people. Instead of offering it, I spat into the street. Such gestures had an eloquence of their own, and I felt it would be the sort of response Nor could appreciate.
The path he was leading me down was little more than a space between buildings for housewives to throw the day’s piss and shit. Rats ate their meals and orphans made their beds here, and I was grateful for the dim light that filtered in from above the rooftops, if not the smell.
“Watch your step,” Nor mentioned, and I was only too grateful to oblige.
When he halted, it was in front of a heavy-looking metal door, the bottom of it crusty and laced with rust. It looked like one solid kick would send it to pieces.
“This here’s the real door,” Nor said, giving it a sharp thump with his knuckles. “You knock once on the front to let ’em know to expect you, then you come around here. Door won’t be unlocked otherwise, and like enough if you come straight here, they’ll assume you’re sniffing ’em out, if you know what I mean.”
“Easy way to a
quick end,” I agreed. “I’ll remember that.”
The door gave a heavy groan and Nor stepped backward quickly as it swung open. The inside corridor wasn’t lit, which made it difficult to see, but lamps were rare below Charlotte, and to burn one during the day was an unheard-of luxury. If there was someone who’d opened the door, in any case, I couldn’t see them now, and Nor didn’t greet anyone as he stepped inside, clearly expecting me to follow.
I did, cataloging the things I’d learned thus far. Unlike most buildings in Molly, this one was made of brick, which meant that the sounds of whatever happened inside would stay inside instead of becoming fair game for any passerby to eavesdrop upon. In addition, there was a fairly primitive system of checks in place, though evidently there was more to it than I’d been shown—provisions made for if someone didn’t know the proper steps—but I was not the sort of person to forget such things. As I thought this over, my nose began to prickle, and the sensation spread irresistibly to my throat. Drifting in from some hidden room was the unmistakable scent of incense—a sandalwood blend that was far too expensive for any Mollyrat worth his claws. This particular variety was of interest especially because it was a foreign smell. Sandalwood was preferred by Ke-Han magicians for use in clearing their minds, and as far as I was aware, the practice had not yet spread to our fair shores.
In time it might have become all the rage, but it was certainly not the sort of practice that would rise from the bottom up.
“That smell,” I began thoughtfully.
“Reeks to high heaven, don’t it?” Nor agreed, from somewhere in front of me. “They think it classes up the joint when really all it does is stick in my craw something fierce. Leave it to the Ke-Han to think they can improve on good, clean air, huh?”
