“Don’t start anything.”
“Of course not.”
“Stay in Aventil.”
“Absolutely.”
“I mean nothing, Veranix Calbert.” Her eyes were hot and fierce.
He put one hand over his heart, mimicking the form of the school pledge. “Even if someone tries to sell a whole carafe of effitte in front of me.”
She cracked a smile. “Blazes, no, if that happens take him down.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “But it will take that much.”
Chapter 12
VERANIX REALIZED he had never actually been inside the Turnabout before. He had walked past, glanced through the swinging wooden doors, but hadn’t dared to step foot in there. It wasn’t that University students were forbidden, or even ill-treated if they went in. It was understood, though, that the place belonged to the Princes.
The Turnabout had a certain run-down air to it. Not actually shabby or broken, like the Dogs’ Teeth, but a worn, aged feel. Veranix mused that the place might be much the same as it had been when his father had been part of the neighborhood.
The faded wooden menu, hanging up on the wall, with its cracked paint and layer of dust and grease, looked like it had been there since those days as well.
“Eh, brother, you staring or you gonna buy?”
Veranix startled as he was nudged from behind. A couple of guys stood there. Veranix glanced at the tattoos on their arms— these were a couple of Princes.
“Right, yes,” he said, backing away. He went up to the barman and ordered a beer and striker. He glanced back at the two Princes. They had taken no further notice of him. A few moments later he had his meal, and was given a look that he should step away from the counter.
Veranix chose a seat in the far corner, kept his head down. He was amazed how easy keeping his magical disguise remained. He made a point of not relaxing, though. He couldn’t afford to do that, if for no other reason than so he wouldn’t have every eye in the room on him when he suddenly changed appearance.
The place was quite busy, though there was a hushed, subdued feeling to the room. Plenty of Princes kept their eyes on the door, always glancing as if expecting something to happen, someone to walk in at any moment, and prepared to do whatever needed to be done in that moment. From the tattoos, Veranix spotted two captains, but Colin was not there.
Veranix ate quietly, softly coaxing magic to bring snippets of conversation to his ears.
“. . . went down over to Lilac, it’s totally clear, we could make a move . . .”
“It’s clear because the sticks are cracking on Hallaran’s Boys. That ain’t gonna last more than a couple days, just to show them not to move on Uni kids . . .”
“. . . heard Fenmere is cracking every skull he can reach, trying to find the Thorn . . .”
“. . . big score like never seen . . .”
“. . . Fenmere had his boys cracking the Red Rabbits . . .”
“. . . he’s crossing Waterpath?”
“The Thorn did that . . .”
“’Bout time someone did . . .”
Suddenly all the talking stopped, all eyes went to the door. An older man walked in, hair thin and white, but he walked with vigor and vitality, his arms strong and muscular. The Prince tattoo he wore showed stars and diamonds. This was one of the basement bosses.
The two street captains approached immediately, deferential. The boss brushed them off and went to a table. As he sat, the dull murmur of conversation started up again.
Veranix kept his attention on the boss, but other than the barman bringing him a plate of strikers and pie, no one came up and spoke to him. The boss ate silently and, while the rest of the room kept their eyes on him, everyone in the room slowly returned to their old business.
After he had eaten, the boss glanced around, and waved over one of the younger Princes. Veranix was ready to pull the sound to his ears when the boss whispered, “Where’s Colin? Go find him, bring him here for this.” The young Prince ran out the door without question or comment.
Veranix’s curiosity over what “this” was didn’t wait long to be sated. A few moments later, two more men walked in the door. This time, every sound stopped dead. These two men had no tattoos on their arms. Instead they wore dark green vests and caps.
Hallaran’s Boys.
Once Kaiana had cracked the code, the information in the dealer’s journal came easily and clearly. It was a detailed look at the daily operations of the effitte trade, and she was sickened and fascinated by every bit she read. The raw numbers, the sheer amount of money that went in and out, and into Fenmere’s pocket, boggled her.
The crowns Veranix stole from the dealer, that was nothing. Fenmere probably made that ten times over today.
She closed the journal in disgust.
There was a knock on the door of the carriage house.
That wasn’t Vee, he never knocked, on the door at least. Master Jolen never knocked either. No one knocked on her door.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s Delmin Sarren,” came the response. She opened the door to find Veranix’s skinny, string-haired, grinning friend. He was carrying several books. “Remember, we met earlier today.”
“I remember,” she said. “What do you want?”
“Is . . . is he here? He wasn’t at dinner, and he wasn’t in the room, and he wasn’t at the library. He’s never at the library, of course, but that’s where I was and I didn’t see him.” The boy was fidgeting and looking at the floor.
“He’s not,” she said. “Get in here before anyone sees you.”
He cautiously stepped inside, as if not sure that he was really allowed to come in. She shut the door behind him.
“He went into the neighborhood,” she said.
“He’s not . . . he’s not . . .” Delmin let the question hang there, and he waved his hands around as if to pantomime fighting.
“He better not be,” she said. “He didn’t take his gear, just the cloak.”
“Oh.” Delmin looked disappointed, and sat down on one of the benches. “Did he leave the rope?”
“He did,” she said. She remembered the incident in the morning. “You don’t want to touch it again, do you?”
“No, no,” Delmin said quickly. “I just want to see it. Maybe you can tell me, for instance, how much it weighs?”
Kaiana sighed. Magic students. “One click,” she said, and went down into the Spinner Run, coming up with the rope. “I’d say it was five pounds.”
“Five? And how long is it?”
She uncurled it and laid it straight on the floor. “Huh. Ten feet, give or take. It seems like it would be more.”
His eyes went wide. He put the books down and crouched on the ground. He moved over the rope, inches away from it, clearly not daring to actually touch it. “It’s really . . . it’s fascinating to see the numinic flow through and around it.”
“You can really see it?” Veranix never talked about this sort of thing, and she was curious to know more.
“In a way,” Delmin said. “The theory is that the ability to sense the flow of numina is based in the part of the brain connected to the eyes . . .”
“So you interpret that sense visually?”
Delmin’s smile grew wider. “Yes, exactly! I don’t actually see it, I just think I do.” He turned his attention back to the rope, still taking care not to make direct contact. “As far as I can tell, the weave is laced with napranium, spun like thread. Fascinating. How much did Veranix say they were paying for this?”
“Forty thousand crowns.”
“A bargain,” he said. He walked back to his books and thumbed through it. “I’ve been doing research— or trying, at any rate—all afternoon. Information is . . . rare on the subject.”
“Because napranium is rare?”
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“Yes!” He laughed nervously as soon as he said that. “You know, I try to drill this stuff into Veranix’s head, and he never gets it.”
“He has a good, thick skull,” she said. “Good for getting hit, bad for learning.”
“No, he’s—he’s actually very smart. He just doesn’t really get academic discipline. Of course, if he grew up in a traveling circus, that all makes sense. He probably had no formal schooling before coming here.”
“That’s not a bad thing,” Kaiana said icily.
“No, of course not,” Delmin said. He shook his head as if dismissing a thought. “I forgot my point. Napranium! Very rare. Even just a few ounces laced into a five-pound rope would be . . . incredibly expensive. At least in Druthal.”
“But maybe in Poasia it’s more common? Or in the Napolic Islands?”
“Which may explain why the Poasians invaded them back in the war. Not potatoes.” Delmin picked up a notebook and wrote something with his graphite stylus. “Worthy research topic.”
“Did you lose your point again?”
“Yes, I did,” he said. He picked up another book. “Information on napranium is rare, mostly reference to studies done by Tsouljans, Poasians, occasionally Kierans. Druth mystical studies are quite lacking.”
“Do you have a point, Delmin?”
“Yes, I do!” he said. “Or, maybe not. I mean . . . what I’m trying to say, between the rope and the cloak, that’s a lot of napranium. Add in the skill and delicate work necessary to take the raw metal and make it into the rope and the cloak . . . it’s kind of boggling.”
“What’s boggling, exactly?” She realized Delmin was far too excited about many different things to be able to hold coherent conversation, and she needed to help him focus.
“Why?” he responded.
“Why what?”
“Why a rope and a cloak? Why not, say, rings, or bracelets, or a crown? What does it give . . . whoever actually wanted these things in the first place . . . what advantages do those forms of napranium give them?”
“I don’t know,” Kaiana said. She hadn’t thought about that, and she was certain Veranix hadn’t either. He just thought they were useful to him. “Surely not for the same reasons Veranix finds them useful.”
Delmin considered that. “Probably not. But for whoever it is, those specific forms were specifically needed, else why go through the trouble?”
Kaiana didn’t know, but if it involved people who were wrapped up with Fenmere and his business, it couldn’t be good.
“When do you think he’ll be back? Curfew bells are in a couple hours.”
“He’ll probably be back before that,” she said. “He promised he’d stay out of trouble.”
The Turnabout was looking like it was going to become trouble. Two of Hallaran’s Boys, probably captains by the look of them, were in the doorway, and every Rose Street Prince in the place was on their feet, each with a hand reaching for a weapon. Veranix himself instinctively built up a well of numina deep in his gut, ready to burst out if he needed to defend himself.
“Evening, Casey,” one of the Boys said. The boss in the back gave a whistle, and most of the rest of the Princes stood down. The two Prince captains stepped up to the Hallaran’s Boys, arms wide. The Boys returned the gesture, then slowly reached inside their vests. They both pulled out a few blades and placed them on a table.
The Boss—Veranix figured this must be Old Casey—waved them over. They approached slow and easy. Veranix was still filled up with numina; it was starting to buzz at the back of his skull. He knew well enough not to hold onto it in his body too long.
He bled some of it into holding his disguise, some of it into pulling the conversation over to his ears. It took a painful amount of attention, forcing him to bow his head over the table. If anyone had looked over at him, it must have seemed like he was drunk. He barely registered the exchange of posturing pleasantries between Casey and the Boys. He hadn’t noticed Colin coming up to the table until his cousin had spoken.
“Beck, Rile, always a pleasure,” Colin said as he sat down with the two Boys and Old Casey.
“Good old Colin Tyson,” one of them said. “How’s your feet?”
“Still running,” Colin said. “So what’s the noise you’re making?”
“We wanna ask you all. You losing the gates or something?”
“Feh,” Colin said. “Knights of Saint Julian were trying to make a play, I think. We’ll show them to stay on Violet.”
“We didn’t beat up the Uni kid, but we’ve got all the crack from the sticks.”
“Sticks cracking you ain’t our problem, Beck,” Casey said.
“Says you,” Beck said. “They decide to crack us, then it’s all over the neighborhood.”
“Sticks did do a real show of force out there today, boss,” Colin said. “It’ll pass in a day or two. You know that.”
“The Uni kid pointed the sticks at us,” Rile said. “That’s what they say, anyway.”
“Probably a setup,” Colin said. “You didn’t come over here just to mewl like kittens, did you?”
“Shut your face, Tyson.”
“Saying this ain’t nothing but mewling.”
“You want to throw?” Rile was out of his chair.
“I don’t throw with kittens.”
Old Casey barked out, “Colin! Shut it!”
“Sorry, boss.”
“Colin’s right, though. You Boys got a point or something? You wanted the parlay.”
Rile sat back down. “We can handle the blasted sticks. It’s Fenmere’s action bleeding across the ’path, that’s the real problem.”
“That’s happening?” Casey looked to Colin.
“Not business or rustle,” Colin said. “They’re shaking for answers, nothing more.”
“Shaking answers?” Casey asked, his voice rising. Veranix winced, his magicking of the conversation made it blast his ears. “That’s how any bleed starts.”
“They aren’t doing a bleed,” Colin said.
“You know that?”
“They want a guy,” Beck said.
“The guy whose been giving them trouble, what are they calling him?” Casey asked.
“The Thorn,” the two Boys said in unison.
“Right,” Casey said. He turned to Colin. “So who is this guy?”
“Nobody knows,” Colin said. Veranix noticed the twitch in his cousin’s eye when he said that.
“Nobody knows,” Beck echoed, his voice dripping with hostility. “Nobody knows about a guy called ‘the Thorn,’ especially on Rose Street.”
“He ain’t ours!” Colin snapped.
“You sound pretty sure,” Rile said.
“He one of yours, Rile? Maybe he’s living down on Drum.”
Rile chuckled dryly. “Maybe he thrashed the Uni kid.”
Colin did not look amused. “Are we going anywhere with all this, or what?”
“We’ve got trouble,” Beck said. He was looking at the door, where a few more green-capped boys were coming in, looking nervous.
Veranix didn’t think this looked like a brawl about to explode, at least not from the Hallaran’s Boys. The Princes, to the man, were getting on their feet.
“Oy, oy!” one of the Boys said, holding up open hands. “All peace, all peace.”
“We should have done this at the church,” Colin muttered.
Old Casey shook his head. “New priest in charge over there. Doesn’t want to get involved.”
Beck was on his feet. “What’s the noise?”
“Sticks cracking across the neighborhood.” Veranix noticed one of the Boys had a gash across his skull.
“How bad?” Colin asked. More Princes had come to the door. Despite the uneasy looks between all the Princes and Boys, no one moved against the other.<
br />
“They’re in groups of four, with wagons,” said a Prince. “They’ve been grabbing anyone on the street they see.”
“Anyone with a green cap, you mean,” said a Boy.
“Not from what I saw.”
Voices were rising, Princes and Boys were getting nose to nose, pointing fingers at each other. Beck and Rile were racing over to pull their guys away from the Princes.
Colin swore and looked around the room. Veranix hadn’t realized how intently he must have been paying attention to his cousin until Colin was staring hard back at him. “What’s your problem, stranger?”
Veranix flushed with panic. His disguise rippled and fell. Colin’s eyes went wide and he jumped from his chair. Before anyone else reacted, Veranix focused his magic to disappearing. Colin was on his feet, charging over to Veranix’s table.
Veranix ducked and rolled away to a far corner, long gone by the time Colin reached the table.
“Colin, what—” Old Casey snapped.
“There was—there . . .” Colin looked around. “I thought I saw something.”
Old Casey walked over to Colin, cuffing him across the head. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing, boss,” Colin said.
“Get this mess cleaned up.” Casey pointed over to the door. “Next the sticks will come cracking in here, and that’s something we don’t need.”
“Right,” Colin said. He went over to the crowd at the door. “Hey, hey! Rile! Beck!”
Colin started bullying the Hallaran’s Boys, and Veranix slowly crept across the room, doing his best not to make a sound. He figured he could sneak out to the block’s backhouses. The Turnabout, like most of Aventil, hadn’t built water closets yet, and from that lot he should be able to cut through a flop or scramble over a wall to the next street over.
Chapter 13
COLIN HAD NO idea what Veranix was playing at. Hitting Fenmere in such a loud and public way was stupid enough. Colin knew damn well this story of the jumped Uni boy was Veranix trying to cover his tracks. Blaming Hallaran’s Boys for it, that was creative.
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