by Juliet Kemp
Or, not exactly talk about his flickers. That didn’t feel like a good idea at all. He wasn’t sure how reliable Beckett would be about keeping secrets. Did they have any idea about that sort of thing? About human notions of privacy? Jonas couldn’t quite work out how to ask that, either.
He took a deep breath, and looked over at the cityangel. Former cityangel. They weren’t looking at the floor any more; they were looking at the wall across the room, instead. There was no real expression on Beckett’s face; yet somehow they looked austere, distant. Then Beckett turned to meet Jonas’ eyes and Jonas rocked back on his chair, hit by the depths of the distress in Beckett’s gaze.
Hundreds of years as Marek’s cityangel? Spirits had similar emotional experiences to humans, in Jonas’ limited experience. But the spirits he’d met, or heard of other ships meeting, had been engaging directly in the world. Beckett – hadn’t been. Not for three hundred years. They had been elsewhere, part of the city, or maybe everywhere in the city, doing something else. Watching humans live their lives, without exactly living a life of their own. And now that was all gone.
Three hundred years.
Jonas swallowed, and reminded himself of his priorities right now. That was three hundred years in which Beckett might have heard or seen something about flickers, or something, anything like them. Any information would be more than he had currently, and if he was lucky it might be a lot more than that. If he got on and asked, he could also get on and get out of here, and away from all of this.
“So,” he asked, going for brightly and falling a fair ways short. How could he possibly bring this up? “Asa was telling me, the other day, about how Rufus Marek and Eli Beckett discovered this place. Which, I’m guessing, you were there?”
Beckett didn’t exactly flinch, but something happened in their eyes, and Jonas felt even more like a shit. But he forged onwards. No point in backing out now.
“But she was telling me that Eli Beckett had some kind of vision or something that they were following. I reckoned that was bullshit. Has to be, right? Visions, that’s got to be a myth. But Asa was pretty insistent. And then I thought, maybe you would know.”
Beckett was silent. Jonas began to wonder if they were even listening. He’d run out of other things to say, though, and while he was wondering, Beckett shifted slightly where they were leaning against the wall, and Jonas realised that they were thinking.
“If Eli Beckett had a vision, it was not of my doing,” Beckett said, eventually. “Certainly they, both of them, knew where it was they were going. And they knew what to do when they got here.” Beckett’s gaze was even more distant, now. “I did not expect… Well. It was a deal with advantages on both sides, in the end.”
A deal which, according to the stories, had either cost Eli Beckett’s life, or which he had purely coincidentally not lived beyond seeing, depending on which version you heard. Jonas wasn’t particularly tempted to ask about that. He didn’t think he wanted to know.
“So the vision thing, that’s horseshit, then?”
“I did not send any visions. I was not, before then, particularly interested in humans. I did not say the visions did not exist.”
Jonas’ heart rate quickened. “Prophecies and things like that? They’re real?” He tried to sound scathing, disbelieving.
“What is and is not real?” Beckett said. “I sent ideas to humans, sometimes, myself. When I needed something from them.”
“What, you put things into their minds?”
Beckett shrugged. “You could say that. Ideas. Images. In all truth I do not know how they seemed to the receivers. And the effects varied.”
“Ideas of the future? Do you know the future, then?” Despite himself Jonas was a little awestruck. Yes, sometimes he saw a little bit of the future – though he tried not to think of his flickers that way more often than he could help – but it never felt like knowing. It was rather more uncomfortable than that.
“No,” Beckett said, definitively. “I know the future no more than anyone else. But I could create an image of something I wished to come about, and that – sometimes, not always – had the desired effect. Encouragement. Encouragement to seek something or to create something. Something to strive towards.” Their face was almost animated. “Something to make Marek better, more as it should be.”
But Jonas’ images weren’t of things that he could endeavour to create or to achieve or to seek out. They were more like warnings.
“So you couldn’t warn people, like if something bad was coming?”
Beckett shrugged. “I could, indeed, if I saw possibilities arising that I did not like. But I did not foretell the future, any more than anyone else who sees something and sees what it may lead to. Perhaps my knowledge was more complete, is all.”
None of this, how Beckett was talking about their own future-sight, and how they were talking about sending ideas to others, quite matched Jonas’ experience. But then, his flickers had been happening since he was a kid, and he’d only been in Marek six months. So it couldn’t be Beckett having anything to do with them anyway. It was just information he wanted, and it didn’t sound like Beckett had any useful information for him. But then, Beckett was still spirit, and if this was a spirit thing, not a cityangel thing…
“Can all spirits do this, then?”
“I cannot – I believe I could not, now,” Beckett said, and that aching sorrow was back in their voice. “Other spirits – I do not know. Spirits have only very occasionally been in Marek, ever, until now. And I have always been in Marek. And I do not remember, before. But perhaps.”
Perhaps. Well, that was a bit further on than he’d been before. Jonas tried to swallow down his disappointment. Perhaps, then, he needed another spirit to talk to, but how the hell was he going to do that?
Of course, there was one other spirit who was definitely around Marek now, according to the flicker he’d had back at the embassy. But trying to get in touch with the new cityangel without knowing anything about it – in all honesty, trying deliberately to get in touch with it at all – felt like lunacy. And Reb had already said she didn’t know much about spirits. That’s why they’d gone to find Cato.
Cato knew about spirits. And Cato was just a sorcerer, not a spirit himself. Cato had disappeared, so Jonas could hardly speak to him, either. Dammit. This was just one dead-end after another. He bit the inside of his cheek, hard.
“Why, then, do you ask?” Beckett said, looking very directly at him.
Jonas hadn’t expected Beckett to ask. He hadn’t expected Beckett to be paying enough attention to the ways in which human minds operated to think to ask. Not only that, but… from Beckett’s expression, they had something in mind. Jonas felt a lurch of panic.
“I just – something someone said to me,” he said, trying to look innocent. What had he said in the first place? “My friend Asa was telling me stories, like I said.”
Beckett tipped their head to one side slightly, looking almost birdlike with their thin narrow face. “It seems to me that there might be more to you than you have admitted.”
Jonas’ stomach dropped.
“In Cato’s rooms,” Beckett said. They made half a gesture, then stopped. “I could have found out, for myself, once. I could feel sorcery.” And shit, that wasn’t at all creeping Jonas out, no. “In this place, in this body…” Beckett continued. “Are you too a sorcerer, Jonas?”
“No!” Jonas said. His flickers didn’t make him a sorcerer. Salinas folk weren’t sorcerers. Whatever had happened in Cato’s room was just weird, or coincidence, or… Beckett was still looking at him. Shit.
The door of the inner room opened, and Reb came out, looking mildly frustrated.
“Simple charms work, as far as I can tell. But that’s – that’s just the basics. If someone scattered milkseed and called on the cityangel for a blessing, that kind of thing. Nothing that’s really sorcery. There’s a response, that’s all I can tell. It feels a bit off, but I can’t pin that down, and I
certainly don’t know if anything more specific will work. I daren’t try without someone to ground me.”
She eyed both of them thoughtfully. “I can’t use a spirit…”
Jonas jumped to his feet, alarmed. “I gotta go. Work. Been off a whole day now. Dinner to pay for. I’ll be back, yeah?”
He slid out of the door before Reb could marshal any objection. No way was he getting involved in any magic. Not after what Beckett had just said about what had gone down in Cato’s room. It must have been Beckett, whatever they said. It had to have been.
Another dead end. Dammit. At this rate he’d be in Marek for another year.
Would that really be so bad?
He was supposed to be going home. He’d promised his mother he’d be home. And he wanted rid of these bloody flickers. He needed a solution, and he wasn’t getting anywhere.
He took off at a run for the market, hoping to shake answers out from the pounding of his feet against the street; or at least to find a couple of good jobs and something to eat.
TEN
Marcia raced down to the ferry-dock, but when she got there, she saw with frustration that it had just left, already halfway over towards the foot of Marekhill. If she waited, she’d be even later. She’d have to go round by Old Bridge. And run. This was absolutely the last thing she needed. What she needed was to keep hold of this project, as part of the process of gaining more responsibility and proving to Madeleine that she was capable of being a more useful part of the House. That Madeleine could start letting go. Being late to a meeting was an utter disaster as far as all of that went. She gritted her teeth and started along the riverside path at speed.
She was hot, sweaty, and out of breath by the time she reached the House; and she still had to change into appropriate clothes. Which did at least give her a chance to splash some cold water on her face and catch her breath. In an ideal world she would have notes to review. Then again, in an ideal world she wouldn’t be late already.
When she finally made it into the receiving room, both Gavin Leandra, and a younger man she didn’t know, facing away from the door, were already there with Madeleine.
Madeleine’s knee-length day tunic and loose trousers were in a pale blue with the House colours along the bottom of the tunic; the colour brought out her blue eyes and brown skin.
Madeleine’s face tightened slightly as she turned to face Marcia, but she showed no other outward signs of annoyance. Marcia suppressed her own wince. She was going to hear about this later.
“Marcia. At last.”
“I am so sorry, Mama. Head Leandra. I was unavoidably detained.”
“Well, we are all here now,” Madeleine said graciously, though Marcia could hear the bite underlying her voice. “This is Urso Leanvit, a cousin of House Leandra.”
The other guest turned and Marcia’s stomach flipped. Urso. Urso who she’d last seen on top of Marekhill, with Daril and Cato. Did he know she’d been there? She pasted her social smile on and murmured the appropriate pleasantries. Urso returned them. There was no indication in his eyes, none at all, that he knew. Had Cato kept it secret that she’d been there? And what did that mean, in terms of Cato’s involvement with all of this?
And what about the political implications? Why was this cousin here with Gavin Leandra? Madeleine had invited no secretary to this meeting; which didn’t mean that Gavin wouldn’t, but did rather suggest that Urso had a more prominent role. In any other House, Marcia would have expected the Heir to come, to match her own House’s attendance. She blinked. Or, perhaps, one being groomed for Heirship. Had Gavin Leandra finally given up altogether on Daril? Was he out for a replacement?
“So,” Madeleine said. “To business.”
She seated herself, and the others followed suit. Marcia was at one end of a sofa from Urso Leanvit. Madeleine preferred to conduct her business meetings in cushioned comfort, rather than at office tables, but it didn’t make her any the less sharp.
“We are all aware that Salinas shipping rates went up significantly in the last two years,” Madeleine began.
Marcia nodded. “There was the big storm, that must have cost them a lot. And the poor trade year before that.”
“Which cost all of us,” Madeleine said, with an edge to her voice. “And yet they continue to squeeze more out of us.”
Marcia frowned. “Shipping costs, though, no? I haven’t seen the charges as excessive.” She didn’t see what Madeleine was getting at. For certain, trading without Salinas rates would be more profitable, but they’d just demonstrated with that wretched expedition that there was no alternative. Leandra and Fereno working together might be able to negotiate a better rate with Salina, or some other kind of deal, she could see that; but whipping themselves into irritation about the situation was hardly going to make anyone a better negotiator, nor help them find the best options to offer, nor yet squeezes they might be able to put on.
“Salina makes too much of its monopoly of transport,” Gavin Leandra said, leaning forwards. “They charge what they like, simply because there is no one else.”
“For a trading city, a city that relies so strongly on trade, it passes understanding that we are reliant on another nation for all of our transport,” Urso put in, nodding.
Marcia frowned, baffled. “But this has been the case for time out of mind, no? The Salinas take the burden and risk of the transport. We can focus on the trade, and on bringing goods here from Teren to trade around the Oval Sea, and vice versa.” And Marek had been doing very nicely on that, and on other exchanges, since its founding.
“The fact that it has always been the case does not mean that it always needs to continue,” Urso said, with a slight smirk. “We could realise far more of the profit if we were conducting that trade for ourselves. As a trader myself, I can assure you that there is scope for this.”
Ah, so that was his angle. Individual traders were not quite House-status, even though the Houses themselves traded, but in the circumstances Gavin might value the expertise enough to overlook that, if Urso was prepared to roll his own operation into that of the House. Madeleine was frowning almost imperceptibly; was she chasing the same chain of thought?
“Marek’s trade goods are renowned for their quality, and yet the city’s income decreases year on year,” Urso continued. “Of course, the market pays what it will. And yet my information is that prices for Marek-made goods have not fallen elsewhere – in the Kingdoms, for example.”
“No,” Madeleine said, the syllable dropping sharply. “It is the overheads which increase.”
“Now, it is true, as Fereno-Heir says, that the Salinas have had a difficult year,” Urso said. “And they do provide a very reliable service. But if there were to be an alternative, well.” He sat back a little and spread his hands. “In due course, costs would have to fall. And one might consider the fact that an alternative shipping service that handled only the shorter routes would not need to subsidise the longer ones.”
“But who is to provide this alternative?” Marcia asked, restraining herself from rolling her eyes. This was all very well, but it was simply idle speculation. For this she had raced back across the city? “We are not a seafaring city.” Marek had fishing boats, but nothing that could do even the shorter routes across the Oval Sea. “Hence the attempt to find an overland route, but we now know that is not feasible. I have been considering further negotiations with the Salinas…” Should she mention her discussion with Kia the night before? Perhaps not yet.
“Which,” Gavin Leandra said, “is why we must seek further alternatives. Ships that are not under Salinas control. Ships of our own.”
Madeleine was nodding. Marcia opened her mouth to argue, then thought better of it and closed it again. Clearly she was the least-informed person in the room. Equally clearly, Madeleine would expect her daughter to back her – especially in front of House Leandra.
Instead, she said, “Hm. So, we are to build a shipyard? An ambitious plan. And expensive.” Did they eve
n have shipwrights here who could build ocean-going vessels?
“Too slow,” Gavin Leandra said, with an impatient wave of his hand.
Marcia frowned.
“One of the initial steps will be to confiscate a proportion of the ships currently in dock,” Madeleine said, as casually as if that were something she might propose every day.
Marcia sat forward, horrified. “Confiscate Salinas ships? Under what pretext?” And with what reaction?
Madeleine shrugged. “I am sure we can come up with some appropriate way of tightening docking regulations. Salina has been bleeding us dry for far too long.”
Marcia bit back the immediate response that rose to her lips. This was insanity! But there must be something she was missing. Madeleine could hardly be so cavalier if she didn’t believe that there was a way to do this without Salina treating it as an act of war.
“You think the Council will vote for this?” she asked. Surely the Council would not be so foolish? Even if many of them were annoyed with Salina currently?
Madeleine shrugged. “They will agree with our action once the advantages are clear.”
Urso smiled knowingly. “And it is always better to get forgiveness than permission, am I not correct? Who at the dockyards will doubt the authority of Houses Fereno and Leandra, especially backed up by the City Guard?”
The Guard was involved? Well. The Guard, doubtless, would take the word of Leandra-Head and Fereno-Head. More so, given their customary and well-known antipathy; surely they would not both be involved in anything that did not have the backing of the full Council. Marcia bit the inside of her cheek.
“Once it has happened, well, what is the Council to do but agree?” Gavin Leandra said. “They will benefit as much as we do; and we both,” he nodded at Madeleine, “have a sufficiency of allies in the Chamber.”
It was true, as well. That antipathy again. It was all Marcia could do not to curse aloud. This was stupid.
“And the Salinas reaction…” she said, trying for a tone of interest wrapped with practical concern.
