Gabriel's City

by Laylah Hunter

  She is a northlander, with ashen blonde hair drawn back off her pale face and slate gray eyes. There are worry lines at the corners of her mouth that grow more obvious when she speaks. “You always are, these days.” Her accent clips the words in strange ways, and Colin has to listen hard to be sure he understands her. “I remember when you used to come see me without the Lady on your shoulder.”

  “Sorry.” Gabriel shifts his weight—and then has to clutch at the doorjamb for balance. Colin reaches out instinctively to steady him, and catches a faint softening of Deirdre’s expression.

  “I’ll have time enough to scold you later, won’t I? Come in before you let out all the heat.” She steps back, opening the door further. “I’ve not seen you around here before,” she says to Colin. “Who are you, then?”

  Colin barely hesitates. “Drake,” he says. “I’m . . . I met Gabriel last night.”

  Deirdre nods, but Colin can’t read her expression. He follows Gabriel into the house, through the dark front room and back to the kitchen, where south-facing windows let in enough light to keep it from seeming completely dismal. There’s a fire in the stove, and a table in the middle of the room with benches on either side. A plate on the table still has a bit of brown bread and hard cheese on it.

  “Well?” Deirdre puts a pot of water on the stove and tosses in a handful of herbs. “Let’s see what trouble you’ve brought round this time.”

  Gabriel kicks off his boots and unties the laces of his trousers, letting them fall without any care for decency. The blood comes from a raw, ugly wound in the back of his thigh—the bolt must not have really sunk home, but it’s nasty enough. He’s even thinner than Colin thought, skin stretched taut over sinew and bone, and he’s marked with other faded, white scars.

  “You’ve no sense at all,” Deirdre says, crouching beside him and inspecting the wound. “Walked on this all the way here to make it worse, didn’t you?”

  “Ran, most of the way,” Gabriel says. “And jumped.”

  Deirdre shakes her head, and opens a cabinet to pull down a brown glass bottle. “There you go. Have a drink, if you’re going to want it.”

  Gabriel doesn’t take the bottle. “Let’s just do it. Drake’s hurt too, and he doesn’t do this all the time.” The particularities of Colin being a dragon seem to slip Gabriel’s mind rather conveniently when things get serious.

  “All right,” Deirdre sighs. “Down you go. Let’s get this over with.” She fetches some cloth and a needle and thread from another cabinet as Gabriel stretches out on his stomach across the nearest bench. She dips the cloth in the pot on the stove and wipes the blood from his skin, then picks up the needle. “Now. I’ll do my best to be quick, and you do your best to be still.” It almost sounds as though it’s meant to be a joke, as though neither of them needs to be told how this routine goes.

  “Come talk to me, Drake,” Gabriel says. “I hate this part.”

  Colin kneels on the floor beside him—and almost reaches out to touch his shoulder, but loses his nerve at the last moment. “I’m sorry I got you into that,” he says, wincing in sympathy when Gabriel grimaces at the first bite of the needle. “I hope those guys don’t give you any more trouble.”

  “If we’re lucky, your friend the, ah, captain rounded them up.” Gabriel’s voice is tight, but doesn’t shake. “Then they won’t be, ow, trouble for either of us anymore.”

  “He’s that bad, is he?” Colin says. The thought isn’t terribly reassuring.

  “Told you, didn’t I? Nastiest dog in the city.” Gabriel squeezes his eyes shut and grunts, his hands clenching white-knuckled around the edge of the bench, and then he takes a deep breath and continues. “Nobody ever comes back once the captain’s got them.”

  “What happens to them?” Colin asks against his better judgment. Captain Westfall seemed so reasonable, so polite, at the party yesterday evening—a bit rakish, maybe, but civilized. He was nearly a different person this morning.

  Gabriel stares at Colin curiously. “They hang. Eventually.” He swallows another little injured sound. “Do they not have hangings where you come from?”

  Colin glances up and catches Deirdre watching him; Gabriel might have a head full of fancy, but she probably has little doubt where he comes from. “I’ve never seen one,” he says. He supposes that the way Gabriel means it, he does come from a place where they don’t happen.

  “Maybe we’ll go see the next one,” Gabriel says. Colin hopes the Maiden will have more mercy on him than that—he’d rather just go home, if he can manage it. “We can see if the hounds really did catch up with the men who were after you.”

  Deirdre finishes with her needle, sparing Colin the awkwardness of responding. “There,” she says to Gabriel as she leans back. “You know how to take care of that, with as many times as it’s been. And don’t strain it while it mends, for light and mercy.”

  Gabriel looks at least a bit chastised. “I’ll be careful. I wouldn’t want to waste your hard work.”

  “Or your health, you silly boy,” Deirdre says as Gabriel gets up gingerly off the bench. She turns to Colin. “All right, Drake. What do you have for me?”

  “If you don’t mind,” Colin says as he peels off his coat, “I think I’d like that drink first.”

  “Help yourself,” Deirdre says, though she doesn’t offer a glass.

  It feels a bit like admitting he’s not so tough as Gabriel, to take the drink, but that’s true, isn’t it? And he’s never been hurt so badly that he needed stitches before. He uncorks the bottle and lifts it, breathing in the sharp scent of whiskey as he raises it to his lips.

  It’s not bracing, like he hoped it would be. Instead he just feels dizzy as the heat of the whiskey slides down his throat to burst in his stomach. He clutches the edge of the table and wishes he were home. “There isn’t any way you could do this without stitches, is there?”

  “Won’t know until I see it,” Deirdre says. “Take your shirt off, please.”

  Colin unlaces his cuffs and collar and pulls his shirt off slowly. The cotton peels away from his skin reluctantly, stinging where it’s stuck to the edges of his wound. He straddles the bench and raises his arm so Deirdre can take a look.

  “Sharing Gabriel’s luck, are you?” She wipes his skin with a warm, wet cloth. It would be soothing if he didn’t hurt so rotting much. “A little lower and this could have gone deep. All he had to do was miss your ribs.”

  “I don’t f-feel especially lucky right now, but I’ll take your word for it.” Colin’s teeth are chattering, though it’s not really that cold in here, with the fire.

  “Gabriel’s luck, I said. Remarkable, but not easy.” She touches Colin’s side carefully, her fingertips brushing the skin on either side of the wound. “I’m still going to have to stitch this up if you want it to heal clean instead of taking rot.”

  Colin grimaces. “Do what you have to, then.” He tries to think about his breathing, about staying calm.

  “Here,” Gabriel says, sitting down in front of him. “Look at me, Drake. First time, isn’t it?”

  Colin nods. Of course it’s obvious.

  Gabriel’s gaze wanders over Colin’s bare chest and stomach, and Colin fights the urge to cover himself. He has nothing to be ashamed of, but Gabriel looks at him much too intently. “You have no scars at all. What kind of life is that?”

  “A comfortable one,” Colin says, “where nobody tries to kill you just for—” Deirdre’s needle bites into his skin, and he chokes on the words. It’s worse—much worse—than being cut in the first place, the needle pushing into flesh that already aches. “Mother’s blood,” Colin swears, squeezing his eyes shut. He feels like he might be sick.

  “It’ll make you better, Drake,” Gabriel says softly, fiercely. “Hold on, and look at me.”

  Deirdre takes another stitch, and Colin whimpers as she pulls the thread taut. When he manages to open his eyes again, Gabriel looks so nervous that Colin would probably try to say something reas
suring if he dared to open his mouth. He can stand this, can’t he? He can—

  Darkness rises up around him the next time the needle pushes in, and there’s a roaring in his ears that covers up the words someone is trying to say, and his eyes flutter shut again as he slides down into the dark.

  When Colin wakes, he doesn’t know where he is. His right side aches, and he feels stiff, like he’s been sleeping in an awkward position for a while. He sits up, and a blanket slides off his shoulders, leaving him bare-chested in the cool air. He reaches down, prods gingerly at his side, and finds the row of tight, coarse stitches just above his bottom-most rib. They hurt worse when he touches them, and he swallows hard.

  Deirdre. Gabriel. Captain Westfall treating him like he was no better than the toughs who’d attacked him.

  There must be a way out of this.

  Colin stands up carefully, trying not to pull his stitches. It appears they left him in the kitchen, rather than try to move him. Neither his coat nor his shirt are at hand, but he can hear voices from the other room. He pauses in the doorway, just out of sight, and listens.

  “. . . would have thought he’d run right then,” Deirdre says.

  “Run?” Gabriel echoes. “Never. Drake helped.”

  “Now you’re telling tales. One of his kind?”

  Gabriel makes a soft sound that Colin thinks is laughter. “I didn’t know what to expect. I’ve never known one of his kind.”

  Deirdre sighs. “Haven’t you?”

  “No.” There’s a pause, and Colin realizes that he’s waiting to hear if Gabriel will say anything more in his defense. Which is ridiculous.

  He steps through the doorway. Deirdre and Gabriel are sitting by the fireplace in the front room, which provides nearly as much light as the north window. Colin wonders how long he slept.

  Gabriel straightens when he walks in. “Drake. You’re feeling better.”

  That’s sort of an appalling overstatement, Colin thinks. He’s lost, hungry, injured, and cold, and he needs to stop this now before the trouble gets any worse. “I want to go home.”

  The way Gabriel’s face falls almost makes him sorry. “You can’t,” Gabriel protests. “You can’t go now, Drake. We’ve only just begun.”

  “I have to.” Colin tries to choose his words carefully, so they’ll fit into Gabriel’s mad fancies. “I don’t belong here, Gabriel. You saw that right away, didn’t you? Already I’m being hunted. I should go back to . . . my own kind.”

  “We’ll hide you,” Gabriel offers. “I know all the best hiding places in the city. The hunters will never catch you if you stay with me.”

  Colin glances to Deirdre for help. She must know better than to encourage this. “You can’t go anywhere as you are now,” she says. “At the very least, you should come eat something while your clothes finish drying. It’ll help you get your strength back.”

  The thought of food makes Colin’s stomach growl, and he crosses his arms over his stomach sheepishly. This morning’s honey cake wasn’t much to break his fast, and last night’s supper might as well have happened in another lifetime. “I’d be grateful.”

  Deirdre nods. “Come on, then. We’ll get you fed and then we’ll talk about what you’ve planned for after.”

  “There’s nothing to plan,” Colin mutters, but he goes. Gabriel gets up from the fire and follows, still favoring his left leg. Colin tries not to meet his eyes when they sit down on opposite sides of Deirdre’s table, because the hurt in them doesn’t seem fair.

  “You can start with this,” Deirdre says, setting a little round loaf of bread and a thin wedge of cheese between them. “But midday’s come and gone, so I’m guessing you’ll want a bigger meal than that.”

  “Yes,” Colin says, reaching for the knife, and then remembers his manners enough to add, “if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “You can bring payment next time you’re here,” she says, but there’s a twist to her expression, behind Gabriel’s back, that makes it clear she doesn’t expect to see him again.

  “I’ll be sure to do that.” He cuts some bread and cheese for himself, and then some for Gabriel, too. Gabriel takes it without a word. The silence between them is uncomfortable as they eat. Deirdre puts something on the stove. The bread is dry, and the cheese earthier than Colin prefers, but his mouth waters all the same. It seems being hungry enough can make even plain fare appetizing.

  As he’s finishing the bread and cheese, Deirdre sets down a bowl in front of him, full of steaming porridge with scraps of dried apple scattered over the top. “Maybe it’s no lord’s dinner,” she says, “but it’ll keep you, won’t it?”

  Colin feels like the prince in a nursery tale again, his cheeks hot. “Of course. Thank you for all your care.”

  Deirdre nods, as though he’s just passed a test, as though she really is a witch with the power to turn an ungrateful boy’s bones to powder.

  “How do you know so much about Drake’s kind?” Gabriel asks. Deirdre sets a bowl down in front of him, too. “Thank you.”

  “I worked for some of them when I was first brought to the south.” Her tone is clipped and final, her gray eyes cold and flat when Colin dares to meet them. He can guess what she’s not saying outright. Almost all of the servants of Casmile’s landed gentry are property. So she either won her freedom somehow, or escaped her master, or . . . The challenge in her stare makes him blush and drop his eyes.

  “You know all the important things,” Gabriel says, stirring his porridge, burying the apple pieces. “You should explain to Drake why he can’t go away.”

  Deirdre hums thoughtfully, sitting down with her own bowl. “He might still be able to,” she says. Gabriel makes an outraged little noise, but she doesn’t pay it any attention. “Though I’d be surprised. You’ve killed a man, haven’t you, Drake?”

  Colin puts down his spoon. “Maybe two.” It’s almost worse that he can’t say for sure.

  “One that his lordship the captain is certain of, though?” she asks. When Colin glances up, she’s smiling wryly. “You’re only guilty of the ones the law knows about.”

  “Probably one, then.” He doesn’t feel so hungry anymore, thinking of it.

  “He’s so fierce in a fight,” Gabriel adds. “He tries to hold back, but once you make him angry enough—”

  “I’m nothing like that,” Colin protests. He’s not the killer Gabriel wants him to be, not really. He’s a boy who walked into the wrong tavern last night and wishes on the Maiden’s eyes that he could take it back now.

  “Whether you are or not,” Deirdre says, holding up a hand to stop Gabriel from arguing, “you’ve killed a man that Westfall knows of. And Gabriel says he called you by name.”

  Arhon’s rotting shroud, how much worse can his luck get? “He did,” Colin admits.

  “Then you’d best be careful.” Deirdre has a stare like a hawk’s, sharp featured and merciless. Looking at her, Colin can believe that women of the northlands go to battle with their men. “He’ll know where to find you. He’ll know who would shelter you. And you can bet he’d love a chance to make it clear that even the highborn are still subject to the law.”

  Colin laughs weakly, but it feels like a bad bluff and sounds worse. “He wouldn’t. He’s a— We know each other. I was at supper with him just last night. I’ve danced with his wife. It’s not . . .” He trails off, not sure whom he’s trying to convince. Certainly this morning it didn’t seem like any of that mattered.

  “You could be right,” Deirdre says, shrugging. She doesn’t look as though she cares much, one way or the other. “But watch your back. And if he comes looking for you, don’t expect any mercy.”

  “Thank you,” Colin makes himself say. He pushes away his half-eaten bowl of porridge. “For the advice and—for everything. But I should be going. Before it gets any later.”

  “No,” Gabriel says, getting up. “Haven’t you been listening? It’s not safe to leave, Drake.”

  “Hush,” Deirdre says.
“He’ll come back. He just has to go away first to know why.” Her tone sounds like a threat, but Colin’s grateful all the same. Gabriel believes in her, so let her tell what lies she will, if it means he can walk out of here.

  Gabriel glares at him. “I’m not going to show you the way back.”

  Colin rolls his eyes. “Then I’ll find the way myself.” If he just walks north, he’ll find the river, won’t he? “Thanks for the help. This morning.”

  “See you soon,” Gabriel answers, or maybe demands.

  “Farewell,” Colin says. It seems polite.

  Neither of them follows him when he goes into the front room to recover his clothes. His shirt is dry, and the blood mostly washed out of the cotton; only a faint dark stain around the gash torn by the knife remains. Pulling it on is tricky work, with his stitches tight and aching, but he manages, and the fire-warmed cloth feels good against his skin. His coat’s still damp, but he doesn’t plan to stay here until dark, waiting for it to dry. One of the pockets is ruined, but if he goes home needing only a new coat and some time to heal, then his luck isn’t entirely gone after all.

  There’s a heavy weight in the right pocket when he pulls his coat back on. He reaches in, and draws out the brass knuckles that Gabriel gave him the night before. They’ve been carefully cleaned so there’s not a trace of blood on them, and the metal shines softly in the firelight. Colin stares at them for a long moment, picturing Gabriel sitting here by the fire with a polishing cloth. He shakes his head to clear it, and sets the brass knuckles on the mantel. He’ll have enough reminders of this adventure without them.

  He has nothing left to say to either Deirdre or Gabriel, so he doesn’t try, only lets himself out onto the street. The chill that came in last night still hangs over the city, and the light feels weak and wintry. Colin shivers. He’ll have to hurry to get back to the right side of the river before sundown.

  He finds his way north by trial and error, keeping the sun mostly to his left. He doesn’t have Gabriel’s luck or knowledge of these streets, and turns down blind alleys more than once. But in time he reaches a street wide and well-maintained enough that it seems likely not to give out on him. A bit further north he’ll reach Bank Street, and even if he doesn’t find a carriage there, he can cross any of the bridges to try his luck on Market.