Heroes at Risk

by Moore, Moira J.

  It couldn’t be the bread. I refused to believe Ben had baked niyacin powder, which he knew I reacted badly to, into bread that he had then calmly watched me eat. That was unbelievably cold-blooded. And why would he do it? He had never shown anything but reverence for Sources and Shields.

  There had to be another explanation.

  Cree was packing the last of her things. “I am having a dinner,” she said. “All of the guests are people you know. I expect your attendance as payment for my services.”

  Really, we didn’t have to pay her, but I tried not to be an ungrateful wench when I could help it. “Be honored,” I said.

  “Thank you so much for all you’ve done,” Taro added. “We’re aware of the significance.”

  “Are you?” she asked.

  “We are.”

  She had either cast a spell, or had pretended to cast a spell. Which it was wouldn’t matter to the law. She had put an enormous amount of trust in us, trust we hadn’t earned.

  “Good. I will write to you about the details. And Shintaro, while I understand your desire to attend to Dunleavy, your body experienced something traumatic last night. You need rest, too. Share the burden. Understood?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good. Let me know if there are any further problems.”

  “Thank you,” I called out as she left, not sure if she heard me, my voice was so weak.

  I pushed the blankets aside and dragged my legs over the side of the bed. They were heavy and barely felt like they were attached to me, just dead loads I needed to shift around with other parts of my body.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Taro demanded.

  “Bath.”

  “You need sleep.”

  “Bath first.” And then something to eat, and then sleep. I was disgusting, filthy, in every crack and crevice. If I weren’t so tired, my state of filthiness would have been making me crazy. I felt like I hadn’t been clean in months.

  “Lee.”

  “Bath,” I insisted.

  “Fine, then.” He took me by the shoulders to pull me from the bed.

  It was Taro’s bedroom. I wouldn’t call Taro a vain lad, unless I was trying to wind him up, but he did have more mirrors than I did. So I got a good look at myself that I could have done without.

  Those orange streaks were all over my face and throat, all over my body bizarre patterns with no regularity. There were cleaner bits around my eyes, cleaner strips down my cheeks. And the substance, whatever it was, had gotten into my hair, creating clumps and patches all around my face. I looked demonic. “What is it?”

  “You were bleeding, Lee. It was coming out through your skin.” Taro shuddered. “I’d never seen anything like it. I thought you were bleeding to death right in front of me.” He took a few slow breaths. “Then Cree poured that stuff all over you, and I guess it turned the blood orange.”

  How thoroughly disgusting. I could have done just fine without knowing any of that.

  I hated mirrors.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Bathing turned out to be an unanticipated exercise in brute force, the garbage on my skin proving to be somewhat resistant to soap and water. The water, being cold, was little help until Firth, bless her, brought up two kettles full of hot water. That made shifting the orange sludge a little easier. And then Taro washed my hair, which felt almost luxurious. All the effort was worth it—it was wonderful to finally be clean—but it was exhausting, and by the time we were done I was too tired to eat.

  When we moved back to Taro’s bed, the linens had been changed, and Taro curled around me. I felt comfortable and safe. I slept.

  It was night again when I woke, and I was ravenous. Taro was still asleep beside me, and I was tempted to rejoin him, but at this point my hunger was almost overpowering.

  My exit from the bed was not graceful, but Taro didn’t stir. Lords, I was so tired, feeling weighed down just everywhere. But hunger could provide great motivation.

  The residence wasn’t as quiet as it usually was. When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard a gaggle of voices from the parlor, and it was so rare to have so many of the Pairs in the house at the same time that I was drawn away from the kitchen.

  Beatrice and Benedict weren’t there. On watch at the Stall, no doubt. But all the others were, talking about the disaster that had happened the day before. Apparently more people had died than the collapse of the bridge had really warranted, simply because of the lack of organization in the rescue and relief efforts.

  Maybe if Cree had been there, she’d have been able to do some real good.

  I wasn’t going to think about that yet.

  “Dunleavy!” Firth cried out, putting aside a cup of tea. “You look awful.”

  Her Shield gave an amused eye roll at that. “Have a seat, Mallorough. We have some soup on the stove. I’ll get you a bowl.”

  What was going on with those two? Wasn’t I still a sexual deviant? Or had my trials of the day before cleansed away the perversion from my activities?

  Manners prodded me to object. I didn’t. The walk to the kitchen, after the trek down the stairs, seemed an impossible journey to make right then, so I collapsed in the chair closest to the entrance to the room.

  “Where is Shintaro?” Wilberforce asked.

  “Asleep.”

  Wilberforce, on the other hand, hadn’t changed at all. It was refreshing. “Is he all right?” Wilberforce stood. “Maybe I should check on him.”

  “Don’t you dare wake him,” I ordered with less heat than I liked. “He needs sleep.”

  “But really, I should just make sure he—”

  “Sit down, Franklin!” LaMonte barked.

  Wilberforce sat.

  I pressed my hand against my lips to hold down the insane urge to giggle.

  “Now that you’re up and about, Dunleavy,” said LaMonte, leaning back on the settee with legs crossed and hands laced together, “you can tell us what went on here yesterday.” The fact that I didn’t know what he was talking about showed on my face. “When that woman was here.”

  I still hadn’t had a chance to properly think things through. I didn’t want to talk about it yet. Or ever, really, but certainly not yet.

  But LaMonte had been there that day, had been there long enough to know something odd was going on, and if I didn’t keep him happy, he had the power to make things really difficult for Taro and me. Possibly Cree as well. And really, if someone was casting spells in the residence, didn’t LaMonte and the others have a right to know? Even though I resented being am-bushed as soon as I stuck my head in the door?

  So, start at the beginning. “I became very ill. The only healer we could get, because of the bridge collapsing, was someone Taro and I met through a friend. Soon after getting here, she realized I was having a bad reaction to the niyacin powder Ben had been putting in the poultices for my hand.” I didn’t want to reveal that Cree had also thought it was in the bread. That was a serious allegation, and I wasn’t going to speak about it without some kind of proof. “Where is Ben?” I wanted to talk to him and get this cleared up.

  LaMonte frowned. “I haven’t seen him since the other day. He left a note saying he needed to be with his daughter.”

  All right, that looked bad, but I still couldn’t start throwing accusations about. “Does the note say when he’s coming back?”

  “No,” said Wilberforce.

  “He’s been treating your hand for weeks,” said LaMonte. “You just suddenly got ill with no warning?”

  “You were taken off the roster ages ago,” said Stone, handing me a mug of broth. “I thought that was because of your reaction to niyacin.”

  I’d forgotten I’d told her that. “It was.”

  “Did you not tell Ben you couldn’t have niyacin powder?” LaMonte demanded.

  “I did.” This was going to come out whether I wanted it to or not.

  “And he kept giving it to you?”

  “We don’t know what h
appened. That’s why I want to talk to Ben.” My conscience prodded me on, even though it was a little late. “Has anyone, over the past couple of days, eaten bread that Ben baked that had a lot of nuts in it?”

  “What a bizarre question,” LaMonte said dryly.

  “The healer thinks I actually consumed the powder, and the bread was all I’d had to eat that day. She said it wouldn’t be safe for anyone to eat.”

  “Why the hell would Ben put niyacin in bread?” Firth asked.

  “I have no idea.”

  “For Zaire’s sake, Dunleavy!” LaMonte threw up his hands. “Don’t be so naive. He was trying to harm you.”

  “But why would he? It doesn’t make sense. And it’s a stupid way to kill someone. Everyone would suspect him.”

  “They would have a hard time determining what had killed you once you were dead,” said Stone. “And even if someone did, Ben might be able to get away with claiming it was some kind of accident.”

  “I haven’t seen the bread you’re speaking of,” said Firth. “I went out myself to get some because we were out.” The others echoed her.

  “So he must have disposed of it,” said LaMonte. “And given this latest development, I think it’s time we revealed the other piece of information we have about Ben.”

  I knew what he was talking about. “I don’t think it’s any more appropriate now than it was then.”

  “Then you’re a fool,” he snapped. “Everyone, Ben’s daughter has been arrested for the murder of Mayor Izen.”

  And cue the outrage, the demands as to why we hadn’t told them, and the assertions that they knew there had been something strange about Ben. I let LaMonte handle the bulk of the questions. He had the energy for it.

  “All right, that’s enough,” LaMonte ordered. “We did what we did, right or wrong. What’s important now is how we proceed. Franklin, I think you need to find a Runner. They need to know what’s going on.”

  “We’re jumping to conclusions,” I objected.

  “That’s for a Runner to decide. Please, Franklin.”

  Wilberforce was torn. I could see it on his face. He was delighted to be singled out by LaMonte. He was offended to be sent on an errand. I guessed which impulse would win and was proven right when Wilberforce went scurrying out of the room.

  I thought calling in a Runner was too hasty, and I couldn’t believe Ben had been poisoning me deliberately. It just didn’t make sense. I knew I wasn’t beloved by all, but surely I’d never aggravated anyone to the point that they would seriously go to the effort of killing me. Aside from Creol, that is, and he’d been crazy. And I’d always treated Ben well, hadn’t I? And he knew as well as anyone that killing me would kill Taro. Surely Ben didn’t hate me enough to kill Taro.

  I couldn’t believe anyone could hate me that much.

  “Why did that Cree woman say you were contagious?” LaMonte asked.

  Ah, hell. I’d forgotten that. It didn’t work with the truth that I’d been poisoned. “She said the treatment was . . . unorthodox. It would be dangerous to have it interrupted in the middle, and I guess she figured telling you I was contagious was the best way to avoid interference.”

  “Unorthodox?” That was Hammad, LaMonte’s Shield, who rarely spoke, so it always surprised me a little whenever he did. “What does that mean?”

  “That I sat in the cellar for hours while the table burned.” Naked, but no one needed to know that. “It was quite disgusting.”

  “I heard—” said LaMonte, and he cut himself off.

  What the hell did he hear? He was supposed to have been out of the damned house before anything was done. If he got Cree arrested, oh what a bastard.

  “You just seemed in considerable distress,” said LaMonte, his expression virtually unreadable.

  That wasn’t what he’d planned on saying.

  “I was. She needed to do something kind of extreme, to get all the niyacin out.”

  “This is why we no longer have a dicing table?” Stone asked. “And the cellar smells something like what I imagined a bordello smells like?”

  Williams’s bordello hadn’t smelled anything like the cellar did once Cree was done with it. Maybe cheaper bordellos did.

  “Not to mention the cuts on your arms and on your face,” Firth added.

  “It was all about getting the niyacin out,” I said. “The cuts to let the niyacin out, the burning stuff to draw the niyacin out.”

  “And this all worked?” Hammad asked, looking dubious.

  I shrugged. “It seems to have. I’m dead tired, but I feel cleaner, somehow. She says, though, that it’ll be weeks before I’m completely back to normal.”

  “Whatever that means,” Firth said with a smirk.

  It was close to an hour before Wilberforce returned with a Runner, an extremely young man who didn’t normally work in our neighborhood. He introduced himself as Runner Calvin and explained that most of the Runners were still dealing with the many repercussions of the collapsed bridge.

  LaMonte wanted to oversee my interview with the Runner. The Runner politely refused to allow it. I almost liked him for that. We went to the private dining room and the young man—really, did he even shave?—sat across the table from me.

  “The excitable fellow who brought me here,” he began, and I was even more impressed with him, “said you’d been poisoned. You look well for it.”

  “The healer said I’d been given niyacin, which I reacted to badly.”

  “Who is this healer?”

  I almost answered, realizing just in time that Cree was unlikely to appreciate having a Runner showing up at her premises demanding answers that may lead to further uncomfortable questions. “I will suggest to her that she should speak with you.”

  “How about you just give me her name?”

  “How about I just have her contact you?”

  He scowled. “Are you wasting my time?”

  “I might be,” I admitted. “I don’t really know what happened. The healer said I was given niyacin. I have no reason to doubt her, but I don’t know anything about it.”

  “The excitable fellow said your servant poisoned you on purpose.”

  “He is not our servant.” I knew my precision irritated him, but saying Ben was our servant had a host of inappropriate implications. He was a servant of the Triple S, not its individual members.

  “Do you think he gave this niyacin to you on purpose, knowing it could kill you?”

  It looked like he had. I didn’t want to believe it. Or admit it. “I don’t know.”

  “What has he said about all this?”

  “I haven’t seen him since I got ill.” I told him about the note. I told him I hadn’t seen it myself, and I didn’t know whether Ben had more than one daughter, though I assumed he was with Sara. Calvin continued to press me for Cree’s name, and I refused to tell him. Then he insisted on going into Ben’s room, ignoring my objections.

  “He’s done a runner,” he announced from inside the room.

  I was waiting by the door, torn between respecting Ben’s privacy and wanting to make sure the Runner didn’t do anything to his stuff. Torn between my duty to watch this stranger in our home and my desperation to sit down. Leaning against the threshold wasn’t going to be good enough for long. “He’s what?”

  And out of nowhere, LaMonte appeared. “What’s going on?”

  “Your servant has packed everything up,” said Calvin, and I could hear him opening and closing drawers in quick succession. “Unless someone else has been in here and cleared everything out.”

  “We wouldn’t dream of intruding into Ben’s personal space,” LaMonte chided.

  “Clearly you should have,” Calvin retorted. “Where’s the note he left?”

  The note had been thrown away. No one was able to find it.

  Calvin felt all this needed to be reported. He ordered us to stay out of Ben’s room and to look for anything that might be Ben’s throughout the residence, though not to touch anything
we found. Then he left.

  Taro had risen by this time and was demanding to know what was going on. I was ready to crawl back into bed, my brain clouding with exhaustion. I asked LaMonte to fill Taro in and went back to bed.

  It was dark when I woke again. A candle was lit on the table by the bed, and in that light I could see the steam rising from the mug of broth, also on the table and beside a glass of water. Taro was seated by the bed, watching me.

  I drained down the water first, then started on the broth. Its heat was soothing and it filled my stomach pleasantly.

  “I could demand an explanation as to why you came to this bed instead of mine,” Taro commented.

  A quick glance about told me, yes, I was in my own bed. I was surprised. I’d made no conscious decision about where to sleep; I’d just gone where my feet took me.

  “I imagine, though,” Taro continued, “that you’re not up to much of an argument right now, so how about I do all the talking?”

  Uh, all right. And it was the least he could do, since he had evidently decided to start an uncomfortable conversation while I was trapped in bed.

  “I’ve been trying to understand why you were wearing the harmony bob on your underclothes the other day.”

  Oh lords. I didn’t want to talk about that. But then, he’d just said I didn’t have to, didn’t he? So maybe the timing was actually excellent. Maybe.