Cold Fire

by Kate Elliott

  “Oh! My apologies! I tripped.” I wasn’t sure he could hear me over the guffaws and snorts of laughter that exploded around the courtyard. “Let me get you something to wipe up with.”

  At the counter, Uncle Joe handed me a cloth. “Yee know, Cat, beer is not cheap. Don’ go trying me patience.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  Vai slid in beside me. “Did he say something to you, Catherine?”

  “The gal just tripped,” said Brenna, stacking coconut shell bowls on a tray for me to take to the women who did the washing up back by the cistern. “Happen sometimes, don’ it?”

  “Not with Cat it doesn’t,” he muttered. Then he looked past me, and his eyes widened as he smiled in a disconcertingly anticipatory way.

  I turned. Over at the gate, Kofi was greeting a pair of vivacious young women who had the bearing of clever girls who assume men will listen to their words and not just stare at their breasts.

  “My pardon, but I have to go.” He made his way to the gate.

  With a lack of greeting I found peculiarly disturbing, for it made them all seem exceedingly familiar with each other, they went out.

  “They radicals mean trouble,” muttered Uncle Joe.

  “Trouble is what come before change,” said Brenna, “for yee know we is overripe for some manner of change.”

  “How deep in is Vai with these radicals?” I asked, one eye on the gate.

  “Why do yee care?” she retorted so tartly that my face flushed. “I reckon yee have made yee feelings known to all.”

  “Good-looking gals, they two,” remarked Uncle Joe right over the top of Brenna’s comment. “I would surely have a mind to know them, was I a young fellow.”

  Brenna snorted and slapped him on the arm. “A sad day for yee should yee be taken blind.”

  “Surely true,” he said, gathering full cups onto my tray. “But I’s not blind yet.”

  “Do you think the Council should be replaced by an Assembly?” I asked them.

  Uncle Joe scratched his beard. “Hard to say how an Assembly shall be chosen, is it not? Fools and wise men look a lot alike. But listen here, Cat. Yee shall not go running after the radicals, for the wardens have they eye on them something fierce. Kofi-lad say we shall give the vote to every adult male and female, even the poor and the idle, with no regard to property or responsibility. He reckon it is the natural right of each person, troll or rat, to have a say in they governance.”

  “Vai agrees with that? Do you have any idea how much power he has in Europa as part of Four Moons House?”

  Uncle Joe and Brenna exchanged a glance whose contours I could not fathom.

  “And Kayleigh is working at Warden Hall, passing on information to Kofi, and thus the radicals, and thence to Vai.”

  “Keep silence, Cat,” said Uncle Joe sternly. “Don’ draw notice to yee own self. Or to him.”

  A memory of the conversation I had overheard in Chartji’s office swept over me, the words Vai had said just before Chartji had opened the door to reveal me eavesdropping: “What if people bound by clientage could say they want to reclaim ownership of themselves? ”

  “Cat? Is yee well?” Brenna put a hand on my arm.

  A man came in through the open gate. The man was not Vai. “Fine. I’m fine.”

  “Take that cloth and these drinks over,” said Uncle Joe, “and be certain not to spill this lot.”

  I walked off, measuring my steps because I felt disoriented, like I was losing track of my path. I had to concentrate on Bee. I needed more information on fire mages, in case Drake wasn’t strong enough to feed the Hunt. I heard them murmur, thinking I was out of earshot.

  “That is not like him,” Brenna said, “to go running off like that with a pair of handsome gals. Not that I blame him, after what she said to him this afternoon.”

  “Yee women underestimate him,” said Uncle Joe with a chuckle. “He know exactly what he is about. I suspicion he asked Kofi-lad to bring those gals by. Look at she, one eye on the gate. Now she shall wonder all evening what he is up to.”

  With radicals plotting trouble. What else might he be up to?

  They had been good-looking. Far worse than that, they had looked smart and lively. The kind of gals I might be friends with. That is, if I didn’t have to put a chisel through someone’s eye, most likely my own because I certainly could not succumb to this sort of pathetic jealousy over a man I had to set aside until Bee was safe and I was free. If he would even want me after that.

  The hour grew late, and folk went home. We washed up and put the benches on the tables, and I swept. Everyone went to bed, but I was too restless to lie down. I sat in the sling chair under the shelter getting bitten up by mosquitoes and so perhaps that was why sleep did not claim me.

  Very late, he came in whistling under his breath, tapping out a rhythm on one thigh. A tincture of cold fire hovered in front of him in the shape of a gas flame burning within a glass lantern latticed by gleaming metalwork in the shape of queen conch shell. He was actually spinning it slowly around, checking to make sure it looked real from all angles. And it did, for I would never have known it for an illusion if it had been stationary. Reflexively, without thinking, I drew threads of shadow around me, to hide myself. He paused halfway across the courtyard, and he chuckled in the manner of a man who, having had a little too much to drink, thinks too well of himself.

  “There’s a Landing Day areito tomorrow out in Lucairi District. If you want to go, we can. There’ll be dancing and singing. And food.”

  I didn’t want to go. I shouldn’t go. It was a bad idea to go.

  “Yes.”

  “Then we shall. Good night, Catherine.”

  25

  In the morning I woke muzzy-headed and furious with myself because Vai had already left for his work so I could not tell him I had to change my mind. I’d become selfishly preoccupied and distracted instead of doing nothing but hunting for a way to save Bee. I dressed, grabbed my cane, and tucked into my sleeve a little cloth purse that easily swallowed my paltry earnings.

  “Yee slept later than usual,” said Aunty Djeneba as I came down. The courtyard lay quiet. Everyone had left already.

  “I’m going out,” I said as I slipped my cane into a tube of cloth so no troll would spot it.

  She frowned but said only, “Be cautious, Cat. The wardens is about.”

  “Wardens of one kind or another are always about,” I muttered, spotting a crow on the roof.

  Wreathed in shadows, I walked the avenue down to the harbor district. The storm had done a fair bit of damage. Men labored on roofs; women strung up washing. A dwarf mammoth hauled a wagon heaped with broken bricks and shards of splintered wood. Men had dug up one of the gas lines and were fixing its mechanism. The clock tower had lost a hand. But the city’s mood had a cheerful edge, as a person might who has escaped the bite of a tremendous hungry shark.

  Yet a taut, anticipatory conversation whispered beneath the work. Something big was up. People stood with heads together. Folk glanced at the sky, as if gauging the weather.

  I rang the bell at the offices of Godwik and Clutch. Keer emerged from the back and, with a tilt of her head, indicated that I might enter her office. We drank and ate, and the more we discussed the local batey season the more I thought I was going to have to jump up and start pacing.

  When we finished our nuts and raisins and our tea, Keer tapped talons on her desk. “You are impatient to speak of another matter.”

  I clasped, unclasped, and clasped my hands. “I am here to inquire if the offer of employment is still open.”

  The troll whistled, crest fanning up. “So we open negotiations. I hope you will tell me what you think we might need.”

  “You have a printing press out back. Might you need assistance with that enterprise? For instance, I could write a series of reports from Europa. Tales of the people there, and how they do things, and the stories they tell.”

  “Exotic lands revealed through first
hand accounts.”

  “My father was a traveler and natural historian. I can reproduce his anecdotes.”

  “Many foreigners have stories to tell. Yours would need to appeal in a way others do not.”

  “He knew General Camjiata. He wrote about him, and his legal code.”

  She cocked her head. “Timely! I am intrigued by this proposition. We can arrange for other duties as well. It only remains to bargain over terms and if you will be needing a nest, a room.”

  A room. Perhaps my color changed. Certainly I felt all blood had suddenly drained from my body, sucked away by an emotion I had no name for and dared not answer to.

  “Yes,” I whispered, all the sound I could manage. All that mattered was Bee. The law offices would surely be a better place to scout out information on fire mages and politics. People would be less fearful and more talkative here. Polite words ticked like clockwork gears in my mouth. “I shall return with my things later today.”

  “Such haste!” Keer rose as I stood.

  Her gaze made me stiffen. She reacted with a twitch whose flicker made me instinctively grasp for shadows. Yet when I pulled at those threads, the confusing layout of mirrors and shiny objects scattered throughout the office yanked the threads up short, as if they were caught and tangled.

  “Interesting,” hissed Keer in a way that made me want to bolt, but I knew better than to run. One had to stand firm, and look bigger than one was.

  “Can you see the threads?” I demanded, finding the power of my voice.

  She showed me her teeth. “What will you pay me for an answer?”

  “What payment do you think you can expect?”

  “Do you think I name my price first?”

  “Can you suppose I will show my hand by naming mine first?”

  She hissed a sound meant, I thought, to be a laugh. “An unusual negotiating technique.”

  A hammering rush of excitement flushed my body. I was learning how to use the very binding that trapped me. “Answering questions with questions?”

  “Betraying your knowledge of the maze.”

  “What makes you think I have any knowledge of it?”

  Her crest lifted as a strange crease narrowed the bold, watchful eyes. “As you rats would say, you have scored a point. Custom demands I acknowledge your step upward on Triumph Spire.”

  “Triumph Spire, where the young bucks preen,” I muttered, recalling Maester Godwik’s words. I had thought it a physical place, like a rocky promontory, but now I wondered if it was more abstract than geological in the way that males competed for intangible but recognized forms of status. “Tell me, Keer, why would a cold mage from Europa work with trolls?”

  Keer gave a hiss I took for an indication of amusement or anticipation. “Next round. Yours now the right to draw the circle and step inside.”

  I hadn’t the desire to begin another round. “Mine the right. I will return.”

  Trolls did not insist on a long ceremony of leave-taking, perhaps because sometimes one did not take one’s leave but was merely consumed after a loss. I took my leave, hoping to order my thoughts as I trudged home. No, the boardinghouse was not home. It was for the best, anyway, that I move out, because I was putting them at risk by living and working there.

  Aunty’s gaze was steady on me as I came in the gate. “I hope yee got done what business yee had a mind for.”

  I glanced away, for I found I could not tell her I was leaving. “I did.”

  Her smile put me in mind of a basking lizard awaiting its inattentive dinner. “I don’ mind saying we shall miss yee this evening. Yee get a nap. Yee have not yet danced at an areito.”

  I just could not tell her. “No. I haven’t done that.”

  She exchanged glances with Brenna and Uncle Joe. I was too restless to nap, so I made myself busy with sweeping and mending while Brenna spent hours braiding Luce’s hair. Luce chattered the whole while for she was so excited that she would get to go with us. I could not bear to break Luce’s heart by not going. And I wanted to go; I wanted to dance and sing at an areito. Bee wouldn’t begrudge me one more night. Rory would enjoy such a festival! Tomorrow I could make my farewells.

  It rained, but the clouds cleared off under a brisk wind. I washed in the shower, and afterward Luce, her hair done, dragged me upstairs to dress. She wore a lovely pagne and a new blouse. She brought a mirror and, while I dressed, held it to check the way her tiny braids curved in at the ends around the back. When I complimented her, she smiled.

  “Oooh me stars!” She angled the mirror to show me the cut and fit from behind. “No wonder yee saved this for an areito! Yee look so fine!”

  Normally I wore the wrapped skirt and a loose cotton blouse that was the common fashion, but over the weeks I had labored over piecing together a skirt from my ruined petticoats, one that flattered my waist and hips but gave me plenty of room for my long stride and for climbing if need be. The top had proved harder to devise, since there was no possible reason to wear layers of clothing as we did in the north. I had cut down my wool jacket to three-quarter sleeves and a hem that ended at my hip bones. The wool challis wicked the moisture off my skin; layered over my sleeveless cotton bodice, it was quite comfortable.

  She set down the mirror, sat me on the end of the bed, and began brushing out my hair, as she liked to do, humming a popular street melody. I heard footsteps at the base of the stairs. Luce brushed on obliviously, unaware.

  The low, sardonic voice was Kayleigh’s. “Is that a bed ? ”

  “I thought it was time to get off those uncomfortable cots,” answered Vai in a tone whose cheerfulness made me suspicious.

  “Then why is there only one bed, Vai?”

  “I can only make one at a time. After I’m done with my regular work.”

  A bed!

  “Cat?” Lucretia bent to look in my face. “Yee went stiff, like a frog hopped over yee foot.”

  Vai was still speaking. “Aren’t you going to the areito? Kofi hopes so.”

  Kayleigh’s voice dropped to a murmur. “I have to go back. But I had to bring you this news. This is not rumor. General Camjiata returned to the city last night.”

  I choked.

  Luce clucked. “’Tis sweet that yee’s nervous.”

  Kayleigh was going on, voice tight and accusatory. “I’m no good at being a spy. I jump at every noise. I bump into things. I hate being indoors. It’s not the cleaning work that’s hard. It’s that I can’t stop thinking they’re about to catch me and whip me and then hang me.”

  “I wouldn’t ask it of you if I could do it myself.”

  Her tone softened. “I know, Vai. I know you’ll never stop putting us first. I know you’ll never stop trying. It’s not fair I get away and no one else does. You know I’ll do whatever you ask.”

  “Then tell me. Do I look all right?”

  She snickered. “I cannot believe you just asked that.”

  “Cat, have a bat stolen yee mind?” Lucretia rapped me on the head with the brush.

  “What makes you think I’m nervous?” I rose indignantly as the door opened.

  Kayleigh entered. She ventured into monosyllables as she looked me up and down. “That’s so fine, Cat. I’m so tired of these cursed lengths of cloth we have to wrap for skirts.”

  “My thanks,” I said cautiously. “I could buy more material and sew you a similar skirt. A jacket will be harder. I’ll have to make a pattern for it.” Then I remembered I was leaving.

  “Me, too, Cat!” cried Lucretia.

  Kayleigh looked tired. I suppose a spy’s work would be tiring if you didn’t enjoy skulking and eavesdropping, and if you couldn’t draw shadows around you to hide yourself from everyone except the ones you most needed to hide from.

  Her wan smile seemed genuine. “That would be nice, Cat. You look very pretty.”

  I hoped I wasn’t flushed. “I really would love to make you a skirt.” Lucretia pinched me. “And of course one for pestiferous Luce.”

 
; Luce giggled.

  Kayleigh sank down on her cot and rested her head on her arms.

  “Kayleigh? Are you well?” I took a step toward her.

  She gestured with a hand. “I have to go back to Warden Hall. The scullery girl came down sick.” She hesitated, then went on into her arms. “I’m sorry I haven’t been nicer to you, Cat.”

  “I hope he hasn’t been scolding you. Vai ought to appreciate you better.”

  She glanced up with a surprised look. I thought she was about to speak, and I braced myself because I was sure it would be words I did not want to hear. But she rubbed her forehead and said, “I’ll just rest a bit. Enjoy yourself tonight. I mean that.” She lay down.

  I grabbed my cane and slid it through the loop I had sewn into the waistband. If I was going to go, then I was cursed well going to enjoy myself. Just this one areito.

  Lucretia said, “Cat, we have not braided yee hair.”

  “I think I won’t.” Let him see it all unbound!

  “A kerchief, then.” She followed me out. “Yee shall really look nice with the kerchief.”

  Vai stood in the courtyard talking with Kofi, who saw me and with a startled expression nudged Vai. He turned, looking up as I swanned down the stairs, Lucretia at my heels. Just for a moment he looked as if he had been kicked by a horse. Or perhaps it was me feeling the hoof slamming into my head, for he wore a jacket I recognized from Adurnam, a chained pattern of red and gold so bold only a confident man could pull off. There was something about the way he wore clothes that choked admiration out of people who wished not to be quite so stifled by a feeling I could only describe as… No. After all, I could not describe it.

  “Catherine. There you are. Time to go.” He extended a hand, meaning me to take it.

  Kofi looked embarrassed. An armature of wood and netted rope rested behind them on the ground: the bed. It was wider than the narrow cot; two might share such a bed if they were willing to lie together in a loving embrace. My arm trembled, for I found I could not decide whether to keep it held firmly at my side as I knew I must, or to reach for him.