"Certainly," Tavi said. "If you would invite Steadholder Isana here, I would be most grateful."
The majordomo hesitated, and Tavi saw something shift uncertainly in his eyes. "The Steadholder is no longer here, young sir," the man said. "She departed not a quarter hour ago."
Tavi frowned and exchanged a glance with Max. "Indeed? For what reason?"
"I'm sure I could not say, young sir," the man replied.
Max gave Tavi the slightest nod, then rumbled, "The second missive is for High Lady Placida. Bring her."
The majordomo eyed Max suspiciously and glanced at Tavi. Tavi gave the man a between-us-servants roll of his eyes, and said, "Please invite her, sir."
The man pursed his lips in thought and shrugged. "As you wish, young sir. A moment." He vanished into the garden.
"Lady Placida?" Tavi muttered to Max.
"I know her," Max replied. "She'll know what is going on."
"We'll need some privacy," Tavi said.
Max nodded, then frowned in concentration and waved a hand vaguely at the air. Tavi felt a sudden pressure on his ears, sharp at first, but it subsided. "Done," Max said.
"Thank you," Tavi said. In only a moment, a tall woman with severe, distant features approached, wearing simple, elegant jewelry and a rich gown of a deep, compelling green, the majordomo at her elbow. She paused, studying them, and Tavi felt the weight of her gaze as palpably as the touch of a gentle hand. She frowned at him, and then frowned more deeply upon seeing Max. She dismissed the majordomo with a word and a curt flick of her wrist, and approached them.
She stepped into the area Max had protected from eavesdropping via wind furies and arched her eyebrow. Then she walked forward to stand over Tavi and murmur, "This isn't a missive from the First Lord, is it?"
Tavi opened the pouch and passed her a folded piece of paper. There was nothing written on it, but Tavi went through the motions for the benefit of those watching. "No, Your Grace. I'm afraid not."
She accepted the paper and opened it, glancing at it as if to read. "Oh how I love Wintersend in the capital. Good evening, Maximus."
"Good evening, my lady. Your gown is lovely."
One corner of her mouth quirked into a tiny smile. "It's nice to see you took my advice about offering compliments to ladies."
"I have found it to be a most effective tactic, my lady," Max replied.
Lady Placida arched an eyebrow, and said, "I've created a monster."
"Ladies sometimes scream," Max said loftily. "But other than that, I would hardly say that I was a monster."
Her eyes hardened. "Which is something of a miracle. I know your father is on the Wall, but I expected to see your stepmother here."
"She was forbidden," Max said. "Or that's what I hear on the grapevine."
"They don't write," Lady Placida said, more than asked. "I suppose they wouldn't, though." She folded up the letter, and offered Max a brief smile. "It's nice to see you, Maximus. But would you very much mind telling me why you've very publicly associated me with the First Lord in front of half of the Lords Council and members of the Senate?"
"Your Grace," Tavi said. "I came here to speak to my aunt Isana. I think she's in some kind of trouble, and I want to help her."
"So you are he," Lady Placida murmured, and narrowed her eyes in thought.
"Tavi of the Calderon Valley, Your Grace," Max said.
"Please, lady," Tavi said. "Can you tell us anything you know of her."
"I would take it as a favor, lady," Max added, and put a solid hand on Tavi's shoulder.
Lady Placida's eyebrows rose sharply at the gesture. Then she studied Tavi again, and more intently. "She was here, along with the Amaranth Courtesan, Serai. They spoke to several different people."
"Who?" Tavi asked.
"Myself, Lady Aquitaine, any number of nobles and dignitaries. And Lord Kalare."
"Kalare?" Tavi said, frowning.
A strident male voice boomed in the garden, and was followed by a polite round of cheering and applause.
"Well," Lady Placida said. "It would seem that Brencis has
won his due)
to claim Citizenship. What a surprise."
"Brencis couldn't duel his way through a herd of sheep," Max snorted. "I hate show duels."
"Lady, please," Tavi said. "Do you know why she left early?"
Lady Placida shook her head. "Not for certain. But they had a less than pleasant discussion with Lord Kalare immediately prior to their departure."
Tavi glanced aside in the passageway as he felt a sudden attention on him. Two young men stood not ten feet from him, and Tavi recognized them both. They were dressed in their nicest clothes, but blond and watery-eyed Varien and the hulking Renzo could not be mistaken for anyone else.
Varien blinked at Tavi for a second, then at Max. Then he muttered something to Renzo, and the two of them hurried away into the garden. Tavi's heart pounded. There was about to be trouble.
"How unpleasant a discussion?" Max asked.
"He struck Serai, openly." Lady Placida's lips pressed into a firm line. "I've little use for a man who strikes a woman simply because he knows he can."
"I can think of one or two things," Max growled.
"Be careful, Maximus," Lady Placida said in instant warning. "Guard your words."
"
Crows
," Tavi spat.
Both of them stopped to stare at Tavi.
"You say they left in a rush, Your Grace?" he asked.
"Very much so," Lady Placida answered.
"Max," Tavi said, his heart pounding, "those cutters we saw on the way in. They're going after my aunt."
"Bloody crows," Max said. "Aria, please excuse us?"
Lady Placida nodded once, and said, "Be careful, Maximus. I owe you my son's life, and I would hate to miss the chance to repay the debt."
"You know me, Your Grace."
"Indeed," Lady Placida said. She inclined her head to Tavi, smiled again at Max, then turned back to the garden, dismissing them with the same flick of her hand she'd used for the majordomo.
"Come on," Tavi said, his voice tense, and started trotting back through the house. "We have to hurry. Can you get us there any faster?"
Max hesitated for a second, then said, "Not in quarters this close. If I tried to windcraft us both there, I'd fly us into a building for sure." His face flushed with color. "It, uh, isn't my strong suit."
"Crows," Tavi spat. "But you could take yourself?"
"Yes."
"Go. Warn them. I'll catch up whenever I can."
"Tavi, we don't know that those cutters were after her," Max pointed out.
"We don't know that they
weren't
. She's my family. If I'm wrong, and she's safe, you can make fun of me for a year."
Max nodded sharply as they emerged from the front door. "What does she look like?"
"Long hair, dark with some grey, very thin, looks early twenties in the face."
Max paused. "Pretty?"
"
Max
," Tavi snarled.
"Right, right," Max said. "I'll see you there." The young man took a pair of long steps and flung himself into a leap, bounding straight up into the air as sudden wind rose in a roar to carry him into the night sky, his hand on his sword the whole way.
Tavi stared bitterly after Max for a second, his emotions in a wash of fear, worry, and the raw and seething jealousy he rarely let himself feel. Of all the people of the Realm, comparatively few of them commanded enough power with wind furies to take flight. More young people were killed in windcrafting accidents than any other form of furycrafting as they attempted to push the limits of their skills and emulate those who could take to the skies. Tavi was hardly alone in his jealousy. But the possible danger to Aunt Isana made it a particularly bitter realization of his lack of power.
Tavi didn't let the sudden surge of emotion keep him from breaking into a dead run toward Nedus's house. He could not possibly match Max's time back to it, but he couldn't do less than his utmost, either. Not when it was Aunt Isana. He had never been a slow runner, and the years he'd spent in the capital had given him inches of height and pounds of muscle, all of it lean and hardened by his constant duties to the First Lord. There might have been a dozen men in the city who could have matched his pace without furycrafting, but no more. The boy all but flew down the festively lit and decorated Garden Lane.
If the cutters were there, they would almost certainly be skilled swordsmen, most likely metalcrafters, who tended to outshine all but the deadliest and most talented of swordsmen with no metalcrafting of their own. From the hard-bitten look of them, they were experienced, and that meant that they would work together well. Were it only one such man, Tavi might be able to steal upon him or arrange to bluff his way close enough to attempt some sort of
surprise
attack. But with four
men
, that would not be an option—and simply assaulting them, even had he been armed with more than the knife at his hip, would have been suicide.
Max, Tavi knew from experience in the training hall, was the kind of swordsman that might become a fencer of song and legend—or who might be killed by foolish overconfidence before he had the chance. Max was an absolutely deadly blade, but the training hall was far different than the street, and fencing partners were not likely to behave in the same way as professional killers. Even Max's experience in the Legions might not have prepared him for the kind of nasty fighting that might be used on the streets of the capital. Max had more confidence than any three or four other people Tavi knew, except perhaps for the First Lord, but Tavi was frightened for his friend.
"Even so, he was more frightened for his aunt. Isana had, Tavi knew, spent her entire life in steadholts, and she had little idea of how treacherous the capital could be. He could not imagine that she would be keeping company with a courtesan if she knew the woman's profession. Tavi also could not imagine his aunt coming to the capital without
some
kind of guardian or escort, especially if she was here at Gaius's invitation. Surely she would have had the company of her younger brother Bernard at the very least. For that matter, why in the world hadn't the First Lord assigned Amara or one of the Cursors to accompany her while she guested in the palace"? Gaius would have no reason at all to bring her to the capital only to allow her to be harmed. She was too much a symbol of his authority.
All of which meant that communications had to have broken down somewhere. Isana was vulnerable, perhaps unguarded, perhaps under the guidance of someone who would lead her into danger. Once Tavi found her, he would get her to the safety of the palace immediately. Even if he could tell her nothing of what was happening with the First Lord, it was in Gaius's best interests to protect her, and Tavi was sure that he could talk Killian into putting her into guest chambers where the presence of the Royal Guard would cover her from mortal danger.
Assuming that she was all right.
Cold fear ran through him, and lent still more speed to his limbs as he ran, tireless and focused and terrified for the woman who had raised him as if he had been her own.
When Renzo stepped out from behind a parked, riderless coach, Tavi barely had time to register it before the hulking boy struck him with a sweep of one enormous arm. Tavi twisted and caught the blow on both of his own arms, but the larger boy's fury-assisted strength was vicious, and sent Tavi into a
running
stumble that fetched him up hard against the stone wall surrounding the environs of another enormous manor.
He managed to avoid slamming his head or breaking his shoulder in the impact, but beyond that, Tavi did little more than fall to the ground. He could taste blood in his mouth. Renzo stood over him in his brown tunic, pig eyes narrowed, both hands clenched into fists the size of hams.
Someone let out a tittering laugh, and Tavi turned his head to see Varien approaching him from the same hiding place. "Good one," Varien said. "Look
at him
. I think he's going to cry."
Tavi tested his arms and legs, then pushed his hands down to rise from the ground. As he did, his fear and worry and humiliation coalesced into something made of nothing but hard edges and serrated blades. His aunt was in danger. The
Realm
could be in danger. And these two arrogant idiots had chosen now, of all times, to interfere.
"Varien," Tavi said, quietly. "I don't have time for this."
"You won't have to wait long," Varien told him, his tone taunting. "I flew the two of us in front of you, but Brencis will be along shortly to talk to you about your rudeness in coming to his party uninvited."
Tavi straightened and faced Varien and Renzo. When he spoke, a strangers voice came from his lips, the tone hard, cold, ringing with command. "Get out of my way. Both of you."
Varien's sneer wavered and his watery blue eyes blinked several times as he stared at Tavi. After an uncertain pause, he began to speak.
"Open your mouth again," Tavi said, in that same, cold voice, "and I will break your jaw. Stand aside."
Varien's face flickered with fear, then with sudden anger. "You can't speak to me li—"
Tavi snapped his boot up into Varien's belly and the blow struck home, hard. The taller boy doubled over with a gasp, clasping at his stomach. Without pausing, Tavi seized him by the hair, and with all the weight of his body forced the boy down to the stones of the street, so that their combined weight landed at an oblique angle to Varien's chin. There was a sickly cracking sound, and Varien let out a wailing shriek of agony.
Tavi bounced back to his feet as a surge of exultation and savage joy flooded through him. Renzo rolled forward and slammed his arm at Tavi in another broad, sweeping blow. Tavi stepped under it and came up with his fist moving in a short, vertical blow, his arm and elbow in a single line with his forward leg. Every ounce of power in Tavi's body thudded into the tip of Renzo's jaw. The larger boy's head snapped back and up, but he didn't drop. He wobbled on his feet, eyes blinking in startled confusion, and drew back his huge fist to swing again.