I wended my way to a scarred green door on a nondescript street, halfway between a sleepy neighborhood tavern on one end and a cordwainer’s shop on the other. I knocked.
The door opened partway. A large hard-faced man looked out from the other side, his body blocking the entrance. He looked at me, and his eyes went wide.
“What the hell are
you
doing here?” he asked.
“Nice to see you, too, Ios,” I said, pushing past him. “Now, do me a favor and run and tell Kells I need to see him immediately.”
Chapter Fourteen
“W
e’ve got trouble,” I told my boss. “Big trouble.”
“I suspected as much,” said Kells. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have come.”
We were in Kells’s study, a small tidy place in a small tidy building. The floors and walls and furniture were polished wood, accented by several fine tapestries. But what really grabbed your attention was the stone: marble and granite, soapstone and pumice. It was everywhere, in every shape—statues, vases, balls, and bowls, even the finely wrought fireplace—all of it done by Kells, apprentice stonemason turned crime lord.
“There’s a war brewing in Ten Ways,” I said.
Kells nodded but otherwise didn’t react. He still looked more like a laborer than a crime lord. With his bald pate, heavy white mustache and brows, and sleeves rolled up past his thick forearms, he seemed more inclined to haggle over prices than order someone’s death. I’d seen him do both, and more—the man had vaulted garden walls I could barely scramble over—but mostly, he was content to sit back, look simpler than he was, and spin his webs.
“You know?” I said.
“I can read the signs as well as the next man.”
“And?”
“The next move is Nicco’s.” Kells ran his hand over the granite owl set in the mantel. It had been carved to appear as if it were flying out of the stone of the fireplace itself. If I looked closely, I knew, I would be able to make out individual feathers. “If Nicco wants to keep pushing in Ten Ways,” said Kells, “that’s his choice. But I’m not going to sit by and take it, and neither are some of the other Uprights. Blue Cloak Rhys is almost ready to go after Nicco on his own; same for Shy Meg. They both want me to wade in, and frankly, I’m tempted.” Kells brushed his hand off on his shirt and glared. “If he sends even one more crew into my territory, I—”
“Wait a moment,” I said. “You’re saying
Nicco’s
been moving against
you
in Ten Ways?”
“For more than two months,” he said. “Nicco’s been working through intermediaries, but the trail always leads back to him.” Kells’s bushy brows drew together. “Why? What have you heard?”
“The same thing you’re saying, only from Nicco’s end—that you’ve been using locals to muscle in on some of his action, as well as other parts of the cordon.” Even Rambles had sounded as if he thought Kells was behind the push against Nicco. Nor, I realized, had Ironius dissuaded him from that notion.
Ironius. And his Gray Prince. Shit.
“
Has
Nicco been moving against me?” said Kells.
“Until recently? No. Now, though . . .”
Kells flexed his fingers, made a fist, then let it go. “We’re being played, aren’t we?”
“Like a tin whistle,” I said. “You and the whole damn cordon.”
“Why?”
I grinned wryly. “Because Kin wars make people nervous,” I said, remembering what Ironius had said. “Because sometimes, they even make them desperate.”
“How desperate?”
“Desperate enough to consider the unthinkable.”
“The unthinkable,” muttered Kells. Then he looked at me and seemed to see me for the first time. “Sit,” he said. “You look ready to fall over.”
I did as he said, turning the chair around so I could lean forward onto its back. It felt wonderful. Kells stepped out of the room briefly, then came back in to take up his place before the fireplace again. “Food and wine are on the way,” he said. “In the meantime . . .” He handed me a cup of water.
“The unthinkable,” repeated Kells as I drank. “I take it you mean more than forming simple alliances, like the one I was just talking about?”
“That may be part of it,” I said. “But I think there’s more.”
“Such as?”
“What happens if you and Nicco go to war in Ten Ways?”
I could almost hear the pieces clicking together in his head: War leading to instability leading to a power vacuum leading to opportunity.
“A new Upright Man takes control of Ten Ways and kicks us all out,” he said. “He just has to wait until everyone else is reeling, then step in and do a cleanup.”
“She,” I said. “
She
has to wait and clean up. Except there’s more to it than that.”
Kells raised an eyebrow. “You mean make a push into our territories afterward? This woman doesn’t think small, does she?”
“You have no idea,” I said. I set my cup down and met Kells’s eyes over the back of the chair. “She’s eyeing all of Ildrecca. The whole thing.”
“You mean like Isidore?” said Kells. He snorted. “Well, in that case, I don’t think we have anything to—”
“It’s a Prince,” I said. “There’s a Gray Prince’s hand over all of this: Ten Ways, Ildrecca, the whole thing. At least, I think there is.”
Kells put his own hand out toward the owl, missed, and would have stumbled into the fireplace if he hadn’t caught the edge of the opening with his other hand. As he straightened up, he ran that hand over his mustache, leaving a smudge of soot in the thick whiteness.
“That . . . changes things,” he said. There was the slightest quaver in his voice. Kells pulled the chair from behind his desk over to the fireplace and sat down across from me.
“Do you have any idea which Prince?” he asked.
“I’m working on it,” I said.
“Tell me everything,” he said. “From the beginning.”
So I did—everything, that is, except my Oath with Degan. I wasn’t sure yet where my duty to Kells left off and the Oath began. Given a little time, and plenty of sleep, I probably could have reasoned it out, but I wasn’t trusting my judgment on the finer points right now. Kells didn’t push in any case—he was too busy working through the ramifications of everything else I told him.
“It fits,” he said. “Damn it, but it fits. Nicco and I are the perfect foils for this. He’s been itching to come after me for years, and I’m sure as hell not about to back down if he pushes the matter. There’s too much history for either of us to step away. And while we pound away at each other, whoever is behind this can sit back and gather their strength.” He shook his head. “Damn sneaky, conniving Princes.”
“There’s one thing that bothers me, though,” I said.
Kells chuckled. “I wish my list were that short, but all right, my ‘optimistic’ Long Nose—what’s your one thorn?”
“The empire,” I said. “Do you honestly think Markino is going to keep his hand, and his troops, out of this if the war gets as big as we think it will?”
Kells sat back and stroked his mustache, spreading the dark spot wider within it. “I think,” he said slowly, “that whoever hatched this has already factored in the empire in some way. I can’t see how—
I
certainly wouldn’t want to try to play the emperor, especially Markino. He’s getting older, which means he’s liable to be a bit less . . . understanding.”
I snorted. That was putting it mildly. As each incarnation of the emperor got older, he went a little bit crazy. Paranoia, mania, and unusual obsessions weren’t uncommon in the final years of the imperial life, but they were usually mild and kept within the Imperial cordon—or so the popular stories went. However, if Markino got wind of the Kin trying to play him, and he was in a vindictive, obsessive mood . . . I shuddered.
“The point is,” said Kells, “you don’t go to these lengths and forget about something like that. No, we may not see how the empire fits in, but I expect it has its place as well.”
“We can’t let it get to that point,” I said. “We need to keep the war in Ten Ways from happening.”
“Possibly,” said Kells.
“
‘Possibly’
?” I said. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? Kin war. Gray Prince. Targeting you—targeting
us
!”
Kells stared at me coolly. “I heard you, Drothe, but I think you need to remember something: I’m not Nicco. I don’t jump at the first hint of smoke. Something like this can run in any number of directions, and I don’t want to end up going down a blind alley because I didn’t stop to think first.
“Yes, keeping this war from happening would be the best course of action, but it may not be possible. We’re talking about Nicco here. He may not listen to reason, and he certainly won’t listen to it from me. If he decides I’m behind what’s happening in Ten Ways, he’ll see it as a personal attack and come at me with both fists cocked. And I won’t back down from him, even if this
is
all a setup. I still have my organization and my people to think about.”
“So you’ll do what the Prince wants?” I said.
“I may not have a choice.” Kells grinned. “But that doesn’t mean I have to follow the script she prepared.”
“Hold on,” I said. “Are you telling me that you’re thinking about taking on a Gray Prince?” There was a hell of a lot of difference between my going up against one and Kells’s doing it. With luck, I might escape notice, but Kells didn’t have that kind of option. He was too big to miss.
Kells’s finger ran through his mustache again, highlighting the grin. “Tempting, isn’t it? Taking on one of them at their own game? Proving you cannot only stand against them, but maybe even with them? It has its appeal.”
“
You
become a Gray Prince?” I said. Was that even possible? I’d never thought about it, but they had to come from somewhere.
“What, you don’t think I’d look good in the shadows?” he said. Then he sighed, and the sparkle dimmed in his eyes. “No, you’re right. It’s too risky to try, especially like this. The risks are too great to do it on the fly, but I
can
use what we know to manipulate things, to make sure Nicco is the more tempting target for the Prince. I might even be able to arrange it so I end up with a share of Nicco’s territory myself—possibly a healthy share.”
“So you don’t want to take on a Gray Prince,” I said drily. “You just want to manipulate one.”
Kells’s grin widened. “More or less.”
“And if you can’t?”
Kells laughed. “Hell, I haven’t even figured out how to con her yet, and you want to know what I’ll do if the plan falls apart. Give me some time, Drothe! ” He leaned forward and pointed a finger at me. “But I do agree with you—even if we can’t stop this war, we can’t let it get out of hand, either. If it gets big enough to draw in the empire, like you fear . . .” He waved his hand. “
Poof!
Everything, on our level at least, goes up in smoke. The best we could hope for would be to hunker down and hope the White Sashes pass us by.”
“That doesn’t sound very promising,” I said.
“Last resorts never are.”
I yawned and rubbed at my eyes. It was midday and damn bright out. I was so fatigued that even though my night vision was dormant, the light still hurt. I added it to the list of all my other current aches and pains—pains I had managed to almost forget while sitting with Kells, but that had come back with a vengeance now that I was up and moving. Well, barely moving. As I walked, I consoled myself with visions of painkilling powders and drug-deepened sleep. I’d earned them.
Kells and I had kept at it for another couple of hours, chewing over concerns and possibilities, discarding more ideas than we kept—just like old times. I never realized how much I missed that until the rare occasions I got to see him.
Kells was the one who had brought me up within the Kin, who had spotted me in Ten Ways and decided that I could be more than a Draw Latch. He had pointed me toward Wide Nosing by asking careful questions, requesting the odd favor, and steering bits of information my way early in my career. I hadn’t known it then, of course, but, over the years, I’ve caught enough hints here and there to piece it together: Kells had been grooming me. And not just as a Wide Nose—he’d seen Long Nose potential.
That was why I had never officially worked for him back then, even though I had asked—repeatedly. If I’d been visibly attached to him, Nicco would never have taken me. Better I appeared “independent,” Kells had said. And I had listened, because he had helped me out of Ten Ways and had taught me to Nose, and because he had one of the best criminal minds I had ever encountered. But mainly I’d listened because he had stood by me and believed in me when no one else would.
And so we had hacked and kicked and spun ideas around each other in his office until he had told me to get out. I didn’t doubt that Kells had the beginnings of a plan already, but he wasn’t about to share it with me, which was smart. The less I knew, the less I could spill—always a wise policy with Long Noses.