"Well," he said, "the Mirador said they buried him in the Boneprince."
"Yeah. The Mirador also says Crenna of Verith is a sinner and a heretic."
"For shame, Mildmay." He was grinning. "Are you saying they lied?"
"Dunno. I'm just wondering. That's all."
"Okay. You're just wondering. I don't really know. I mean, there's all sorts of places I can
imagine
they'd put him—there's crypts in the Mirador, you know."
"Powers. For real?"
"Yeah. Master Auberon says
his
master, Master Rosamund, when she was a girl, she actually saw the crypt of the Thestonarii once—her dad was a butler, and he snuck her into the Mirador and showed her—but she could never remember how she got there. And Master Auberon says they figured writing a letter to ask the Lord Protector to let them look wouldn't go over so good."
"No, guess not. But you think—"
"If the Mirador was gonna say they buried him one place and really bury him somewhere else, then that's where I think they'd do it."
"Makes sense. Thanks."
"Dunno for what. But you're welcome."
We came to the Fishmarket and stopped on the porch, under one of the big iron-caged lamps. I said, "Next Neuvième the same?"
"Yeah, I think so. I mean, unless you got something better to do?"
"Well, the Lord Protector asked me to dinner, but I told him I was busy."
Cardenio grinned. "Next Neuvième, then." He sort of paused a second and said, "Thanks. I mean… thanks." He turned bright red and all but ran on. I shouted after him, "You're welcome!" and I think he heard me before the Fishmarket's doors slammed shut behind him.
Ginevra had shitty taste in bars. I'd never been in the Blue Cat before, but was pure Dragonteeth swank, with blue velvet on the walls and brass filigree inlay on the bar. I was dressed decent, at least, in my bottle-green coat where the darn on the elbow didn't show, but I wore my hair too short to be a gentleman, and with the scar on my face, nobody was going to believe I thought I could land a flashie. Which I couldn't, and didn't want to. But that's the sort of bar the Blue Cat was. I wished I wasn't wondering if Ginevra had met Ellis Otanius here.
Ginevra waved at me from a back corner. I started toward her. About halfway there I realized there was somebody at the table with her, a big, dark girl in blood-red silk. I stopped short.
"Gil!" Ginevra shouted. Since I'd been fool enough to tell her my real name, I'd had to give her something else to call me. "Gilroi Felter" was safe enough. The only thing that name was connected to was Mrs. Pickering's house. Ginevra'd promised she wouldn't forget, and I was glad she hadn't, but I wished she would've warned me before she went inventing nicknames. And I particularly wished she would've warned me before she dragged her friends along.
But I couldn't very well turn around and walk back out, although it was what I was wanting to do. Manners, manners, Milly-Fox, Keeper said in my head, laughing, and I walked up to the table.
"Gil, this is my friend Estella Velvet. Estella, this is Gil."
"So," said the dark girl, drawling, "you're Ginevra's new flame."
Fuck, I thought. Estella Velvet was tall, stacked, dark and rich like chocolate. Her hair was black and thick and curly. Her skin was golden bronze, and there was a lot of it on display. I mean, I ain't no prude, but I wasn't sure her neckline was legal. Her eyes were heavy-lidded and sort of sleepy and sharp-looking at the same time. She might as well have called itself Sex on the Hoof.
"If she says so," I said. Estella Velvet burst out laughing. The sound was as dark and rich as her hair, and I didn't have to wonder how she'd afforded the dress she was wearing or the rings on her fingers.
"Sit down, Gil," Ginevra said.
"Okay," I said. I hooked a chair out and sat down.
"Is Faith coming?" Ginevra said to Estella.
"She'll be here. She has no sense of time. You know that."
"Estella's girlfriend works at the Hospice of St. Cecily," Ginevra said to me.
I kept my eyebrows from going up, but it took some doing. St. Cecily', in Candlewick Mews is the biggest hospice in the Lower City—not the best, mind you, just the biggest. St. Latimer's in Gilgamesh is better, or St Gailan's in Spicewell. What makes St. Cecily's different is that it's where the nature-witches hang out, the ones that think they should be using their magic to heal people. Nobody said nothing, along of how the Mirador said it was heresy and evil to boot, but everybody in the Lower City knew. The Mirador knew, too, but mostly it wasn't worth their while to fuck around with it. So Estella's girlfriend was either stupid or crazy.
I'd've bet on stupid and lost my money. Faith Cowry turned out to be little, dark, skinny, bright-eyed as a wren, and not the least bit stupid. And despite what Estella'd said, she didn't strike me as absentminded either, just somebody who knew what mattered, and it didn't include showing up on time to meet Estella's lowlife friends. She was sort of just barely tolerating Ginevra, from what I could see, and she sure wasn't cutting me no slack. The look she gave me said she about half expected me to eat with my fingers, and three-quarters expected me to get drunk and start brawling. I couldn't blame her. I know what I look like.
So socially speaking, the evening was pretty much sunk from the start. Ginevra and Estella did most of the talking—gossiping, I guess would be a better word. They were all into who was sleeping with who and who wasn't speaking to who and all the rest of it—which I suppose ain't bad if you know everybody involved, but I didn't, and from the look on her face Faith Cowry didn't, either. I think it was somewhere around the third or fourth hour of the night that our eyes met by accident, and I saw that she felt just like I did: she didn't want to know
none
of these people, and wished to fuck Estella and Ginevra didn't, either.
I raised an eyebrow, to let her know that was how I felt, too, and she cracked up.
"What?" Estella said.
"Nothing," Faith said. "Did you bring your cards, Estella?"
"They go everywhere with me. Why?"
"I thought Gil and I might play a hand of Long Tiffany while you and Ginevra… catch up." Faith raised her eyebrows at me, and I nodded.
"I don't know why you want to play such a vulgar game," Estella said, but she got the cards out. "What's the matter with Griffin and Pegasus?"
"It's too bourgeois," Faith said, very sweetly, and that cracked Estella up, and everything was okay.
So me and Faith played Long Tiffany until the septad-night, while Estella and Ginevra bickered and gossiped and giggled together. Estella was the prowl, and I lost count of the number of flashies who came over and asked if they could buy her drinks.
"Don't that bother you?" I asked Faith, under cover of a burst of laughter.
She shrugged. "I can't change Estella. I can live with her how she is, or I can break up with her. And mostly we get along okay."
She dealt out the next hand, and I shut up.
Faith played pretty good Long Tiffany. We played five hands. I won three, and she only won on points on a fourth.
"It's a good thing we weren't playing for money," she said when we'd finished the fifth hand and were getting ready to go.
"I don't play for money," I said. And I didn't. I'd spent too many indictions sharping.
She gave me a kind of funny look, but then Estella said, "Let's
go
, Faith," and we followed her and Ginevra out of the Blue Cat.
Estella and Ginevra made their plans to meet again, and this time to meet up with another friend, some guy named Austin, and then Estella and Faith grabbed a hansom to take them back to Candlewick Mews, and me and Ginevra started for Spicewell, where she had a room.
It was a nice night for the middle of Pluviôse, and Dragonteeth is good for walking. Always lots of shit going on. So we walked for a while, not saying nothing, looking at the guy juggling torches, and the three women doing acrobatics in Godwell Square, and then Ginevra said, "Gil, do you like me?"
"Um, sure," I said.
"Gil! You know what I mean!"
"Um, no. Not really."
We walked by a streetlamp, and I saw she was blushing. "Estella called you my new flame."
"Yeah. So?"
"Well… I mean… do you want to? You looked kind of mad at Estella."
Powers. I was slipping. Mind your ugly face, Milly-Fox. I said, "I didn't much take to Estella. I like you fine. But I thought you was looking for a fancy boy from up the city."
"Gil!"
"Well, ain't you?"
"You make it sound so… so
crass
."
I almost said,
Being a whore is
, but I grabbed it back before it got out of my mouth.
She said, "And anyway, I'm not
looking
. Not exactly."
You just don't mind getting found, I thought. I knew how it worked. I said, "What is it you're wanting from me, Ginevra?"
"I don't know." She sounded mad. "I wanted to know how you feel about me, I guess."
"I ain't known you but a decad."
"Do you want to know me better?"
"Sure," I said. "I mean… I guess so."
"Powers! Don't do me any favors, will you?"
"I'm sorry. I don't know what you want me to say."
"Maybe I don't know either! Maybe that's what I'm trying to find out!"
"Shit," I said. I'd really pissed her off. "I ain't… I ain't real good with words. I didn't mean to make you mad."
"It's okay." We walked another block and a half, and she said, "I guess all I really wanted to know was if you wanted to… to sleep with me again."
"Kethe, why didn't you ask that to start with? 'Course I do."
"Oh," she said, and gave me a smile as bright as all the streetlamps in Dragonteeth. "Then that's all right, then."
Felix
"You want one of us to stay, m'lord?"
"No, not necessary. I believe I can cope with the, er, threat he poses. But thank you."
"We'll be right outside. You just shout, and we'll come in."
"Thank you."
I have my hands over my face, trying to protect my eyes. I hear the armored monsters leave.
"Well, Felix. Are you ready to tell us how you did it?"
The words make no sense. I squint, my eyes watering, at the shape against the light of the torch. I can't
remember how to speak. I put hands over my eyes again, hunch my shoulders against the light.
"This stubborn silence will do you no good, you know. If you cooperate I promise I will do everything I can at least to make your execution painless. You'll be burned, you know, if no one intercedes."
I can't answer.
After a long time, the person on the other side of the bars sighs and says, "I'll come back."
I hear him leave.
Darkness.
Mildmay
So me and Ginevra were seeing each other pretty regular, and it got to the point in about a month where it didn't seem like there was any point in her keeping her room in Spicewell, when she was spending all her time at my place in Midwinter. Kethe, I was happy. I mean, she was gorgeous and smart, and my face didn't bother her or nothing. So things for us were really good. Things in the city were getting kind of hairy, with the Lord Protector calling up a new Witchfinder Extraordinary and nobody knowing just how that crazy hocus had broken the Virtu. And people were worrying about the Obscurantists again, along of the bad magic in the Boneprince and some other shit that I never did get the right of. Cardenio tried to explain it to me, but it got all tangled up in what different kinds of necromancers believed and what the nature-witches thought was going on, and I finally had to ask him to stop before my brains froze solid and died.
But there wasn't much of that kind of gossip in Midwinter, and anyways Ginevra wasn't interested. She was sure the Witchfinder Extraordinary—Erasmus Spalding was his name—would get everything sorted out, and it would all be okay. I could have told her otherwise, could've told her horror stones about the last Witchfinder Extraordinary for days on end, but then I would've had to explain how come I knew so fucking much about Cerberus Clesset and the round of witch-hunts from three indictions back, and I didn't particularly want to explain that to Ginevra. Not yet.
So I kept my mouth shut and didn't bore her with city politics. I didn't introduce her to my friends—Cardenio and Margot and Lollymeg—because I knew from meeting her friends that it wouldn't work out. And if there was anything I wanted—anything that could've made things better—it was for Ginevra to see her friends for what they were and give them up.
Faith wasn't so bad, but Faith wasn't Ginevra's friend. I got to see that real plain after a while. Faith was like me. She was in love with Estella, and she came along to the Blue Cat because it made Estella happy. Faith didn't give a shit about Ginevra. I wished she had. Because Faith was the only one of them I liked.
There were a bunch of girls I never did get straightened out. They only came when their protectors didn't want their company, or when one guy'd gotten tired of them and they hadn't picked up a new one yet. They were giggly, and they flirted with everything in sight. Except me. I frightened them, and it didn't even bother me. Although it did make me wonder if Ginevra was showing off, bringing me with her, trying to get them to take her seriously. She was the youngest of them, and one of only two or three who hadn't been born in the Lower City. They thought she was a lightweight. I wanted to tell her it was okay to be a lightweight, that she didn't owe these gals nothing and didn't need to make them think she was tough. But I found out real early on that she wouldn't listen to me about her friends.
I found that out because of Austin. Austin Lefevre, who thought he was a poet. I hated him on sight. He was tall, with gray eyes and black, black hair. I thought he was probably dyeing his hair—believe me, I know the signs—but it didn't matter none. He was one of those bastards who'd be handsome if they were mud-brown and fish-belly-white, and he didn't have to do no more than raise an eyebrow to have all them gals twitching on his string. That kind of handsome. And his voice was deep and smooth, and he'd got the Lower City out of his vowels somehow, so he sounded flash, and he knew how to talk pretty and pay compliments and shit like that.