Power & Majesty (36 page)

‘There is one thing,’ Kelpie said.

Velody lifted her head a little. ‘Yes?’

‘Ash deliberately gave me the slip after we left the Arches. He was going somewhere he didn’t want me to know about.’

Velody tilted her head a little. ‘The sentinels, or you in particular?’

Crane coughed discreetly. ‘Got to admit, Kelpie, there are certain occasions when he doesn’t like you to know where he’s going.’

Kelpie’s eyes blazed. ‘I know where to start the search,’ she said, and swung towards the door.

Crane took a step after her, but Velody stood in his way. ‘I’ll go with her. You need to stay here to guard the others.’

‘Again?’ he protested.

Kelpie was already gone, the kitchen door and back gate swinging behind her. Velody followed, dragging the door closed behind her.

Crane stared sullenly at Delphine. Oh, he was even pretty when he pouted like a baby.

She gave him her best smile. ‘You can help me make bandages for Rhian.’

V
elody matched Kelpie’s pace as they moved past the Piazza Nautilia and on through the residential streets that curved around the side of the Lucretine hill. Though they weren’t following the more straightforward route, it was evident that they were heading for the Forum. It was strangely pleasing that, although Velody sorely missed her powers as a Creature King, she still had the strength and stamina to keep up with Kelpie.

‘He doesn’t always like having sentinels tagging along,’ Kelpie said, not even out of breath as the Gardens of Trajus Alysaundre came into sight. ‘Lots of reasons—playing the Ducomte with his real family, or just wanting to be alone. But usually he tells us to get lost. If he wanted to get rid of me and didn’t want to say why, that means he was going to see one of his women.’

Velody couldn’t help smiling at the note of disgust in Kelpie’s voice. ‘Are there so very many?’

‘There used to be. I haven’t exactly been keeping track lately, but there’s one in particular who’s stood the test of time.’ Kelpie sounded grim.

This could be the appropriate time to ask a question
Velody had been wondering about for quite a while. ‘Are you and he…?’

Kelpie let out a sharp laugh. ‘Not since his exile from Aufleur. I plan to keep it that way too.’ She tilted her head in Velody’s direction. ‘He’s never let you near the seer, has he?’

‘No,’ said Velody. Ashiol had mentioned the Court’s seer only once or twice, and never suggested she and Velody meet face to face.

‘Thought not,’ said Kelpie with some satisfaction.

They moved briskly through the ornate gates of the gardens and made their way down the grassy slopes. The Lake of Follies shone out below them, lit up with green paper lanterns for the Vestalia.

‘Typical Ash,’ muttered Kelpie. ‘Likes to keep the women in his life separate.’

Velody thought carefully about how to phrase what she was going to say next. ‘You know I’m not one of his women, don’t you?’

Kelpie shot her a wicked grin. ‘Not after that little promise you made to Livilla anyway. Hope I get to see his face when he finds out about that one!’

‘There’s never been anything like that between Ashiol and me,’ said Velody.

‘So you say. But somehow he always ends up with a gaggle of women who care what happens to him, whether or not they share his bed. Or will in the future.’ Velody opened her mouth to protest this, but Kelpie cut her off. ‘I’m only teasing, Lady Power. I know Crane’s the one whose virtue is in danger from you.’

Velody found herself blushing. ‘I didn’t know he was seventeen.’

‘You do now, and you still think he’s cute.’

The sky was dark and glowering. Velody had never seen it like that before. Shapes rumbled across it, without the usual flashes of light and threadbolts of a skybattle. This was altogether more ominous.

A swooping figure she recognised as Poet passed in front of a swirl of purplish clouds, and disappeared within them. A few moments later, a swarm of white rats exploded out of the cloud, which dissipated.

‘Staring up there all nox won’t do anyone any good,’ said Kelpie impatiently, seeing that Velody had stopped. ‘We have to find our man.’

‘I’m coming,’ said Velody, pulling her eyes back to ground level. She flexed her mind within her body, searching for some sign that animor was thrilling in her blood again. But no. She was stuck with being mortal for now.

At the foot of the gardens, they walked around the lake to reach the Forum. The domed Basilica loomed over them, and Kelpie led them in that direction.

‘If the women in Ash’s life aren’t all his lovers, why is he so desperate to keep them separate?’ Velody asked. She wanted to get as much information as possible before Kelpie remembered that they really weren’t friends.

‘He hates the thought of us talking about him behind his back. As if we don’t have better things to talk about!’

‘You haven’t talked about anything but him since we set out.’

Kelpie gave her a vicious grin. ‘I know. Doesn’t it make you sick?’

Heliora didn’t need to stand outside the canvas roof of her tent and the domed stone roof of the Basilica to know that the sky was falling. The futures were hard work, but her visions of the present came easily these days. Too easily, to tell the truth—every time she closed her eyes, she saw Poet and the other Lords fighting the sky, struggling to stay alive and defend Aufleur from the fate that had befallen Tierce.

It had gone on too long. She had to do something. She rose to her feet, only just realising how dark it was, and headed for the entrance flap of her pavilion just as it was
ripped aside. Heliora was momentarily blinded by the light of a torch, and it took her a few moments to recognise the face that was leering at her. ‘Kelpie.’ She was almost relieved not to have to try to free Ashiol on her own.

A hand lashed out, cracking her across the face. ‘Bitch. What have you done to him?’

As Hel fell back to the floor, a vision assaulted her mind, almost as painful as the blow itself. She could see Ashiol’s body tormented by the burning strands of the net, twisting into pieces even as his mind still struggled against unconsciousness. ‘Poet,’ she whispered.

‘What’s that?’ It was another voice, less harsh and certainly less familiar than Kelpie’s.

A second torch-lit face loomed near, and only when Heliora could focus did she recognise the woman. It was Ashiol’s demme, the Power and Majesty. Her skin was paler and her hair darker than Heliora remembered from the futures, but it was certainly her. Velody.

‘Poet,’ sneered Kelpie, her foot pressing firmly against Heliora’s abdomen. ‘Is he the one who came up with this charming scheme?’

‘He wanted to give Ash a chance to be free,’ Heliora spat, trying to sit up. Kelpie’s foot was making it too difficult.

‘Wanted to give himself a chance to play at being leader of the pack,’ said Kelpie, rolling her eyes. ‘Do you really think Poet did all this to help
Ash
?’

So little made sense these days. Why was it so hard to believe that Poet had good intentions?

‘They promised they wouldn’t hurt him,’ Hel said.

‘And did they keep that promise?’ Velody asked.

Heliora squeezed her eyes tight. ‘They used the net.’

Kelpie swore. She pulled away from Heliora and stomped around the tent. ‘Skysilver net,’ she said finally, in explanation to Velody.

Now it was Velody’s eyes that blazed with anger as she looked down at the crumpled, flattened figure of Heliora. ‘Where did they take him?’

‘He must be imprisoned,’ said Kelpie. ‘No guards spare, not with Poet and his boys both fighting the sky.’

‘I know where,’ said Heliora, hardly able to get the words out through her scraped-dry throat.

Even without the visions of Ashiol’s pain and the image of his prison clear in her mind, she would have guessed where Poet had taken him. Why else would he keep a cage wrapped in skysilver wire in his attic?

‘Tell us,’ said Kelpie.

‘Show us,’ corrected Velody, pulling Heliora to her feet.

With the Creature Court up above, struggling in skybattle to defend the city, the Arches were empty and silent. Strangely, it felt less safe down below than when Heliora had known there were half a dozen courtesi waiting to pounce on her at any moment.

She led the way to the Shambles and to the abandoned grocer’s shop that Poet had set up as his own personal palace. Finding lanterns by the door, they lit these and abandoned their torch. The stove was quiet, but the upper rooms were still warm with the heat from it. Heliora nodded miserably at the ladder that led up to the attic.

Kelpie went first, climbing easily. After a moment, she started swearing.

Heliora was the second up the ladder, followed by Velody. Lantern light swung in patterns against the attic walls.

Ashiol, still slumped within the tangles of the net, was locked within Poet’s cage. The bars were wrapped with skysilver wire, but beneath those silvery curls was cold iron.

‘The key must be here somewhere,’ Kelpie said, already beginning to search the chests.

‘Why must it?’ asked Velody. ‘For our convenience? Poet’s not that stupid. He’ll have it on him.’

Heliora placed her palm to the wire-wrapped bars, staring at the fallen figure of Ashiol. ‘They could have
taken the net off him once he was inside,’ she said. The skysilver had burnt lines into his skin.

Kelpie upturned a trunk of women’s clothing in disgust. ‘So what do we do? If we peeled off the skysilver wire he could walk through the bars—but only if he could stand and free himself from the net.’

Heliora had not thought that the cage would be locked. Such a mundane problem. ‘If we peel off the wire, Velody can walk through and free him,’ she suggested.

‘Not for another day I can’t,’ Velody said, frustrated. ‘I drank sentinel’s blood.’

Heliora sank to the floor, her fingers still wrapped up in the bars of the cage. ‘Well, then. We must wait for him to wake up.’

‘No,’ said Velody fiercely. ‘You two stay here. I’m going to get the key.’

She intended to head back to the upper city through the tunnels again, but Priest’s cathedral called to her. She ran up elaborate staircases and along musty corridors until, finally, near the very top, she found a ladder leading into the cathedral ceiling.

There was a hole in the roof, covered only by a curtain light enough to be nudged open by a flock of birds. Velody climbed out into an ordinary warehouse stacked with crates. The doors were locked, and she didn’t believe in her ability to do anything clever about that. The windows had no glass in them, but they were too high.

The sky outside was dark and threatening. Ominous shapes boiled back and forth out of the clouds. There was no sight of any Lords or Court up there, and she had a horrible feeling that they were losing the battle.

‘Poet!’ she screamed at the top of her voice. ‘POET!’

After a long silence, she tried again, waiting impatiently.

A shape fell through the stone ceiling, long and black and dripping with a substance like tar. It crashed to the floor of the warehouse, and sneezed.

‘Poet?’ Velody called again, this time in disbelief.

‘My Lady calls?’ The effect of his gallant comment was spoiled as he coughed several times and tried to stand up. He was a mess. The black substance that clung to his naked body made a nasty fizzing sound when it hit the cement floor. He staggered a little, but stayed on his feet.

‘It’s bad up there, isn’t it?’ she said.

Poet laughed, and almost choked on the merry sound. ‘You called me away to ask me
that
?’

Her hackles rose at his tone. ‘I’m not the one who chose to remove my powers this nox.’

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ he retorted. ‘Saints and devils, woman, we’re dying up there!’ He gave her a sketch of a courtier’s bow. ‘I humbly crave my mistress’s pardon for my rebellious tactics, and beg her in all her gracious mercy to
let me go back to the battle before our frigging city gets eaten alive
.’

‘Where’s the key, Poet?’ she asked.

‘What key would that be, Lady Power?’

She glared at him. ‘Don’t tell me that you don’t need Ashiol up there. We know about the cage and the net, but we need the key.’

The mocking look eased from his face. ‘We didn’t know it would be this bad,’ he said. ‘It’s usually months between the real massacres, and it’s less than two since we lost Garnet. It’s getting worse, faster.’

‘Where’s the key?’ Velody repeated.

A wave of dark matter, similar to the substance already caking Poet’s body, dripped through the ceiling, dissolving many of Priest’s boxes. Poet pulled Velody out of the downpour, his hands leaving dark sticky stains on the front of her dress.

‘It’s in the tea chest,’ he said breathlessly.

She stared at him. ‘What?’

He leaned in and kissed her on the mouth, smearing the black substance over her face and tongue in the process. It tasted of salt and danger. He pulled away, grinning
boyishly at her. ‘The tea chest. Near the stove. You can’t miss it.’ With that, he flung himself upwards, pulling his body up into the ceiling as if he were climbing a rope. There was a loud sucking sound and he disappeared from view.

‘The tea chest,’ Velody muttered to herself. ‘Marvellous.’

Kelpie was half-hysterical by the time Velody returned to Poet’s attic. She was using her skysilver knife to pry the wire from the bars of the cage, having hacked at the lock so often that her abandoned steel knife was looking somewhat worse for wear.

Heliora had given up even the pretence of being useful. She sat on the floor in the midst of a heap of theatrical dresses, utterly miserable.

‘Well?’ Kelpie demanded as Velody’s head emerged through the trapdoor.

Silently, Velody held up the key.

Kelpie snatched it and put it in the lock with a hand that trembled only slightly. She had done such damage to the lock that opening it was hard work.

Finally, the door swung open. Kelpie hurled herself at Ashiol, sliding her fingers into the webbing of the skysilver net. ‘I’m going to need help with this.’

Velody stepped inside the cage as well, and together they lifted and unpeeled the net from Ash’s burnt and tortured skin as gently as if they were undressing a baby. The net hissed and bubbled against Velody’s fingers but did not burn her. She still counted as a sentinel, it seemed. When Ashiol was finally free, Kelpie gathered up the net and hurled it hard out of the cage door.

‘Now what?’ Velody asked.

‘Same as before,’ said Kelpie. ‘We wait for him to wake up. Without the net, at least his body can work on throwing off the damn potion that the seer poisoned him with.’ She shot Heliora a dirty look. ‘At least he won’t be in any more pain.’

Velody gazed at the harsh ridges on Ash’s face, neck and arms. ‘I think this pain is pretty mild compared to what I have to do to him when he wakes up.’