Royal Airs (31 page)

Rafe made a deep bow, as gracefully as he did everything else, and Zoe nodded back as befit her station. Royals and high-ranking members of the Five Families never indulged in casual contact with strangers, so no one extended a hand, but Josetta had to guess Zoe was dying for a chance to touch Rafe on the arm or shoulder.

“I’ve heard so much about you from Corene,” Zoe said in her usual friendly way. “Josetta has been more reserved in her stories, but that just made me more curious.”

Rafe slanted a quick look at Josetta. “I’m gratified to learn that the princess has spoken of me at all.”

“She
didn’t
,” Corene jumped in. “We had to keep asking her questions!”

“I hope I sounded more interesting than the prince.”

“A man with a kind heart, a gambler’s nerve, and three extraordinary blessings,” Zoe said. “Hard not to sound interesting.”

Josetta turned toward Rafe. “She
seems
relaxed and amiable, but she can be intimidating. Actually, a little frightening. When she wants to be.”

He looked even more amused, because anyone less frightening than Zoe at this moment would be hard to find. She was wearing her oldest and most unfashionable tunic, and she had barely bothered to style her dark hair. She looked like someone who might have sought help at the shelter a couple of years ago and returned now to show how she’d managed to pull herself out of poverty with some respectable job in the shop district.

“I’ll be on my guard,” he promised.

“We should sit down and talk—get to know each other a little,” Zoe said genially. “Should we go inside?”

“Maybe we can get something to eat,” Josetta said. “I’m hungry after all the walking around.”

Rafe held the door open and the three women stepped inside, where it wasn’t much cooler and certainly no more private. But clearly privacy was going to be in short supply in Josetta’s future. Well, of course, it always had been. But she had thought, here in this part of town, she might be able to lead her life without constant observation . . .

“Walking around doing what?” Zoe asked.

“Looking at real estate,” Rafe replied.

Josetta left the three of them to find a table and ducked into the kitchen to see if she could put together any kind of meal. She found Callie way ahead of her, cutting bread and arranging fruit on a tray.

“I don’t have anything here fit to serve a prime!” Callie exclaimed in a low voice. “And a
princess
! Not even crushed fruit to stir into the water!”

“
I’m
a princess, and you feed me every day,” Josetta countered. “Trust me, Zoe’s not very picky. And Corene is adaptable.”

Callie tried to shoo her back out into the main room, but Josetta needed a few minutes to regain her composure, and she had no fear that the others would have trouble making conversation. Not those three. Corene, who always spoke her mind. Zoe, who only respected boundaries when they didn’t get in her way. And Rafe, who was at ease with anyone who crossed his path.
She
was the most awkward and unsure of the lot.

When she finally did carry a tray from the kitchen to the main hall, she found the others playing a card game. Of course. She began distributing plates and glasses while Rafe explained the opening moves to penta.

“Wait, start over so Josetta can learn, too,” Corene said.

Rafe gave her a quick, smiling glance. “She already knows how to play.”

Zoe gathered up her cards. “I’m sure she does,” she said affably. “Josetta’s always been a quick study.”

“I’m just as smart as Josetta is,” Corene said, her voice a little sulky.

Josetta seated herself next to Corene and picked up her own cards, sorting them into suits. “Yes, but you’re more annoying,” she answered, and Corene laughed.

The card game, she decided later, had been a masterstroke. It provided them with an activity to pursue as they got acquainted, which prevented the conversation from becoming strained or stilted. And it showed Rafe to his best advantage: He was not only knowledgeable about the game, he was also personable and entertaining as he told anecdotes about past opponents. He didn’t attempt to present his life as other than it had been—sizing up strangers and winning their money—but he still came across as amusing, insightful, and intelligent.

“That was fun,” Zoe said when Corene won the game on the last turn of the cards, though Josetta strongly suspected Rafe had been cheating on Corene’s behalf. “I think that’s how I’ll make my living if I’m ever exiled again. Of course, I’ll have to get better at it.”

“You could hold tournaments down on the river flats,” Josetta suggested.

Rafe had collected all the cards and he was now idly shuffling them, cutting them together, and shuffling again. “‘Exiled’?” he repeated. “‘Again’?”

Zoe nodded. “My father was expelled from court when I was a little girl and I went with him. When I came back to Chialto, I lived on the river flats for a while. I still miss the vagabond existence sometimes.”

“Like, whenever princes from Berringey are visiting,” Corene interpolated. “Maybe if he had left off his everlasting turbans for
just one day
I would have liked him better.”

Rafe grinned at her, but addressed his next question to Zoe. “When did you become coru prime?”

“I don’t know exactly when it happened, but I knew it
had
when I discovered I had the power to control the Marisi. To control all water, actually, but it was most spectacular when it was the river.”

Rafe nodded over at Josetta. “Your sister promised a southside landlord that you’d bring water to his property. Can you really do that?”

Zoe nodded but looked at Josetta. “Why did you tell him that?”

“I want to rent it from him. We need to expand the number of beds we can offer. He was very excited at the idea.”

“Take me over there. I’ll do it today.”

Josetta laughed. “It might be a few ninedays before we’re ready for you.”

“If you can bring water to the slums so easily, why haven’t you done it before?” Rafe wanted to know.

“I have—more than once,” Zoe said regretfully. “I’ve picked good spots and drawn up water for public wells. But in this part of town, unless someone is constantly watching over them, they tend to be vandalized. Refuse gets thrown down them—dead animals are tossed in. I haven’t figured out how to keep them operating unless they’re someplace like this.”

“Well, I think our new landlord will be very protective of his water source,” Josetta said.

Rafe still seemed intrigued by the notion of someone having so much influence over water. “So are all your blessings coru?” he asked.

“None of them,” Zoe said, extending her hand so he could see the three charms hanging off her bracelet. “Beauty, love, and power were drawn for me when I was born. But virtually every time I pick a coin from a barrel, it’s a coru one. Change, usually. Though my life has been very stable for the past few years!”

“When’s the last time you pulled a blessing?” Josetta asked.

Zoe considered. “A while. Maybe not since Celia was born.”

Corene had already jumped up. “Then let’s go get blessings!” She gave Rafe an impudent glance. “I want to see if he’s a ghost again or if he’s still extraordinary.”

 • • • 

F
our people made for a tight fit in the small temple. It seemed less crowded when they all took seats on the circular bench, but then their knees practically touched the wine barrel in the center of the room.

“Who first?” Josetta asked.

“Oh, it has to be Rafe,” Zoe said. “His blessings will be the most interesting.”

“I think we should each draw one for him,” Corene said.

Zoe nodded and said, “I’ll start.” She plunged an arm elbow-deep in the small keg and gave the coins one vigorous stir before pulling out a coin and handing it to Rafe.

He studied it for a moment before showing it to Josetta. “I think it’s synthesis.”

“You’re getting better at recognizing them,” she said.

“I’ve memorized the shapes of my own,” he answered, touching his chest where his six blessing rings made a slight lump under his shirt.

“My turn,” Corene said, leaning over the barrel. She withdrew one coin, tossed it back without looking at it, drew out another and threw it away.

“Corene,” Zoe admonished.

“I’m just trying to see how powerful the extraordinary blessings are,” she explained. “If one really wants to come to me no matter what I do.” She picked a blessing with each hand, seemed to weigh them, then let the one in her left hand drop with a musical
clink
. She handed the remaining coin to Rafe.

Who laughed out loud. “Time,” he said.

“This is remarkable,” Zoe said. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Rafe nodded at Josetta. “Now you.”

As she always did, she dug her hand through the cool pile of metal and waited until she felt heat along her fingers. Almost immediately one of the coins scalded against her skin, so she quickly dug it out and handed it over to Rafe.

He showed it around the circle. “Triumph.”

“So those are the only blessings anyone has ever drawn for you?” Zoe demanded. “Ghost coins or extraordinary blessings?”

“So far. I suppose someday things could change again.”

“What happens when
you
pull coins out of the barrel?” she asked.

Rafe exchanged a smile with Josetta. “I’ve only done it once. It was interesting.”

“How so?”

“I was sitting here,” Josetta said, “and what he pulled were all of
my
blessings.”

Zoe raised her eyebrows. “See what happens now when you draw one for each of us.”

“Nobody look until we all have one,” Corene ordered.

“I won’t look, either,” Rafe said, and ostentatiously covered his eyes with his left hand while his right hand sorted through the barrel. Once he’d distributed a coin to each of them, he waved his hands like a conjurer at a Quinnahunti fair.

“Reveal your blessings!” he commanded.

“Courage,” Corene said. “My favorite.”

“Power,” Zoe said.

Josetta turned hers so everyone could see the glyph. “Joy.”

Zoe leaned back on the bench so her spine rested on the wall, and regarded Rafe with narrowed attention. “This is very odd,” she said, her voice unwontedly serious. “It’s as if you don’t exist in the common dimensions of Welce. It’s as if you’re—you’re—a mimic or an echo. Something reflected or something seen through a curtain. Duplicating our motions and our mannerisms but not truly understanding why.”

Corene frowned. “That’s mean.”

Zoe shook her head. “I don’t intend it that way. I find that I like Rafe Adova. I just don’t understand precisely how he fits in.”

Josetta was silent, watching Rafe as he assimilated Zoe’s words. Let him decide how much of his background to tell her; she hadn’t gone into much detail when Zoe had questioned her the other day. He was quiet a moment, thinking it over, and then he nodded.

“I think I
am
something of a cipher,” he said at last. “My mother never told me much about her own family, and she died before I knew I should be curious. All I knew about my father was that he left her when I was a baby—or she left him—after he did this to me,” he added, sweeping back his hair to expose his right ear.

Corene and Zoe leaned forward to examine the precisely cut triangular pattern, defiantly decorated with the five gold earrings. “It’s weird but I sort of like it,” Corene said. “Does it hurt?”

He smiled at her. “Not now. I imagine I screamed my head off when it was done to me.”

“Did she say
why
your father did that?” Zoe asked.

“So she’d never get me mixed up with anybody else’s children. Also, I guess, so no one could steal me and then try to prove I wasn’t her son.”

Zoe was frowning. “So, really, you have no idea who your people are, your mother’s or your father’s.”

“I asked my stepfather about it the other day, and he admitted he’d never asked my mother many questions. He seemed to think it was likely that my father was foreign—and
possible
that my mother was.” He shrugged. “But Kayle seemed convinced they both were.”

“Really? You were discussing your bloodlines with Kayle Dochenza?”

Rafe grinned faintly. “He said he couldn’t hear me breathing.”

“Ah.” Zoe nodded; it seemed to make perfect sense to her. She scooted a little closer to Rafe on the curved bench. “If you like—if you’re willing—I’d try to decode your blood for you,” she offered.

Rafe drew back infinitesimally. “You’d—how would you do that?”

“Oh, don’t be a baby,” Corene said. “She won’t hurt you.”

“No, but, I mean—does she need me to bleed into something?”

Zoe was grinning. “No, no, I only have to touch you. Josetta may have mentioned that I can generally tell how people are related—well, it’s hard to explain. I’m the coru prime. A woman of water
and
blood.”

“So you just want to take my hand?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

He glanced at Josetta. “Only if you want,” she said softly. “But that’s how she learned she and I had the same father. That’s how she learned Corene is Darien’s daughter. By touching us. If I were you, I’d want to know. I’m glad
I
found out.”

He nodded, took a deep breath, and placed his hand in Zoe’s outstretched one. Josetta watched as Zoe closed her fingers over Rafe’s and concentrated. She had seen Zoe do this a dozen times and had always been amazed at how quickly Zoe could find the genetic match in the blood.

If Zoe knew the person’s family, of course. If Rafe’s mother was a runaway from some provincial Welchin family, the chances were slim that Zoe had encountered any of her relatives. And if she had actually emigrated here from another country, well, Zoe would be able to tell him nothing.

But the look on Zoe’s face was one of recognition—followed quickly by a puzzled frown. “How very strange,” she said softly, dropping Rafe’s hand.

Now they were all staring at her. “Well?” Josetta said impatiently. “Did you learn anything?”

But Zoe’s full attention was on Rafe. “I met one of your family members just the other day,” she said, her voice strained. “Not a brother, I think—a cousin, perhaps.”