The Hidden City (40 page)

Then again, it didn't cause bleeding or screaming either, and maybe that was the point.

The big woman with the dark hair and the slightly saggy cheeks came round a wall made of men in different textures; bearded, red-haired, gold-haired, bald and dark; tall, short, fat, thin, things in between; wool, leather, cotton shirt darkened at armpits and chest; smoke everywhere, like tendrils of mist. Heavy, smelly mist.

But big and old, this woman seemed to part that mist; it didn't swallow her, and the men wavered, falling a step to one side or the other as she almost pushed her way past them, carrying a full tray. There was leftover food on some of those plates, and Carver, had he been a different boy, would have wept in outrage at the waste.

But not here. Not here, where everyone would notice, and he would draw attention of the unwanted variety. If there was any other kind of attention.

The woman disappeared into the swinging door in the far wall, and when she emerged again, the tray she carried was less unwieldy, less a mass of teetering dishes and waste. She elbowed someone out of the way, and Carver heard the man's bark of annoyance, but not the actual words he used. From her look, they didn't bother her.

Then again, from her look, nothing did.

His stomach woke and growled; he would have been fatally embarrassed had it not been so damn noisy. Jay's lips were moving. He couldn't hear a word she said. It didn't matter; the large woman was making her way toward their table; whatever she carried, it was meant for them.

Two days, and the food he'd had before had been cold and almost moldy. Bread. A shriveled apple that had rolled off the back of a wagon and into the street, bruised and unnoticed by anything but mice. They had taken small bites, but he didn't care.

If he'd been able to catch them, he'd have eaten the mice as well.

She placed big bowls on the table; they were steaming. She put a spoon and fork to either side of the bowls, and offered them large cloth squares. Between the bowls, she dumped a basket of cut bread—and as much bread as he'd had in weeks—and then she was off again, shouting something into the suddenly unimportant distance.

Jay tried to grab her elbow, to touch her—her voice wasn't loud enough to do that on its own. But she missed.

Carver didn't care. He picked up the spoon in a shaking hand, and shoved it into the stew in front of him; his mouth tasted of dry salt, and his throat tightened.

For his trouble—this lifting of spoon to stubborn mouth—he burned himself. Couldn't withhold the yelp of pain, couldn't spit out the chunk of potato. His eyes watered, and he wiped them clear with his sleeve.

When he looked up, he met Jay's dark eyes, half interrupted by hair. Hers and his. He couldn't tell her he'd burned his mouth. He couldn't expose that much stupidity.

But she rolled her eyes, shaking those tight, awkward curls. The fear was still in her; her shoulders were tense, and her back was hunched slightly, as if against an expected blow. That, he knew.

He expected her to eat. He really did. Even fear couldn't stop him, and he was almost too giddy to feel it. But she rose instead, cupping her hands around her mouth, bending across the table, her sleeve trailing the sharp edge of cut bread. “I need to go outside for a minute. Wait here!”

It occurred to him that she intended to leave him here, with no means of paying for what he ate.

She saw it, too. “It's already covered,” she shouted again. “Mother's blood, I swear.”

The stew was too hot. Carver ate the bread instead, waiting. Watching, as he chewed, the back of the strange girl as she tried to traverse the same narrow gaps in the crowd that the big woman had made larger simply by frowning.

Gods, he was hungry. The stew was hot. If it hadn't been for the bread—which was quickly disappearing, this would have been like stories of the Hells.

 

The night air enveloped her like the answer to a prayer she hadn't known she was uttering; it was clear and cold, and although she reeked of smoke, it didn't. She'd always liked pipes; she had never imagined that there would be a time when she would need to escape them. But the moon—

She was late, she thought, wild now. Late. After everything that had happened—

Finch.

And as the hair rose on the back of her neck, as her skin suddenly went that particular cold that was part fear and part something she'd been born to, she heard at last the ragged, heaving breath of a high, light voice, and from the vantage of Taverson's door well, she saw a small figure careen around the corner three buildings down the road. In the moonlight, shift torn, shoes slapping the undersides of her feet because the soles had started to come off, came a girl that Jewel had never seen.

And knew, in an instant, as Finch.

 

Rath slid into a narrow alley used by servicemen; it was girded, on either side, by the finest of the shops in the Common. He turned, silent, on heel, breathing too quickly. He no longer felt the evening cold, except as a trace in his lungs. Across from the shops that served as tactical protection were similar shops, two clothiers, one gallery. Each had pretty, colorful displays, and the magelights here were fine and bright; the gallery had somehow managed to mask that light so it fell in shades of different greens, as if to suggest forest without substance. It was very contemporary, a work that was based on a subtle appreciation of the nuance of mood.

Rath's not-so-subtle appreciation was reserved for the windows. He watched them, drawing his daggers. It was tricky to be silent, here, and the light would catch the sheen of his blades' flats; he chose the throwing daggers. But here, at least, the narrow walkway was one good man wide, no more.

Not perfect for the sword he'd carried. He might draw it later, if it came to that.

He heard pursuit, but only barely. It was almost as if the men who followed, unseen, walked barefoot across the perfect cobblestones of this stretch of the Common. He listened for breathing, for the sound of exertion; the men were good. He heard none.

But in the windows across the street, all bay windows, glass facing him and facing, as well, to the sides, he caught again the vague glimpse of his pursuers. They moved quickly, traversing one angled pane, but he was certain, now, they were two.

Two shadows, and tall; one man slightly wider. He could not see the reflected gleam of a weapon in either of these passing impressions. It should have made him feel safer, but oddly enough, it made him more wary, if that were possible. He shifted the left dagger in his hand, lifting his left arm, slowly, always slowly, as he watched. Trusting his aim to reflections across the passing fancy of current fashion trends: a ball gown that trailed from shoulder to temple train in a deep, deep blue that spoke of money.

He waited, judging distance. Trying to see where they might stand—in mid-street, if they were confident of their illegal magical tools. They crossed the dress again; the front facing portion of the bay was at an angle to where Rath now stood, protected by a lip formed of buildings, an open, silent mouth.

He raised his right arm, as his left held steady, and counting as the shadows wavered and flickered, a mix of light and surface, he took a guess, and threw.

The trajectory of daggers in flight ended in seconds; he heard them hit. There was no response, no grunt, no sound, and the daggers hung suspended in air for just a moment before they wavered, as the reflections did, and disappeared.

He drew two more, but held them as his intended victim finally responded. With laughter.

They were close, now, and they could see him; he did not have the advantage of seeing them in turn. Listening, tense, he retreated two steps. Let them come one at a time.

Jewel bounded up the three stairs that led to the recessed door, taking them at once. The girl's eyes were dark—it was night—and wide, her mouth was open, lips obviously cracked. Too much breathing, too quickly. Her ribs could be seen through the tear in her shift, and a long, thin streak of beaded blood was her only jewelry.

She came running down the street, clinging to the side that held the magelights, as if light were somehow important—a street instinct. She almost passed Jewel, her flight was headlong and unseeing; Jewel reached out to grab her arm.

The girl shrieked and started to lash out with fists that were far too small—and awkward, and wrong, thumbs on the inside of curved knuckles—and Jewel pulled her close, shouting one word over and over into her ear: Her name. Finch. Finch.

“Finch!”

But the name didn't do it, and without another thought, Jewel grabbed the girl by the shoulder and slapped her, hard. That, in Jewel's experience, could seldom be ignored. Jewel had never been able to ignore it.

The girl stiffened, and then she said, “You have to let me go—he's after me—”

And looking over Finch's shoulders, which were a good six inches or more shorter than her own, Jewel saw a man jogging around the same corner that had given Finch, whole, into her keeping.

Their eyes met, Jewel's and this stranger's, and Jewel almost froze in place. Something about this man was wrong in a way that was so utterly foreign, so completely dark, Jewel wasn't certain what it was. But she could taste screaming in the silence, as if it were her own.

“My thanks,” he said, in a soft purr of a voice.

All of her hair stood on end. Goose bumps that had nothing to do with the cold, nubbled her skin. He seemed to her, in that instant, to be a leisurely and unerring bolt of lightning, but darker, and more dangerous.

He had slowed to a walk, and his lips were turned up in a thin smile that didn't expose his teeth. She couldn't have said what he was wearing, because for the first time since she'd made the streets her home, it didn't matter. Rich, poor, or something in the middle—it would tell her nothing she needed to know.

Finch was utterly silent. Wide-eyed. Hair clinging to her forehead, flat and mousy. Thin as Lefty. Completely alone.

Or she would have been, in the moonlight, on these streets. But she had Jewel, and Jewel had just enough strength to tear her gaze away from the stranger's—tear was about the right word, it was so damn hard—and drag Finch down the stairwell. It was clumsy, but it was fast, and the stranger hadn't been expecting it.

He was fast.

Had the door been hinged in a different way, had it been locked, had it required more than a shoulder to shove it on its inward trajectory, it would have been over then.

Finch didn't speak at all; she was white, her cheeks flushed in a way that made them look garish. She stumbled forward, and Jewel let her shoulder go and grabbed her by the hand instead. She began to drag her through the crowd, and any direction that was away was the right direction to pull her.

But the crowd was thick, and Jewel had none of the authority of Marla, Taverson's intimidating wife. The men swore at her, or shoved back, or worse, failed to notice her at all. She moved so damn slowly, all the waiting and planning, all the nightmare in the world, wasn't going to mean a damn thing to anyone outside of the Halls of Mandaros.

Because if the stranger caught them, they were both dead. And not a quick death either. Jewel knew it, and as strongly as she had known almost anything in her life.

“Taverson!” she screamed, her hand crushing Finch's delicate fingers so tight they ceased to tremble. “Trouble!”

She couldn't even see the tavernkeeper. She could see the back of the tavern, the kitchen wall, the swinging doors; she could see the crowded tables around which standing men pressed because there wasn't enough room for more chairs. She could see smoke, and dead things in pots, and—she could see the stranger's shadow, even in this light.

As if it lay across her, as if he had already cut his way through the crowd that she couldn't part.

What she couldn't see was Carver. The table, two full bowls untouched—or as close as made no difference—was empty. She reached for her dagger with her left hand, and turning, shoved Finch behind her.

The stranger was close. Men did move when he walked by; she would have run, but they were older and less easily frightened. Or they were stupid. Or they weren't his intended victims.

His eyes were dark, and they caught the light in the tavern and held it, glittering like jewels without the benefit of facets. Surface, there. She could hardly see the whites of his eyes. Couldn't, in fact.

He approached; she backed up. Finch backed as well, as Jewel at last let her go and shifted the dagger to her right hand. She knew it was stupid. Useless. Didn't know how or why, and didn't care, because it was all she had.

He passed the last man, and then there was a small space in which they stood, two girls and a tall man in clothing that Jewel still couldn't see clearly, it meant so little. Long arms. Long fingers. He stretched out, slowly, reached for her face. Her dagger flashed in reply, and he laughed.

But he didn't laugh as much when a bar stool struck him full in the face from below.

Wielded by Carver, and dropped by him as he turned to meet Jewel's eyes. “Don't stand there,” he shouted, “Run!” The exit was blocked; the stranger had teetered, but he hadn't fallen.

Carver looked around, and then his gaze caught the kitchen door, and he nodded toward it. He'd looked the place over, of course. Just in case they needed to get out fast, and not by the front door.

It was enough. Jewel turned, caught Finch by the hand again, and made her way past the dining room's last tables, past the inner wall of the kitchen.

They ran together. Carver was longer of leg, and he drew his dagger. She didn't bother to tell him it would do no good—what was the point if it made him feel safer? But she led him away from the swinging door, pressing a finger to his lips before he could shout incredulity into a single word or ten.