The Hidden City (79 page)

“And the others, Finch and Teller. They won't be worth much in a fight.”

“Neither will I.”

Duster looked at her dubiously. “If you say so.”

“We're not that kind of a den,” Jewel said quietly.

“I know. I just don't know what kind of den you
are
. And I know what's out there,” she added, nodding up in the direction of the street beyond the walls. “We're not going to carve out much of a territory the way we are now.”

“We're not carving that kind of territory.”

“You said you wanted to protect your own,” Duster said, facing her squarely. “How are you going to do that if you can't stake a claim and hold it?”

“I'll figure it out. We've got other things to worry about first.”

At that, Duster was satisfied, or mollified. She nodded. The dresses were gone; they once again wore the loose pants and tunics that best suited them. They were heavy wool, and Jewel found they chafed at her neck, but they were at least warm.

Jewel rose and took out a stack of heavy slates, and these she passed around. Duster glared at them. “You have to learn, too,” Jewel told her quietly. It wasn't a command. It was not, however, a request.

“And what in the Hells am I going to do with this?”

“Gods know,” Jewel said crisply. “But you'll find something. Hopefully, something legal.”

There was a lot of silence around Jewel and Duster as Duster stared at the slate. People waited.

“We're not going to stay in this holding forever,” Jewel told Duster, aware that she was speaking to them all. “We're not going to be poor forever. If we have to steal to eat, fine, we'll steal—but there are other ways to make a living, and we're not going to have even a chance at those if we can't master a few crooked lines.

“We need to do this. We're
going
to do this.”

Duster took the slate and said, “Only until I'm finished what I need to do.”

“All we have is—”

“Now. Yeah, I heard you. Damn your now.” But she didn't rise, she didn't stalk out. It was a start, and a better start than Jewel had hoped for.

 

Two days passed in this fashion. Teller was still silent, but he spoke to Finch and Lefty, and he struggled to memorize letters with a hunger that Jewel dimly remembered as her own. There was a world that words opened, if you could read them. Not a world of money, not a world of opportunity—a different world. A different place.

He asked her questions. About the letters, about the forms, about where they came from. In the end, she borrowed some of Rath's books—his prized books—and she opened them for Teller. He stared at the pages with a mixture of dismay and open hunger.

“This is a book about the history of the Blood Barons,” she told him quietly. “It's grim. But it ends with the story of Veralaan and the Twin Kings—the first Kings—so it's not all bad.”

“You can read this?”

“With Rath's help. The language is kind of strange. People talked differently then, I guess.”

“I recognize these ones,” he said, pointing out letter shapes. His smile was bright and open; a studied contrast to Duster's. She nodded, because he actually did. He was fascinated by the pages, by the texture of the paper, by the binding of the book itself, by its obvious age.

But when he closed it, he turned to her and said, “I talked with Finch and Jester.”

She frowned.

“They're worried about you.”

“Are they?”

He nodded. “What are you going to do?”

It caught her by surprise, and Jewel wasn't good at surprises. “Do?”

“You went out with Rath in those dresses, you came back, Rath shut himself in his room.”

“Oh, that. He always does that.”

“He left again.” Which was obvious, or they wouldn't be in his room, in front of his books.

He stared at her, and she felt the weight of his observation pinning her down. In the quiet corner of this room, book in her lap, she struggled with lies, and gave up on them.

“Duster was—”

“Finch told me.” He spared her the words themselves, and she was grateful for it.

“Duster only wanted one thing, when we rescued her,” Jewel said quietly.

“Finch told me.”

“We're working on that.”

Teller was silent. It was a long silence, and a drawn one. “You don't want anyone else to help you.”

The force of the word would have stopped anyone else; it didn't seem to surprise the meek and compliant boy in front of her. “Why? Anyone here would help you in any way they could if you asked.”

“I don't want their help. I don't want yours,” she added, the words harsh. That would have silenced Finch or Lefty. Teller was unmoved. “I owe you my life,” he whispered.

“Yes,” she replied. “And I want you to have
your
life, and your life isn't Duster's.”

“Neither is yours.”

It wasn't what she expected. “It's mine, or part of mine,” she told him quietly.

“Why?”

“Because it has to be. Teller—when I came home—the kitchen, the cooking—it reminded me of my home. When my family was alive. I miss them,” she added, “And I
want
that for us. That home, that type of home. I want that more than I want anything else. And asking for this from any of you—it would change that.”

“Will it change you?”

She closed her eyes. “I don't know,” she said quietly. “But if you get involved, if all of you get involved, there's no way back. For me,” she added. “Or for Duster.”

He nodded. Just a nod. But it contained everything.

“I think I like it here,” he told her, as he closed the book and handed it back to her keeping. “I want to stay.”

“I want you to stay.”

“I know. Don't change too much.”

“I'll try.” Her expression shifted. “You haven't been talking to Rath, have you?”

Teller shook his head. “Don't need to,” he answered. “And besides, he never talks to anyone but you.”

“You know that after two days?”

Teller shrugged. “I want to be able to read this,” he told her, touching the book's cover. “With you. With them.”

“You will.”

He said nothing, and she felt the room as an empty place, a cold place. Premonition.

And Rath walked in.

Finch was shy; if Jewel had been asked, she would have said that Teller was shy as well, for they seemed alike in many ways. But Teller offered Rath diffidence without fear. And Rath accepted Teller's presence in his inner sanctum as if he expected to find him there.

“Haval will see us this evening,” he told her, without preamble.

She nodded, but she saw that his gaze was not actually on her, although it skirted her face: he was watching the new boy's reaction. Whatever minimal reaction Teller had—Jewel would have said it was none—was exactly the right reaction.

“I offer you what sympathy I have for the loss of your family,” he added, to Jewel's great surprise. “Loss of kin, in any way, is a blow. We're all defined by how we handle loss, and I think you may prove my better in this.” And he bowed his head with genuine respect. Jewel remembered to shut her jaw. It kind of snapped.

“I have some work to do here, and I would prefer to do it without interruption. Teller,” he added, and the boy nodded, “you may, if you handle them with care, borrow my books, save for only a select few. Jay will let you know which ones those are, if it is not obvious.”

Teller nodded again.

“But I must ask you both to leave me.”

Jewel was halfway out the door when Teller turned.

“Thank you,” he said. Just that. But Rath smiled.

Chapter Twenty-three

HAVAL WAS WAITING for them when they arrived; it was dark, although the Common—and more important, his store—had not yet closed for the day. Magelights glowed brightly above the snow, lending it beauty and grace, neither of which deprived it of deadliness. Like Duster, Jewel thought, surprising herself.

He was at work at his counter, and glittering beads were spread out between needles and spools of thread that were colored and almost gleaming. Fabric covered the counter as well, possibly the length of a skirt. He was working with it when they entered.

His aide—Jewel couldn't quite think of her as an apprentice—approached them with her fixed and weary smile, and Haval motioned her back to her place with a nod of the head. “We'll want tea,” he said.

This was clearly not the woman's regular job, and she frowned. Jewel jumped up. “I can make that,” she told the tight-lipped woman. This did not endear her.

“I don't like this,” the woman told Rath. “I'm happy enough that Haval sees his old friends, but I don't want him involved in your business. We have a respectable shop now, Rath. We have a real business.”

“I assure you, Hannerle, that we have no intention of—”

“I don't want your damn assurances.”

Jewel was surprised, but said nothing; this was Rath's problem.

“Very well. If they bore you, I will leave them for now. We are not here to involve Haval in anything that would require his absence from your establishment, and it is clear that the commission over which he labors is a significant one; he does not stop for much. No doubt he will be working as we speak,” he added.

Hannerle snorted. “No doubt,” she said. “It's the type of work I question. We're not young, Rath, and we've got something to lose. I
don't
want to lose it.”

“Hannerle,” Haval said curtly, “enough. Rath understands that I'm an aged, respectable citizen. He has not come here to tempt me back to a life of crime in the streets. He doesn't have that much money.”

“He has enough influence.”

“Hannerle.”

Hannerle had the hair that Haval lacked, pulled back in an overly severe knot and fastened by a bronze pin. She also had lines worn into her brow and around her mouth and eyes, and it seemed that they were perpetually on the edge of a frown. Or, in this case, in the middle of one. “I'll show you the kitchen, girl,” she said curtly.

Jewel nodded and followed her. “I won't be a minute,” Haval said, to her retreating back.

“She will,” Hannerle snapped back.

But Jewel understood Hannerle, so much like her Oma in her distrust of strangers, and she felt oddly comforted by the woman's presence here. “He's your husband?” she asked, when the door to the shop had been closed firmly behind them.

“Aye,” Hannerle said wearily. “And he's as dishonest as the day is short in this season, but for all that, he's got a good heart, when he can be bothered to find it.

“He was in another line of work when we met,” she added, her expression grim, but softening as she spoke. “And I adored him for it. I was young and foolish then.

But not so foolish that I'd tie my fortunes to his if he didn't make a few changes. He has talent,” she added, her anger relenting to a grudging pride, “and an eye for detail that can't be matched. We've built a clientele in the Common that would belong in the High Market on the Isle if we could afford the taxes and the rents there.

“He built it,” she added. “I don't know why you're here, girl, and I don't know why Rath brought you. But Haval won't say no to Rath.”

“Why?”

“He owes him too much, he says. He won't tell me why; believe that I've asked. But if he wasn't entirely honest, he was almost entirely honorable, in his own way. He means it. Nothing I say is going to change his mind. So I'm going to ask you not to destroy our lives for the sake of a simple favor.”

Jewel nodded quietly, taking the responsibility that the older woman handed her as if it were food, and she were in need of it.

“This,” Hannerle said, “is the kitchen.”

It looked very much like the counter at which Haval was working. “I'll help you,” the older woman added grudgingly. “Don't touch those bottles; they're expensive dyes and you'll be dark blue for months if they spill.”

Jewel nodded again. She was accustomed to taking care when walking among the things other people treasured. Rath had taught her that much. Hannerle donned an apron, and offered one to Jewel as well; it was far too large, but she took it and put it on anyway.

They worked in silence, until Jewel said, “I won't let him do anything to hurt himself, or you.” She spoke gravely.

The woman's facial lines were still etched there, but they were transformed by a weary smile. “Rath has a good heart,” she said quietly, “but he never lets go of anything. He could have been a Patris on the Isle, did you know that? He could still go back, if he wanted.”