Cold Magic (60 page)

It was a cursed long and struggling walk hauling them across the dark city. Winter’s cold deadened the night. Fortunately, no festival debris littered the streets to trip us. The balloon rides, the ice fair with its food booths and games, the processions to the temples, the public banquets at which beggars snatched from the filth of the streets would preside over the only good meal they would eat all year, all had been canceled due to the riots. The prince’s curfew kept criminals and rogues at home this night. Militia patrols, however, were out in force. We would hear the clop of hooves and see yellow torchlight gleaming around a corner, giving us time to shrink back into a shadowy alcove or rubbish-strewn alley to hide.

“I feel like someone is following us,” Bee said in a low voice as we crouched on the steps of a locked and barred chandler’s shop, waiting for a clot of six Tarrant soldiers to decide that they did not want to loiter in the intersection ahead. “Do you really know how to get there? We’ve never been to that part of town before. Are you sure they’ll help us?”

A cold wind chased down the street and kissed my nose and lips like a flirt. Or a cold mage. “I’m not sure of anything,” I said, shivering. I was tired and much too chilled, and my arms hurt even though we were swapping off carrying the bags. “But I know the radicals have no love for cold mages or princes. If anyone can help us now, surely it’s lawyers.”

“You set your sights too low,” said a male voice.

We both started up to our feet, and I had my sword unsheathed in an instant. The blade’s faint glow was enough to illuminate a young man leaning insouciantly against the shuttered windows next to us, his shoulders bracing up the wall and his arms crossed over his chest as he watched the mounted patrol down the way confer by the light of their blazing torches.

“Rory!” I said, and although I whispered his name, the swelling in my heart was more like a shout.

“Don’t pet me until you put that thing away,” he said just before I meant to fling myself at him for a celebratory embrace.

“Cat,” murmured Bee, “I thought you were exaggerating about your cane turning into a sword. Also, the blade gleams.”

“It’s cold steel,” I said, sheathing it with the mysterious twist that sheathed the blade as into a sheath that existed only in the spirit world. Then I hugged him. “Oh, Rory, I was afraid I’d lost you. But I didn’t. And you even found clothes!”

“Hush,” said Rory. “They’re still hunting me.”

We waited in silence until the patrol rode on. Then we started to walk, and in truth, I felt much stronger and less cold now that the three of us were reunited.

“How was the pug dog?” asked Bee tartly.

“Too fatty,” he said, “and the peahens had all those feathers. That was nasty. It never bothered me before I wore this skin. By the way, Cousin Beatrice, as I promised, I did no lasting harm to either of the fine lords. Or to any humans, really no more than I had to.” He touched right hand to left shoulder.

“You’re hurt,” said Bee. “You need tending.”

I could not see him grin, but I knew he grinned; the flavor of the air changed. The night felt brighter and the bags less heavy.

“You want to lick the wound?” he asked.

“You’re disgusting!”

“Why is that disgusting? Doesn’t everyone do that?” He looked at me. “And don’t think for one moment I’m carrying either of those bags. What do you have in them? Stones?”

“Books,” said Bee scornfully. “Books, books, books.”

“Not a single one I am willing to part with,” I retorted.

Even had we trudged without the burden of books, Fox Close was quite a long way south and east across the city, close against the excise office and the customs embankment and near the quays. It was in a district inhabited by people who would not have been welcome to live in the houses around Falle Square: foreigners, radicals, technologists, and solicitors. The cocks had crowed by the time we staggered onto Enterprise Road, although the brilliant gaslamps lining the street—the very latest in design—still burned with a remarkable cheer that lifted my spirits and fed a flare of hope to my weary heart. Bee stared and stared, for there were a lot of trolls—and men, and a few goblins not yet burrowed into their daylight dens—coming and going into offices and coffeehouses and shops, all of which were already open and bustling, as if to make up for lost time after yesterday’s festival closings and the riots the day before.

“There is Fox Close,” I said, indicating a humble lane tucked away between a tavern and a coffeehouse but equally busy if one judged by the foot traffic pouring in and out of its throat.

As we made our way down the lane, the gaslights began to hiss and fail, but it was day’s arrival, not that of a cold mage, that shuttered them as the gas was turned off. Ahead, on the right side of the lane, hung a newly painted sign, visible in dawn’s light. The script painted on the sign was pin-perfect, orange letters shining against a feathery brown backdrop:
GODWIK
AND
CLUTCH
.

“I hope this works,” Bee muttered.

We hauled our bags up to the stoop and earned a few curious looks but no offers of help. I plied the knocker. We waited. Rory sighed, looking ready for a nap. I licked my lips, and then was sorry I had done so, for my lips were so dry and cracked that my tongue released a smear of blood. Bee adjusted the fit of her gloves on her fingers. I untangled my cane where it had gotten caught in a fold in my skirts.

The door opened, and a troll looked at us, cocking his head first to one side and then the other to get a good look with each eye. He wore a drab jacket that set off astonishing scarlet and blue and black plumage and crest, truly spectacular.

I found my voice from the pit where it had crawled in to hide. “May the day find you at peace,” I said, a little hoarsely. “My name is Catherine Hassi Barahal. This is my cousin, Beatrice, and my brother, Roderic. We’re here to see Chartji. The solicitor.”

“You’re that one,” he said in words so eerily without accent they did not quite sound proper. “Chartji warned me.”

“Warned you?” I could not get a full lungful of air in, for my chest had gone numb.

” ‘Let her in quickly shall she come standing at the door.’ ” The troll hopped back and gestured for us to enter, baring his sharp teeth in a manner that made Rory yawn threateningly and caused Bee to take a step back. By which movement, she revealed our luggage.

“Oo!” He bent forward and peered at the two bulging bags with their brass clasps.
“Things!”

“Who’s at the door, Caith?” Brennan came out from a back room, wiping his hands on a grimy cloth. He saw me and grinned. “Catherine! And your charming cousin, Beatrice. And another companion, I see.”

“My brother, Roderic,” I said.

“Well met, indeed! Did you tell them to come in, Caith? Give them a cup of water?”

“Things!” said Caith. “Even some shiny things. Two brass clasps and a sword.”

Startled, I looked down. Daylight had veiled the sword, and even to me, in the first weak glimmer of dawn, it appeared as an ordinary black cane.

Brennan said, “Please step inside at once. Caith, close the door behind them.”

The urgency in his tone propelled us like a ball shot from a musket. We hurried in and dropped the bags in the hall as Caith shut the door and locked it with a pair of heavy chains.

Brennan said to Rory, “I’m Brennan. Caith, did you remember to introduce yourself?”

“Oo!” The troll shifted his fascinated gaze away from the brass clasps to look first at Brennan and then at us. His crest flattened and lifted and flattened again. “My pardon! Caith. Not my full name, but assuredly yours. I am what you would call it the clutch cousin sibling child…” His head swiveled uncomfortably far around, to beseech Brennan evidently.

“Nephew,” Brennan said. “Not an egg sibling child, but a clutch sibling child.”

“Ah, I see,” I said, although I had not the least idea of what he was talking about. Caith twisted his head back around to face me and displayed his teeth again. It was clearly an effort to mimic a smile, however disturbing he looked, like he was ready to eat us up. So I smiled in return and addressed him politely. “May you find peace on this morning, Caith.”

Caith led us to the back. In what had once been a sitting room, Kehinde knelt among the pieces of her press, which were spread out in a pattern I could not read. She was so absorbed in moving pieces around to see where they fit that she did not even look up.

Old Godwik was seated at a desk, pen in hand, but he looked up at once. “The Hassi Barahal in her mantle! What an exceptionally pleasant surprise! Let me crow on the rocks at sunrise! And this… the cousin, I presume. And…” He gave Rory an exceptionally piercing look. “Interesting. I’ve not seen one like you before. Well met. Please enter our nest.”

Belatedly, surprised by his words, Kehinde looked up. “Catherine!” She smiled.

Brennan lugged the two carpetbags into the room and set them against the wall. A moment later, Chartji walked in, claws stained with ink and carrying a bowl of water in one hand.

“Catherine!” she said. “And your clutch sibling Beatrice! And did I hear this one called brother? I thought you might come.”

“We have a proposition to make you,” I said without preamble. “Our services, in exchange for yours. We believe that if anyone can help us get out from under the power of magisters and princes, you can.”

“Drink first,” said Chartji. “That’s the proper way. Then we’ll talk.”

As we passed around the bowl, a knocking came again at the door. Caith’s footfalls pattered down; chains rattled softly. The hinges creaked slightly as the door was opened.

After a pause, he called in his uncannily pure voice, “Brennan! There’s a rat here who says you’re expecting a messenger. He says a rising light marks the dawn of a new world.”

Brennan said sharply, “Get him in fast and shut the door.” Then he stepped out into the hallway. With a frown, Kehinde pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and followed. Bee, who had been drinking, handed the bowl to Rory. She grabbed my wrist and tugged me after them. We all spilled into the hallway to see Caith stepping back from the door as a pair of men surged in. I knew them! Hard to forget those faces: They were the two foreigners I had seen in the inn in Lemanis. They carried themselves very differently now. No longer diffident, they prowled like scouts, gazes ranging over our faces and up the stairs. The young man clearly did not recognize me, although he stared too long and too admiringly at Bee. The older man looked twice at me with obvious recognition, then frowned as Rory strolled with a threatening grace out of the back room, followed a moment later by a limping Godwik. On the stoop was the woman dressed as a man, the third foreigner I’d seen in Lemanis, but after glancing inside, she jumped back down to the street.

A man walked up the steps and into the entry hall. He caught Caith’s gaze and gestured. Obeying this wordless order, the young troll closed and chained the door. The door’s lintel framed the newcomer: He was a tall, broad-shouldered, black-haired man about Uncle’s age, and he wore a shabby wool greatcoat and a faded tricornered hat rather the worse for the wear. The clothes did not make the man. He might have worn rags, or he might have worn robes of gold, and either way, he would be the first person in any chamber you would notice, no matter how large the crowd.

I had seen him before. Only not like this. Before, he had hidden the true crackling strength of his gaze and the coiled power of his presence.

The man and Kehinde were eyeing each other with the look of dogs who aren’t sure whether they will become friends or attack.

“I expected a courier,” she said. “An ambassador, to open talks between your people and mine.”

“I am my own ambassador,” he said with a lift of his chin that had more power than a grand flourish. “As I must be, in these troubled times.”

“Truly,” said Brennan, a little curtly, “I would have expected you to arrive with more of a retinue.”

“Numbers breed attention,” said the man. “You understand why I must avoid attention, here in the enemy’s country. However, be assured I have many agents already in the city.”

I knew him.

He looked at Bee and nodded, as if they had already met, although that was impossible. “You must be the eldest Hassi Barahal daughter, just as Helene told me. Black curls, she said, very young, quite beautiful, and with as much subtlety as an ax.”

Mouth agape, Bee pulled her sketchbook from the knit bag and opened it to the page with a sketch that matched his person, and the door’s frame, exactly. He’d rendered her mute.

But his gaze had already moved on. To me.

“And you must be Tara Bell’s daughter. It was so strange to see you that day when you climbed into the wagon in Lemanis. I thought you must be hers, for you look just like her, except for the hair and the color of your eyes. The youth’s presence with you confused me, you calling him your elder brother. And it was too early to meet you. Helene was never wrong about such things.”

I blinked. “You’re Big Leon. The carter’s cousin. We last saw you at Crane Marsh Works in the middle of Anderida. And these two, and the woman outside… a party of five and their mules and wool. What? Were you the one who was sick and about to die?”

“The authorities became suspicious. We split up, and I came ahead, carried by the wings of those who have remained loyal all these years to the cause.”

“You walked into Adurnam alone?” demanded Brennan. “With all the mage Houses and every prince in northwestern Europa hunting for you? That seems rash.”

“And irrational,” said Kehinde thoughtfully. “We could turn you over to the Prince of Tarrant for a significant reward.”

“But you won’t. For you see, I am never alone. The hopes and ambitions of too many people are carried on my back.”

“You’re Camjiata,” I said.

He had a way of tilting his head that made it seem he was about to laugh but had decided not to. That made you want to have a chance to laugh with him, if only you could find a way to surprise that laugh out of him and earn the praise of having amused him. “Of course I am Camjiata. Who else would I be? At last, after the patient work of many years and many hands, I am free.”