Debris (17 page)

  No debris. No walls falling on me. No snide remarks, no being pointedly ignored. No volatile Lad to worry about. And no Kichlan.

  No Kichlan.

  A day and a half suddenly seemed like a whole moon's holiday.

  I couldn't take another coach home, not now that I knew how few kopacks I earned. Instead, I started down Darkwater toward the Tear River, and the ferry.

  Movoc-under-Keeper's ferries were an historical institution. From the sleek wooden ships of antiquity, rowed by gangs of burly men led and enslaved by a single pionbinder, to the steam-driven boats of the city's relatively recent, pre-revolution past. Or so I had learned, on my frequent trips to stare at the wrecks preserved in the Ferry House, near the city's northern gate. My mother had taken me there often. It was a free way to entertain a child, and always heated, even in the darkest of winters. Inside, ferries of all shapes and ages were suspended behind thick sheets of strong poly, protected from time and the elements by the constant attention of caretaker pions. A veritable history of Movoc, written in its ships. Modern ferries didn't need to rely on manpower, steam power or anything in between. Since Novski's critical circle revolution they were propelled through the water on waves lit by the bright crests of busy pions. This meant they were quiet, smooth, not restricted by the flow of the current or worried by the varieties of the weather. But still, Movoc's ferries were designed with that proud history in mind. Polished wooden decks, sleek hulls painted white, glass windows that rattled in the wind, and even dark, ornamental stacks that would never produce steam.

  I planned my evening as I walked. A drawn-out bath in my own home, not constrained by fire-warmed water or meddling old men. Clean bandages and no golden root-gloop to smear on my skin. I wasn't too confident about the contents of my pantry, but knew I would be happy with anything, as long as I was eating it, or drinking it, in my own home.

  I almost broke into a run as the Tear came into sight. It shone like glass in the clear day, like a fold in Grandeur's dress. And for the first time the memory of her didn't tug at my heart with cruel, hooked strings, and I wondered, just briefly, if I was starting to let my poor broken statue go.

  Then I stepped onto the warm lacquered boards of the ferry. The ferry master smiled as I touched my rublie to his in payment. I smiled right back, turned away and met bright, pleased green eyes.

  "Well," Devich said, before I had truly realised it was him. "I know they say all roads lead to the Tear, but this is a surprise."

  All my dreams of a day and a half of freedom fell away. "Devich."

  His smile changed, became less pleased and more pained. But he didn't drop it completely. "Still not happy to see me, I guess." He rubbed at his shoulder, gaze slipping away. "I wouldn't want to dampen a bright Olday afternoon like this one. So I'll just leave you alone–"

  Passengers crowded behind me, pressuring me onto the ferry, pushing me to step forward. "No, please." I summoned a light tone to my voice. "You don't have to go."

  A little encouragement, and Devich swooped. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders and guided me cleanly from the gangway, around the steadily filling seats, and into the cabin. Without a word he led me up a tight set of stairs half hidden in a dark corner.

  The second level was nearly empty, its lacquered wooden seats less worn by bodily friction and abrasive river spray as those below. The windows were clean of the long-left imprints of curious noses or balancing hands. Only two more people were pressed into one of the corners, and a furtive glance in their direction told me they probably weren't aware of any presence than each other's.

  A strange place to take me, and I hoped I wasn't blushing.

  "I prefer it up here, don't you?" Devich said, his hand gentle and casual on my shoulder.

  I wouldn't know, and couldn't trust my voice to respond.

  "Not so fond of the noise and the smell below," Devich continued, oblivious. "You know what I mean, of course."

  "Why are you here then? Why not take a landau?" I hoped he wouldn't turn the question back at me.

  Devich simply laughed. "A coach to the city on Olday afternoon? I'm a debris technician, Tanyana, not a veche architect. I could throw myself beneath them and they still wouldn't stop, not on the busiest evening in a sixnight and one."

  Fair enough.

  "Well, my dear lady." Devich leaned against the brass railing beneath the windows and peered through the glass. The ferry was pushing off from the wharf and starting its steady way up the Tear, against the current. Afternoon sunlight glinted on the water. It cast the buildings on the far bank as pale ghosts with shimmering, dark windows for eyes. "Where were you headed when you so carelessly crossed my path?"

  "I told you, I'm no one's lady." But I leaned against the railing beside him. He shifted and his bent elbow touched mine. I didn't move. "And I'm going home."

  "Ah." He watched a small vessel whip past us as it flew downriver. It looked more like a seedpod than a boat, and I wondered what colour the pions were that kept it afloat and gave it so much speed. "Hard day, then?"

  "No words could explain it. No words."

  But even now the past few days were fading, becoming grey like a half-remembered and unsavoury dream. Kichlan's house, Eugeny's warning, Lad's sudden and violent temper hardly seemed real when the sunlight hit the Tear just so and Devich smiled like that.

  "I'll have to take your word for it then."

  I was glad he didn't push the issue. Debris technician or whatever it was Devich called himself, he still didn't need to hear how far I had fallen.

  I listened to the low creak of wood and the drum-like slosh of water below. "And you? Where were you going?"

  "Oh, out for a night of fun!"

  "Olday night and Rest morning," I murmured, and bent forward so my nose came close to the cool glass.

  "The very same."

  I could recall the end of many sixnights so celebrated. Frosted drinks so potent they kept you warm despite their rim of ice; pale pink pions lighting a room where women in improper outfits of snakeskin and white feathers danced to bells; old-world balls where everyone dressed in voluminous skirts of velvet and lace, and I – no matter how many times I arrived in dress suit and top hat – could still cause a stir. Just another distant dream, far nicer than my nightmares of debris.

  "Where will you spend your Olday night?" I asked, before I could stop myself scratching at the old wound.

  "This sixnight?
Underbridge
ballroom, I believe. I'm meeting someone..." Devich trailed off, perhaps at my expression. I knew the
Underbridge.
Blue stone, blue lights, blue liquor, the soft blue music of viola and oboe. From the door, on a clear Rest morning when the new sun was touching the Keeper's Edge, you could make out the ice-cream mounds of my art gallery on the opposite bank of the Tear.

  A perfect place to meet a nameless someone. I had done so, at least once before. "Sounds lovely." My words frosted the glass.

  "A night at home after an indescribable day has its good points."

  "I'm counting on them."

  Devich hesitated for a silent moment, then said, "You know, you could join me–"

  "No." Could I tell him the charge just to enter the
Underbridge
ballroom was more than I earned in two sixnights? Could I tell him I preferred the dream of a past life to remain a dream, for now? A memory softened by pretended sleep. "But thank you."

  "It doesn't seem right." Devich gave up any pretence of watching the river. "You, in that apartment of yours, all alone."

  "Doesn't it?"

  "No." His fingers toyed with a splinter of wood where it had risen close to one of the brass railing's hooks. "No one should be alone after a day they can't even talk about."

  I allowed myself to let his easy charm trickle into my stomach, his smile to warm my cheeks. "You really care about that suit of yours, don't you?"

  He blinked, confused. "I do?"

  "Isn't that what you said? That you wouldn't leave me alone, because you'd put so much work into my suit?" I waved my wrist in front of his face. He tracked the circle of silver that peeked out of my sleeve like a cat with a feather on a string.

  "Sounds like something I would say, yes." When his hunting-cat eyes met mine they lost none of that intensity. "And I should probably check its condition."

  I longed for my bath, for my bandages. I was quite sure I still smelled faintly of sewage and yellow root mush. But Devich had been going to meet someone, out there in that pion-sighted, kopack-rich real world. And now, it seemed, he didn't want to anymore.

  "What about your someone?" I whispered.

  "There's plenty of someones in the
Underbridge
ballroom. She'll be fine."

  My heart did a small flop, the kind of nervous activity it hadn't done for years, and I answered a messy "Yes" by nodding and waving one hand aimlessly.

  Devich and I disembarked a few wharfs down from the bridge, and walked home together.

  I hadn't entertained guests in my apartment for a very, very long time. Before Grandeur was even a twinkle in the veche's eye, back, perhaps, to a time when my bluestone art gallery was a haphazard sketch in lines of sheer light.

  My home had, since then, been my own. My slice of quiet, of stillness, of the soft dark of half-lit lamps and comfortable chairs. I frequented ballrooms like the Un
derbridge, and night-stays with views of the Keeper so
exclusive you had to hope you were more important than the next amorous couple just to get in. With commissions from the national veche I hadn't worried about being turned away.

  So my home was not fitted to have guests. It was nearly empty of food, particularly at the moment, and never hosted anything to drink stronger than Hon Ji tea.

  But Devich was a different kind of guest. The kind who had already worked his way inside my well-butsparsely appointed sanctuary, and who had done this when I was vulnerable, when I was ill. Like a family member, perhaps. And yet, nothing like family at all.

  We walked in silence too comfortable to bear.

  "Designed any new suits since I've seen you?" I winced at my own staggering lack of tact.

  He took it well enough. "Oh yes, dozens. I'm a hard worker."

  I ignored his wink. "Same as mine, or something special?"

  "Nothing's as special as yours, my lady."

  "I already told you–"

  "–you're nobody's lady."

  Not without a circle of nine, I wasn't. "Then will you stop calling me that?"

  "Not while you are mine."

  We turned onto Paleice and I focused on the buildings so I wouldn't have to look at Devich, with his bright eyes and roguish smile.

  Gate thirteen was closed and wouldn't open for me anymore – or, rather, I didn't have the skill to open it – so I was forced to crouch and scramble beneath it. Devich chuckled, and vaulted over with an unseemly show of strength and agility. Together, we headed to my ground level apartment. As I slipped my gloves off to touch bare fingers against the crystalline lock, Devich bent and collected a folded sheet of paper from the step. He sidled close to me and tapped the paper lightly against my shoulder. "This would be for you, I assume."

  "Of course it is." I struggled to take the paper and unlock the door at the same time. "Anyone else in this building lose their pion sight recently?" The lock rejected me with an angry-wasp buzz. "You're not helping."

  Devich leaned in, nose close to my temple, breath warm against my neck.

  I concentrated, kept my hand steady, and the lock clicked open, echoing from marble tiles.

  "You still are," he breathed into my ear. His lips brushed the very top of my cheek, and the hair along my forearms stood on end.

  "Still what?" I asked.

  "A lady."

  My gloves and the piece of paper tumbled to the tiled, courtyard floor.

  Scowling, I bent to collect them. But Devich was faster – easier to move without stitches and bandages and the bruises from falling bricks – and snatched them up.

  "Give them back." My fingertips were cold and quivering as I held out my hand.

  Grinning, Devich tucked the paper under his arm and wove his fingers through the gloves, as though he and my disembodied hand were clutching each other. It was disconcerting. He said, "You can't pretend. Not to me."

  I held out my hand again, cutting the air, trying to be firm.

  "And ignoring me won't help either."

  "Really?" I swallowed. "Well, what do you know about being a lady?"

  "I know." Devich held the gloves high above his head as he stepped closer. In my previous life, I would have been able to take them, a single jump and a quick snatch with a well-directed hand. A previous, pain-free life. "I know that scars can't make you less than you are." And before I could stop him, he touched the bandages on my neck with his free hand.

  I jerked back. "Don't!"

  "Why?"

  "It hurts." You arrogant, rich bastard, I thought. "Maybe this wasn't a good idea." I sighed. "Give me my gloves."

  But Devich shook his head. "You were a lady because you were a circle centre, is that it? A skilled pion-binder, a rich one."

  A respected one. "That's the way it works. 'My lord' and 'my lady' aren't applicable without a nine point circle of your very own. Unless you happen to be a member of the veche, of course."

  He shrugged like none of it mattered. "You might not be a skilled binder any more, Tanyana, but you are a skilled debris collector. And this city need collectors just as much as it needs binders."