Sworn in Steel (42 page)

I went away from the padishah’s grounds, seeking out the back ways and darker corners of the city that I knew would exist even within the second ring. I passed through midnight
scroungers’ markets and around poets arguing on street corners; waved off gap-toothed beggars and declined the services of eager linksmen. I hunted darkness and solitude, sought out the
familiar smells of old garbage and fresh crime.

It was all coming down to time: begged time, borrowed time, even stolen time—all of it tight. Even without the wazir and Heron wanting me gone, balancing Wolf’s impatience and the
task Mama Left Hand had laid at my feet would have been a hell of a trick, but with only two days to do it? Maybe if I’d been in Ildrecca I could have pulled something off, but that required
resources I didn’t have access to in Djan. Here, being a Gray Prince had me more a target than a threat, had brought more peril than prestige. I’d foolishly thought to brandish my title
like a sword, to cow the Kin and impress the
Zakur
with my rare status; instead, I should have taken a tip from the other princes and used it like a shield.

When you operate without an organization at your back, you can only rely on yourself and your reputation. I knew that—had operated on the premise for more years than I could count, both as
a Draw Latch and then later as a Nose. Even when I’d had Nicco’s reputation to lean on, I’d never let my own fall too far behind. Having an Upright Man’s name in your pocket
helps, but unless he or his Cutters are standing there with you, there’s always the chance that the cove you’re pushing will decide he’d rather push back than give in.

I’d forgotten that; or, at the least, I’d let it drift away over the last several months. Instead of worrying about being Drothe, I’d focused on being The Prince. And in
Ildrecca, I’d been able to get away with it: I still had a name on the street, and the tale of my rise was fresh enough, that any stumbles or gaps were been easily ignored. Up until Crook Eye
had called my bluff, I’d been able to pretend that the title was enough, that the dodge would take care of itself, as long as I moved fast and didn’t let the other princes look too
close.

But not here. Here, I was just another Imperial, a member of the Kin who brought a bit more to the table, but not enough to make a difference, not when it mattered. Gray Prince or Wide Nose, I
was all but alone. And when you were alone, the best thing to do was not stand up and wave your arms as I had done, but to stick to the shadows, to keep your voice low and your eyes open, to play
to your strengths.

To be what you were, and not what you were pretending to be.

I redoubled my pace, suddenly eager to get farther into the night. To get back to Fowler. To figure out how the hell I was going to get out of this, because while I didn’t know what I was
going to do, I knew how I needed to go about it.

I needed to be a Nose.

Not for the first time, I missed the bells of Ildrecca. The old temple ringer down in the Square Hills cordon, calling the monks of Corvous to prayers with its monster of a clapper; the somber
wind-bells over at the Sisters of Despair’s chapter house in Cold Street; the lyrical clapping of the brass hand bells up on Osprey’s Crag that had been rung every night for the last
hundred years, though no one ever knew by whom. All had helped me mark the night, letting me know how far from dawn or dusk or an appointment I might be, and all had kept me company. Their absence
was something I’d felt ever since I’d gotten here.

Still, el-Qaddice had its fair share of night rituals as well. I’d already come to expect the deep, rolling chant that welled up from the Temples of the Horned Horse that stood in every
circle of the city. The slight difference in each temple’s timing made the prayer sound more like a wandering echo of itself, and the sound had caused me to stop, entranced, the first night
I’d heard it. Later, sometime past midnight, I knew the mystics of the Old City would spin their cleansing chimes, filling the air with a thin, tinkling music that was meant, I was told, to
keep two rival bands of djinni from resuming an ages-old war in the skies over the city. I hadn’t been able to make full sense of it, but the ancient grudge supposedly had something to do
with a silver thread and a peach and a thimbleful of dust. All I knew was that I’d yet to meet any guard patrols, let alone djinn, when the chimes were sounding, which was fine by me.

Those chimes sounded now, bringing an eerie sense of foreboding to the streets. I felt the hairs rise along my arms and neck, only to fall back down as the ringing faded. In the silence that
followed, I became aware of the soft tread of slippered feet at my side.

I looked over, saw the ghost of a shadow in my night vision, and grimaced.

“How long have you been following me?” I said.

“Long enough to know you for a fool to walk the streets of el-Qaddice alone,” said Aribah, her voice a near-disembodied thing in the darkness.

“Not alone as I first thought, it seems.”

“Which only makes your actions that much more reckless.” I could practically hear her shaking her head. “To think that the Family would give one such as you the gift of dark
seeing . . .”

“The Family had nothing to do with it,” I said. “I got my night vision from my stepfather.”

“And he received it how?”

That was a good question. I’d always wondered where my stepfather, Sebastian, had gotten his night vision: who had performed the ritual for him, and how he’d learned to use it and
pass it along to me. Those first few nights, I’d lain awake studying the still house with my freshly magicked eyes, spinning tales in my head about Sebastian and the kinds of adventures he
must have gone through to receive the gift that was now mine. I’d always known he’d traveled before settling down with us in the Balsturan—with the tales he told of Sadaz and
Un’Naang and Cyprios, it was no secret he’d ranged far and wide in his youth—but after that night in the forest, those wanderings had taken on fresh meaning in my imagination,
complete with demons and djinn and hoar-goblins. How else to explain the solemn ritual he had performed, the magic that had passed from his eyes to mine? A ritual he had never had a chance to teach
me, because he was dead three days later.

After Sebastian’s murder, my imaginings had taken a darker turn: Clever bargains with inscrutable wizards had turned into desperate deals with demons in my head. I’d known better, of
course, but I’d been young, and with no better answers I made up something that seemed to fit with the sole fact I had: Sebastian had been cut down by assassins in our doorway, and I’d
never known why.

I looked at a flicker of amber that was the young assassin next to me. No, it hadn’t been the
neyajin
. Sebastian’s killers hadn’t been Djanese. And even if they had,
the killing had been done in daylight. That didn’t seem like a
neyajin
practice.

I turned my eyes forward. “I don’t know how he got it,” I said.

The sound of shoes stopping suddenly in the street. “Truly?”

“Truly. I have no idea who gave it to Sebastian, nor how he passed it on.”

“Then we share an interest in your eyes.”

“For different reasons, but yes, I suppose so.”

Another pause, and then the slippers began walking, although this time at a more contemplative pace. I fell in beside them as best I could, given I wasn’t sure where precisely Aribah was
in the darkness. I noted that we both naturally drifted away from the few lights we found spilling out of windows or doorways, invariably favoring the darker path when presented a choice.

“So why the shadow?” I said.

“My grandfather still thinks you’re too valuable to risk losing.”

“And you?” I said. “What do you think?”

“I do as I’m asked.”

“Asked,” I said, “or told?”

Aribah’s voice grew prickly. “I’m here to make sure you don’t fall prey to the hazards of el-Qaddice.”

“You mean to make sure my eyes don’t fall hazard. I can’t imagine that my overall health is of much concern to your grandfather.”

“The two are one and the same. To lose you is to lose the potential of your gift.”

“I thought your grandfather decided my gift wasn’t the same thing as what the despot handed out, that what I have can’t help your school.”

“Not being able to possess something does not make it any less dear.”

Meaning things weren’t as cut-and-dried as the old man had made out in the tunnels. Interesting. And worrisome.

I glanced over at the amber-tinted smudge beside me.

“How do you do that?” I said.

“What?”

“Hide from my ni—from the dark sight.”

A snort in the night. “You think I’d reveal our secrets to an Imperial?”

“Just as you thought I’d reveal mine to a Djanese?”

I watched the blur that was Aribah as she kept pace with me. Finally, “It’s a special dye,” she said. “Painted on in the form of runes, over and over, and then pounded
into the cloth until the power is bound to the fibers themselves.”

“And your faces and hands and blades?” I said.

“A similar procedure.” Then after a moment, she added, “Only with less pounding.”

I grinned at the unexpected comment. “Humor?” I said. “I didn’t think that was allowed among the
neyajin
.”

“It is not only allowed, it’s encouraged. I thought you, being of your people’s
Zakur
, would understand.”

I thought for a moment, trying to translate her meaning. “You mean gallows humor?” I said at last.

“If by that you mean using laughter to defeat the dreams that come to you in the night—and the regrets that haunt you during the day—then yes, that’s what I
mean.”

“In that case, yes, I understand, and I apologize for my surprise.”

We went a handful of paces farther along before I heard a rustle of cloth beside me. Looking over, I was startled to see Aribah drawing the tail of her turban away from her face.

It wasn’t only her eyes that were stunning: The fine arch of her eyebrows was echoed in the sharp lines of her cheek and the downward turn of her mouth. The swath of dye only accentuated
the reveal, making it seem as if the upper part of her face was hidden by a mask, or the night.

She didn’t look at me as she walked, and I made a point not to stare. I understood the gift she’d just given me.

“My grandfather says that to be able to laugh in the face of what you’ve done, and what you will do again, is one of the most important skills we can learn,” she said softly.
“It’s why we tell tales not only of success, but also of failure, not just to learn from them, but to learn to laugh at death.”

“I’d think failure in your line of work would carry too high a cost to be laughed at.”

“Sometimes, yes, but there are more . . . nonlethal close calls than you might think.” She looked over, and I looked away so as to not fall into her eyes. “Is it the same for
you?”

“Similar,” I said. “Although I don’t make a habit of . . . well, I don’t belong to a school like you do, so I have to be a bit more selective about who I share my
failures with.” I tapped my nose. “Reputation, you know.”

“It must be hard to be on your own,” she said. “With the school, as long as people fear one
neyajin
, they fear us all.”

“Oh, it’s supposed to work that way with the position I have, too.”

“But it doesn’t?”

I hesitated. “Not exactly, no.”

“Then you’re doing it wrong.”

“Excuse me?”

“If the others like you are feared, and you aren’t, then you’re not one of them; if you were, it would be the same for you.”

“It’s not that simple. We—”

“It is
precisely
that simple.” She stopped and began re-fastening her face cloth. I stopped as well. This close, my night vision could make out her eyes between blinks.
“If the other members of your school are feared, but you are not, then you’re not only failing yourself—you’re failing them. To leave an opening for doubt, to give your
victims reason to hope they might live when you come for them, is to walk the path of weakness. Weakness not only for you, but for all those who share your status.” She poked a finger against
my chest. “Whether you respect them or not—whether you even like them or not—you’re doing your fellows no favor by undermining them.”

“And if they’re the ones doing the undermining?” I said, maybe a bit too defensively.

“Then they’re fools as well. Harming your reputation only harms their own. If people see you as being weak enough to fall, how long before they start to see the same weakness in
those who caused your fall?”

I shook my head. “That’s a good theory for a school of assassins, but it doesn’t quite work the same for a group of crime lords. We have every reason to want to see the others
fail; their fall only helps us rise higher.”

“But at your own expense,” said Aribah, her eyes gleaming so bright in the night I expect anyone could have seen them just then. “Even among the
neyajin
, we know to
keep our disputes hidden. If our school was known to be fractured, none would come to us; worse, a rival, or even the agents of the despot, might see it and know us to be ripe for the
breaking.”

“So in other words, you’re saying it’s better that the door appears whole even if it’s rotting from within, so no one knows they can kick it down?”

“That’s not how I’d put it, but yes.”

I studied the rooftops around us as I considered what she’d said. I’d long known the value of appearances—or lack thereof—on the street and in criminal organizations; as
a Nose, I’d spent a good deal of time either shoring up or slowly dismantling them, one piece at a time. What Aribah was saying was nothing new, but the way she was saying it, the way she was
talking about the illusion of unity keeping the despot at bay . . . I’d never considered that that kind of an approach could be applied on a broader, and higher, level.

“My thanks to your grandfather,” I said, turning back to her. “He taught you well.”

Aribah bowed, albeit a bit stiffly. “I will convey your praise to him.” The words didn’t come out exactly supple, either.