“Yes,” I said carefully, crisply.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have pried.”
It was tempting to agree with that, too, but I said, “The important thing is to find a safe place to put these rubies. I want to be rid of them.”
“I can imagine. Are they powerful?”
“Not in their own right. They’re thaumaturgically charged, but it’s nothing as strong as a curse. It’s the synergistic effect with the Mirador that worries me.”
“Yes. You know, I wonder . . .”
“Yes?” I said, when the pause had stretched to an irritating length.
“Oh—just that I’ve been wondering about bringing something material across the boundaries of the Khloïdanikos, and—”
“You really think that’s possible?”
“I’m wondering. I don’t think it would work with ordinary objects, but something with a thaumaturgic charge, something that already casts a shadow into the world of the spirit . . . and it seems to me the Khloïdanikos ought to be able to nullify a mild charge such as you describe.”
My first impulse was to reject the idea utterly. I wanted to keep Malkar out of the Khloïdanikos, wanted to have one part of my life he could not touch. But then I caught myself. Malkar was dead. He couldn’t touch anything. Even the rubies weren’t actually imbued with Malkar’s spirit, only with the residue of the magic he had worked.
I am giving him too much power, I thought. There was nothing talismanic about the rubies—nor anything talismanic about the Khloïdanikos, for that matter. It did not symbolize my lost innocence. It most certainly did not need me to protect it, and I needed to rein in my vanity if I was imagining it did.
And what Thamuris was suggesting was, in fact, an elegantly simple solution to a problem over which I’d been giving myself headaches for weeks. “And it’s not as if it would have to be permanent,” I said, feeling much lighter and more cheerful. “If it doesn’t work, we can always remove them and try something else.”
“Exactly. It would be quite a useful experiment for any number of reasons.”
“Including the question of whether it’s possible at all.”
“Yes. Quite.”
I considered the problem.
“It wouldn’t be difficult to create a construct-token,” I said and then broke off, my breath catching in my throat as the answer clicked into place like the tumblers of a lock.
“Felix?”
I shook my head sharply, as if that might clear it or settle it. “Nothing. I think I know how to do it.”
“Just like that?” He didn’t sound disbelieving, merely a little uneasy.
“It . . .” I made a futile shaping gesture with both hands. “It fits with something I’ve been working on. Working with. A way to link thaumaturgic architecture and architectural thaumaturgy. Anyway, I’ll have gotten it worked out by the next time we meet.”
“You sound awfully certain.”
I smiled at him, trying not to see Malkar bursting into flames behind my eyes. “I’ve done it before.”
Mildmay
I went to bed early that night. Felix let me go, but later, a couple hours after I’d heard him and Gideon go into their room, my door opened and he came in, crowned with witchlights.
“You’re awake,” he said. He stopped maybe a foot inside the door.
“You ain’t asking,” I said and sat up.
“Are you all right?”
“Sure, I’m fine.”
“I don’t suppose it is any of my business.”
That sat there for a minute, since I didn’t know what to say.
“Something’s eating at you,” he said. “If I promise not to lose my temper and not to say anything cruel, will you tell me what it is?”
“It ain’t Strych.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” he said, calm and almost gentle, and that gave me the nerve to say it.
“I’ve been thinking a lot. About Ginevra.”
“Ginevra. She still haunts you.” He wasn’t asking that time, either.
“Yeah, I guess.”
There was another long pause. I couldn’t read his face. Then he heaved a sigh and said, “May I sit down?”
“Sure,” I said and made room for him on the bed. He sat beside me and looked the candle into flame. He said, “I have always been afflicted with what Gideon calls true-dreaming. The longer the binding-by-forms has been in place, the more that ‘true-dreaming’ has included awareness of your dreams. I’ve fought it and fought it. I was afraid it would backlash, and you would start having my nightmares. But I can’t block it out completely. I didn’t want to tell you—I knew how much you’d hate it—but, frankly, I don’t think it’s going to go away.”
“Fucking marvelous.” I’d heard—sort of, anyway—his dreams at first, but that had gone after Strych. I’d just been glad.
“You dream about her a lot.”
“Yeah.”
He looked at me for a moment, then looked away and said, “When I was eleven, I lost everyone I cared about. The person I loved best in all the world died in my arms. I’ve told you about her.”
“Joline.” He’d said I reminded him of her.
“Lorenzo—the owner of the Shining Tiger, the brothel where . . . Lorenzo found me in the aftermath. By the time I had recovered from the initial shock, I . . .” He stopped completely.
I remembered the first time he’d told me about this, in the Gardens of Nephele. I remembered the black cloud I’d been in, and how it had been all I could do just to listen to his light voice and pay enough attention that the words made sense. I remembered him making some half-joke about prostitution and moving on, like it wasn’t no big deal. And, powers, I’d been so fucked up myself, I hadn’t even wondered about it.
He looked at me. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know if he wanted me to. I stayed silent. He said, “It was years before I was able to grieve. Partly, that was because there was always some new and hideous thing to deal with, and partly because Lorenzo didn’t waste any time introducing me to phoenix. Phoenix really is splendid, you know. You put the things you don’t want to deal with in a drawer and phoenix closes the drawer for you. But I had dreams.”
He stopped again. This time he seemed to want me to say something. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but I don’t see what you’re getting at.”
“I’m saying that . . . your dreams . . . it’s like you’re snagged on something. And I wondered . . . if I could help you find it, maybe?” He gave me a look, a funny one, sort of shy and sideways, and I don’t know how, but all at once the words were just there, and I said them.
“It’s my fault she died. I didn’t tell her.” There it was, the thing I’d been trying not to think since I’d dropped my cane in the Grenouille Salon. I took a deep, painful breath and buried my face in my hands.
“Didn’t tell her what?”
“Ginevra didn’t understand about Vey,” I said. “We never talked about it, but I think she thought Vey would forget or something—you know, after a while it would be okay again. And, powers, I don’t know, but I guess my reputation was still enough that it wasn’t worth Vey’s while to come after me.”
“But when Ginevra left you, she lost that protection.”
“Yeah. I didn’t think she’d leave, so I never sat her down and made her understand. She wasn’t stupid—you got to understand, Felix, she wasn’t stupid—but she was . . . she wouldn’t believe something unless she’d seen it for herself.”
“But you said someone gave information to Vey.”
“Yeah.”
“So I really don’t see how it can be your fault.”
“Don’t you get it? Out of that whole fucking tangle, I was the only guy who knew the stakes. And I didn’t tell Ginevra. I never tell people things. That’s my whole fucking problem.”
“It is a persistent motif.”
My glare must have been just this side of murder. He said quickly, “I didn’t mean to be fl
ip—remember, I promised I wouldn’t say anything cruel. But you don’t tell people things. Only stories.”
“I don’t like talking,” I said and looked at my hands.
“I know that.” We were quiet for a while. Then he said, “I’ve probably got things all wrong, but can I ask a question? I promise I don’t mean it to be cruel or glib.”
“Go ahead.” My head was too heavy to lift.
“Did Ginevra ever ask you?”
“What?”
“Did she ever ask you about Vey? Did she ever say, ‘Tell me about that woman who tried to kill us both’?”
I was staring at him now. “No. I mean—I did tell her, but not much. And she . . . she asked about what Vey had been trying to do, but she didn’t ask about Vey. I don’t think she wanted to know.”
“Then she is at least as responsible for her death as you are. If someone wants to be blind, Mildmay, you can’t make them see.” There was a pause where I probably should’ve said something. He stood up. “I think I’ve done enough pontificating for one night. Unless . . . do you want me to stay?”
“I . . . no, I need to think.” But I wanted to give him something, because he’d cared enough to help, and he hadn’t been mean. “I think you said something important, but I gotta work it through.”
“I understand.” He went to the door, then stopped. “You know,” he said. “You know, if you ever want me to ward your dreams, I will. I won’t even ask any questions.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll remember.”
“Good night, then.”
“Yeah, good night.”
He went out and shut the door. I was left staring at it, like it could tell me something important. I’d’ve liked to get up—to leave the suite and go walk around the Mirador while everything settled inside my head—but even with my new stick, I didn’t think that was a smart idea.
If someone wants to be blind, you can’t make them see.
That was Ginevra all right. It was a lot more her than her looks and her figure, which was all anybody, including me, had ever seemed to care about. She hadn’t been stupid, but if Ginevra didn’t want to see a thing, then that thing just plain was not there. Ever.
I remembered the one time I’d tried to tell her about my childhood, about growing up a kept-thief. She’d asked one day in Thermidor, and I’d known she’d been thrill-seeking, but I’d been mad in love, and I’d tried. I’d really tried to tell her the truth. She’d believed all the things I told her, but I remembered now the way her attention had skipped past the things I’d tried to say about Keeper and about the other kids. She wanted the stuff that sounded romantic to her, that fit in with her ideas about herself and about me and about what I was doing in the great romantic story of Ginevra Thomson.
How had that conversation ended? I racked my memory, staring at the damn door like I’d find the answers there, and finally remembered. I’d lied. I’d been desperate to distract her before she pissed me off and I told her what it was like to strangle somebody and feel their clawing, heaving body become nothing but a dead, stupid sack of meat against you, and so I’d started this huge, elaborate lie about Keeper sending me to steal the great Black Crown of the House of Tamerinsius. It took Ginevra a while to realize I was lying. By the time she did, the story was rolling, and it did its job. When I’d finished—well, actually, a little before the story was really over—we’d made love. It had been good, and by the time we were done, I’d managed to forget how Ginevra had made me feel.
She never listened to you, Milly-Fox, a voice said.
That ain’t true! I twisted around and slammed my fist into the pillow, like it was the one saying stuff I didn’t want to hear.
She never listened to you. She liked being the lover of Mildmay the Fox, the greatest cat burglar in the Lower City, but she wasn’t interested in you, you poor, stupid son of a bitch. She was as blind to who you are as she was blind to Vey.
I hadn’t told her, but odds were she wouldn’t have listened if I’d tried.
Whatever she’d loved, it hadn’t been me.
Chapter 8
Mildmay
The morning was actually going pretty good for once. I hadn’t slept much, but I wasn’t no ray of sunshine anyway, and Felix and Gideon seemed to have mended their fences, from what I could tell. I’d thought sometimes that it was Gideon’s special curse that he couldn’t stay mad at Felix. No matter what Felix did, they never stayed on the outs for long. And maybe Felix hadn’t done anything with Mr. Garamond. I didn’t know and wasn’t asking.
So, no fights, nobody running late—we even sat down for breakfast together, which we managed maybe about twice a month. Felix was buttering a biscuit and telling us the latest rumors about Lady Mirabel Valeria and her lover—this gal was supposed to have climbed out a convent window to be with Lady Mirabel—when there was a knock at the door.
“Expecting someone?” Felix said to me.
“Nope,” I said.
Him and Gideon shrugged at each other, and he said, “Come in.”
It was Rollo, and he was unhappy.
“My lord,” he said, “I beg your pardon, for it is no doing of mine, but there is a person who insists on seeing you. He says if you will not see him, he will have no choice save to go to the Lord Protector.”
“What sort of a person?” Felix said.
Rollo all but wrung his hands. “A City Guard, my lord.” Rollo was from Archwolf, and in Archwolf they didn’t call ’em Dogs. Though the way Rollo said “City Guard,” it meant about the same.
“Did he say what he wanted to see me about?”
“No, my lord. He said it was not my business.”
“Well, we certainly don’t want him bothering Lord Stephen at this time of day,” Felix said. “Show him in.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Rollo said and whisked himself out.
“Are you sure you aren’t expecting anyone?” Felix asked me.
“Maybe I ain’t surprised he’s here,” I said, thinking about the goon who went through the window and the goon who was missing a couple of fingers and Kethe knows what all I might’ve done to the rest of ’em.
“Indeed,” Felix said.
The door opened again, and Rollo—showing with every line of his body that he completely disowned the guy and this wasn’t none of it his fault—showed the Dog in.
The Dog was somewhere around his sixth septad, square-built and big. He was running to fat now, but I was willing to bet he must have been quite something when he was young. His eyes were brown, small, and sharp like needles.
He bowed sort of generally, said, “My lord,” and waited. His little bright eyes went from me to Felix to Gideon.
“I am Felix Harrowgate,” Felix said. “I am afraid you have the advantage of me.”
“My lord,” the Dog said again, with a deeper bow this time, aimed directly at Felix. “I’m Sergeant Abelard Morny of the City Guard.”
“Sergeant,” Felix said with a little nod in return. “What can I do for you?”
“As to that, my lord, I’m not rightly sure.” He rocked back on his heels a little. “See, there was a fight down in Gilgamesh the other night, and a boy ended up in the Hospice of St. Latimer. Nasty deep cuts—he got thrown through a window. He says”—and the bright little eyes darted from Felix to me and back to Felix—“that his assailant was a redheaded man with a scar on his face—a thing there aren’t too many of in this city.”
“True,” said Felix. He didn’t look at me. “What is your point?”
“Well, I’m curious, my lord, about how that boy ended up going through a window, and I was wondering if anybody in this room could tell me anything about it.”
Sergeant Morny had done his homework. He knew about the binding-by-forms, about how he wasn’t supposed to talk to me without being invited. He knew it, and he’d worked his way around it as slick as you please.
“Will you excuse me one moment, please?” Felix said, rising.
“Of course,
my lord.” Sergeant Morny’s little dark eyes were twinkling, and I could feel him watching me limp as I followed Felix into his and Gideon’s bedroom.
Felix shut the door. I was proud of him for not slamming it because I could see how bad he wanted to. Then he gave me a nervous little sidelong look. “Did you really throw someone through a window?”
“It ain’t the way it sounds,” I said, and I wondered if he’d believe me.
Whether he did or not, he let it go. “We don’t have many choices. We either show him the door, or we let him talk to you.”
“I think he meant it when he said he’d go to Lord Stephen.”
“I do, too. So we show him the door, he goes to Lord Stephen, and I get ordered to cooperate. The only advantage I see is that it would buy a little time.”
“It don’t matter,” I said. “I ain’t gonna lie to him. I mean, there ain’t no point. But there ain’t time for it before court.”
“Isn’t, not ain’t,” said Felix. He stood a moment, his eyes blank and inward-looking, then opened the door and strode back into the sitting room. Sergeant Morny and Gideon hadn’t moved an inch, both looking like the taxidermists had been at them.
“Sergeant,” said Felix, “we will be enchanted to assist you with your inquiries, but I wonder if you would be so kind as to make an appointment for this afternoon. Court convenes in rather less than an hour.”
“That’s very kind of you, my lord,” Sergeant Morny said, “and more than I expected. I’ll come back around the eighth hour of the day, then?”
“Splendid,” said Felix and got him out the door with one of his five-alarm smiles.