| |
––––––––
SHE COULD FEEL HIM.
First it was an insistent ache, a nagging thought Tabeth couldn’t catch, as if she’d forgotten to do something important. She had no idea what was causing the restlessness. It shuddered over her, made her skin prickle with a fine sweat.
“It’s gone queerly warm.” Tabeth wiped her hand over her brow. Her hair was damp at the roots, sticky. The pins were jammed in tight, the hair braided thin with green silk ribbons and coated with salted grease, but somehow it still felt off, as though she’d built up a store of power that gnawed at her for release.
“Not that hot.” Vinnia frowned and looked out the yellow-glass window. “Might be a bit of a storm coming this way though.”
“Hardly unusual.”
“No, but not from the sea. It’s blowing from inland; it’ll be on the back of a hot wind. Might even get lightning and spark.” Vinnia sounded cheered by this. Thunderstorms were unusual that far south and something to look forward to—an explosion of light and sound, a grand deluge. A show, rather than a day’s worth of drizzle.
Tabeth had never been close enough to Onnery territory to find out what happened when spark met spark. It took her a while to realise that what she felt was the approach of the Onnery-Next, weak as he was. This slow strangling of skin that sucked the bones and left them gelatine soft. Coming into contact with the force of another had that same feeling of waking from illness.
How could Onnery live with Onnery, if this was what happened? How did three generations of spark occupy the same little wooden house in the Stilts?
Tabeth frowned and stripped off her sweat-soaked shirt, throwing it into a dark corner. “Light candles.” There was a blackness approaching. Storm dark and angry. Vinnia began to set out fatcandles, lighting them with her taper.
“More than that.” Tabeth pulled out candles from her storage cupboard. “As many as we can.”
“You want to put on a show?”
Tabeth lit a candle, felt the heat blossom against her face and grinned. “Something like that. He’s coming to me, and I need to keep him off-balance as much as possible. We don’t know yet how strong he is, or whether a promise of saving his sister will hold him.”
“According to Gil, his sister don’t think he has much in the way of magic,” Vinnia pointed out.
“And why would she tell Gil the truth?”
“Point, to be sure, but if he was so damned strong, he wouldn’t be coming to you.”
The day dimmed as a sudden black squall rolled over the Swartmarch. “Unless he plans to turn this trap against me,” Tabeth said. The lights were all lit—sputtering and sparking, filling the tower room with the greasy smoke from the oil, and the dancing litany of flame.
“Are you scared?”
She wasn’t one to admit fear, not to anyone. Tabeth had grown up knowing that she could never trust, that every friendship was a possible net, and every bit of ground given could be used against her. Weakness was a weapon you didn’t hand over to your enemy. Vinnia was different.
She’d been kind to Tabeth even when others had seen her only as Rayek’s pet sparked whore, and stood by her when there had been mumbling about Rayek’s death. “A little,” she admitted.
“He tries anything, I’ll be here,” Vinnia said. “You don’t have to worry none about that—”
A sudden clattering of boots and the clamour of young voices, and Vinnia already had her short, heavy spear in hand, and her face had gone hard and ready. She loosened up and grinned when the door opened to admit a gaggle of Hoblings, some barefoot, some in sturdy leather boots laced high—too big for them, corpse stolen—they were armed with reed-whips to fling pellets of mud, and their faces and arms were burned deep brown.
“And?” said Vinnia.
“They’re coming near,” said the leader.
“Two of ’em—”
“—one fucking Lammer red head—”
“Other’n looks like summat from a sickling house, all pasty down one side—”
“I was telling, Jekreal, you shut yours—”
“—Fuck you an all, you’re no boss of me, I can so tell the story too—”
“Like fuck you can—”
A scuffle broke out between the five boys, fisticuffs and kicks and bites, and it took a few moments for Vinnia to haul them apart. “Here, you.” She gave the tallest a shake. “You tell me, no interruptions. Where they at now?”
The boy sneered at his compatriots before speaking. “Just’n the edge, Vin. They’ll be walking a right while yet, not knowing our ins an outs an short cuts. Mebbe an hour, half hours afore they get here.”
“Good. Excellent.” She let the boy go and glanced at Tabeth.
The boys all looked her way too, quieting and straightening themselves in respect. Some of the younger ones even dusted their knees and wiped their feet nervously against the floorboards.
“Good work,” Tabeth said. “You go on down and get as much fruit and pastries as you can carry then head off and keep an eye on our guests. Be a welcoming committee if they get too lost.” The boys dispersed, whooping and cackling, and Tabeth turned to Vinnia. “And maybe you should wait outside, a little show of force?”
Vinnia nodded. “I’ll do that. You’ll be ready for the lad. Put on a show for this odd little Onnery.” She winked. “It’s all in what they see, not what they know.”
It was true, but at the same time, Tabeth was just as much in the dark. The Grinningtommy must have known the Onnery-Next was not a woman, and yet she’d said nothing, kept it secret. Which meant Tabeth couldn’t trust her now. The Grinningtommy was playing her own game, perhaps one in league with the Onnerys, even though she was supposed to be a neutral historian and keeper of traditions.
And the boy himself was a hidden thing. Why keep him like that unless something was dreadfully wrong? She’d already understood from Gil and Door that he was perhaps a little slow, and his sister had mentioned fits. Though she said he was less prone to them nowadays. His mind must have been damaged in some way—no man was meant to carry an Onnery’s spark. Perhaps the strain of it had turned his brain to pulp, had left him violent and unstable. What might he do once he realised what she was? She was trusting in Gil’s belief that the Onnery-Next would be held tractable by the fear of something happening to his sister. That her help would keep him mild, like a nilly trained to a curb-bit. But nillies were foul-tempered and vicious, and the ones with magic still had horns. She was betting her safety to the temperance of a wild unicorn, and hoping that she kept out of range long enough to bridle him.
It wasn’t so much about what the Onnery-Next didn’t know about her. It was about all the things she didn’t know about him.