no one sees me
Cold air gushes from the front as two ledhunds pour in, white tornadoes, all muscle and teeth, followed by a pair of branders.
Caruq uncurls himself and raises a lip.
My heart stutters. Zako. Run, run, run, run.
A third firebrand exits the kitchen and stalks past the bar.
I feel utterly rooted to the spot, my jaw clenched in terror.
This is it, I think. They’ve found out Zako is here…
The fire crackles half a room away. Everyone’s gone quiet.
I can hear the paws of the strange ledhunds, thudding up to the mezzanine. I begin to unfreeze as I realize. The branders aren’t headed up to Zako’s hideout.
The hounds stand to attention beside a table near one of the mezzanine windows, noses pointing to a middle-aged Skøl couple sitting thigh to thigh, nursing half-finished ales and looking terrified.
They’re not here for Zako. They’re here for someone else. I try to keep the relief from my face, to keep my mask of horror in place.
“Victor Gusting?” says the firebrand who came from the kitchen. He’s not that loud, but the whole place has fallen so silent we could hear a mouse chewing cheese.
“Yes,” says Victor Gusting.
“You have to come with us.”
“Please,” says the woman beside Victor Gusting. Even from here I see how pale both their faces are.
“Too long defaulted, I’m afraid, Victor. No payments since the end of last Twelvemonth. We have to take you in. You’ve had our notice, haven’t you? You know the penalty, Mister Gusting.”
“I need more time,” says Victor. He’s trying for stoic calm, but there’s a tremor in his voice.
“Stand up, please.”
Victor doesn’t stand. It’s like he can’t.
They get his feet under him and march him down the mezzanine steps and out of the door. He barely resists. The woman follows, sobbing. The ledhunds flow behind.
There’s a beat, and then the hum of voices rises again. Beside me, Felicity Greave shivers at the new blast of cold air. I see Mister S going up the proprietors’ stairs. He looks worn and grey.
Gracie gives a weary sigh and Renny puts an arm around her. “Poor Victor,” she whispers.
“Did you know them?” Felicity asks her softly.
Gracie looks a little teary. “Not really. They used to come in more often, last summer. Then they … stopped.”
“We thought they’d moved away or … something, didn’t we?” Gracie says to Renny. “I didn’t realize he was a Gusting. That explains it.”
“Me neither.” Renny shakes her head sadly. “It’s not easy for them.”
Felicity nods along, but I don’t follow.
“It’s not easy for who?” I ask. My voice sounds too loud, shock loosening my tongue.
“His name, Gusting, it means he’s a Sting Trust baby,” Gracie explains. “You’ve not heard of it?”
I shake my head.
“It means the Sting Trust charity paid for his childhood,” Renny adds in a hushed tone. “They all take the same last name, the charity babies.”
“It’s from Genie and Urbane Sting,” Felicity jumps in. “G and U Sting – they founded the Trust. It pays for babies who would otherwise be culled – ones whose parents can’t afford their life payments.”
I frown. “The same Stings as in Sting Elektric that makes guns to kill people? They run a charitable trust paying for children’s lives?”
“The Stings made their million in lighting, didn’t they?” Renny stacks a few glasses at the bar. “And they wanted to give back to the community, so it goes. They set up the Trust back then.”
“Now, of course, they make deadly weapons and rescue orphans. Good combination,” Felicity adds drily.
“Though even the Trust has all sorts of conditions attached,” Gracie continues. “They’ll only pay up till age fourteen, then you’re on your own...”
“But then something’s better than nothing,” Renny adds in her soothing voice.
Felicity sighs. “So they say. I wonder if old Genie and Urbane would do it again if they knew. It’s been a bit of a failed experiment. Long and short of it is – the kids grow up and fall by the wayside, or get rounded up like Victor there. Funding them to have childhoods just delays the inevitable. People don’t want to employ a Gusting.”
For a moment I almost ask why, but I’m a repayer. I already know. They don’t think I’ve earned the air I breathe either.
Thea’s wounds. What a life.
“Poor Victor,” Renny mutters.
“Why did they come here?” I finally ask. Why not run? Hide? Fight? “On his last night of freedom? He must have known…”
“I’m sure they just fancied one last drink together, reliving happier times,” Felicity suggests.
Happier times. All the times with this lot are horrific. I realize I’m shaking. Why do they allow this? Why does no one scream or roar or run? How is it always so calm and bloodless? Tears and treacle when it should be fire and fury.
I drain my drink and stand.
“I should get moving.” The clock above the bar shows it’s only half an hour to curfew.
I want to visit Zako, but I know how unwise it would be, sneaking up there tonight, with everyone on edge and the branders just here. I’ll get my money from Mister S another night.
I slip outside.
The air clears my head. The clouds are small and silver, scudding fast. It’s cold, but not awfully.
I can’t stop seeing them marching Victor Gusting away, hearing the woman’s cool voice. Please.
I walk meaninglessly to block it out, circle back round the Lugger and into its courtyard. I plonk down on the round bench skirting the Makaia plane tree.
Only muffled sounds reach me here. Clouds canter through the square of sky framed by the yard walls and fractured by tree branches starting to bud. Run, run. I count them escaping.
I need to go, I think. Need to make curfew.
I close my eyes, just for a minute.
Sometime later I wake, chilled through. Gracie and Renny are locking the kitchen door behind them. The tavern noises and lights have faded.
It must be past closing time, gone eleven. I’m such an idiot. I didn’t realize how sapped I was by the long days with the kine, the long evenings drawing and all the hours upon hours worrying about Zako.
I really thought that when those branders came for Victor Gusting they were here for Zako. I thought it was all over.
Gracie and Renny walk away, holding hands, talking softly. I’ve never held someone’s hand – held hands with someone I love – not like that. They don’t see me. I’m part of the bench, part of the tree.
I’m getting up, hip protesting wildly, when I hear the kitchen door behind me click open again. I stop, still as a statue, and watch.
A small wraith heads to the arched exit, swamped in a hooded coat, scuffing a too-large pair of boots. He doesn’t see me in the shadows – until I hiss at him.
“Zako!”
To his credit, he doesn’t make a peep, though he looks more than a little put out. His harvest-moon eyes stare, mute and questioning. I drag him over to stand by the bench in its pool of darkness.
“What are you doing?” I whisper. “Are you mad, Zako? There’s branders everywhere tonight.”
He looks at me angrily. “Yes,” he says. “I’ve gone mad! Mad from being stuck inside. They gave me marbles! I’m not a baby. I’m going out for a walk.”
“It’s only been a week!”
He won’t look at me, turning his scowl up to the stars.
“I know it’s h—”
“Did you see that?” he interrupts. “A shooting star!” His scowl dissolves, then comes back in force. “I can’t see the sky from in there.”
Well, you can’t see the sky if you’re dead either.
I take a deep breath. “Shooting stars are good luck, Zako. Make a wish.”
“I wish I could do something instead of sitting around waiting.”
“Venor wants you dead,” I snap.
Zako shoots me a raised eyebrow. “No shit.” He walks on.
I cling to his arm as we quit the relative safety of the Lugger courtyard for the alley beyond. Zako’s faster than me, even in his ill-fitting boots.
“No, Zako, he needs you dead. He wanted you dead back on the estate.” The more I think about it, the stranger that seems. Venor’s always been unpleasant, but he never seemed murderous. “Why did he go for you like that? He accused you of spying on him, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. I wasn’t though! I was only playing cards with Devotion.”
I’m thinking furiously now. The answer to this must lie in what happened that night. What Zako saw or heard – or what Venor thought he saw or heard. “No, of course not – but did you see something by accident? Hear something? ”
Zako shrugs. “Me and Devotion heard him fighting with Missus Venor.”
“Fighting? Did he hit her?”
“No. He shouted and threw things.”
“Couldn’t hear much.” He goes silent, remembering. “She said he was an ass. He said she was a frigid bitch… What’s frigid?”
“Cold … cold-hearted. Anything else?”
He sighs. “I don’t know, Mora. She said something like she never would have married him if she knew and he knew what she knew and … ugh. They went round in these stupid circles.”
“She wouldn’t have married him if she knew what?”
Zako scowls. “What a brickhead he is, probably.”
“Can’t you remember anything else about their argument?” He’s silent again, and I lose my temper. “Think, Zako!”
Zako pouts, frustration coming off him in waves. “I can’t think with you asking me things over and over! I don’t want to remember. It’s awful. You know it’s awful!” Then he pulls his arm out of mine and actually runs off, fast as anything even in those boots. I follow him, stuttering, out to Belor Way, but he’s gone.
I can’t chase him. I can’t keep up.
I pushed him too far. Of course remembering that night terrifies him. But I’m desperate to know. Zako overheard something important – he must have – even if he didn’t realize it.
I make my own careful way home, hood up, sticking to the shadows. Once I think I see branders in the distance, but no one sees me.