9.

 
 
 
 

I'd promised Devich.

  The next Olday night, I dug clothes I'd assumed I would never wear again from the bottom of my closet. Somehow they needed to look respectable, fit over my uniform and hide as much of my suit and its lights as possible. Tailored pants of black silk and satin; they wouldn't do up around the band at my waist and I was forced to wear them low, so my heels stood on the hems. A fine layered shirt, with a gauzy top layer, of white and icicle blue, and a loose undershirt in silver. It opened wide at the neck and wrists, and I stood in front of the mirror for bells, trying every scarf and necktie I owned. Finally, I settled on a cream silk scarf with bluebell stitching. It was long enough to loop twice around my throat and I tied it tightly. My wrists were harder to hide. I did the buttons on the overshirt, glad the cuffs were solid against the gauze, and hoped any glimpses of silver might be mistaken for jewellery.

  Hair, at least, was still simple enough, although it had grown over the past sixnights. I ran a handful of the remnants of my precious cream through the blonde strands so it swept back from my face and curled into wisps behind my ears. There was hardly any of the cream left, a faint clogging at the bottom of the jar. I couldn't remember how many kopacks I had paid for it, and that said enough, really. I wouldn't be able to afford it again.

  I lacked the appropriate cosmetics and jewellery. With bandages still stuck to my neck and shoulders, and pink scars wriggling on my face, neither would have helped.

  I pulled on flat-heeled boots that were low enough to button up, and examined myself in the standing mirror. A parody of my old self smiled grimly from the glass. The pants no longer hugged my hips and thighs; indeed, they hung baggy and too large over my abdomen and legs. The extra length and the flat shoes made me short. The shirt too had lost its once-feminine look. No longer tight around my breasts, no longer tailored to highlight my waist, it was floppy and loose.

  I wavered in front of the mirror. Feeling short, feeling baggy, feeling tired from a sixnight of debris collecting and missing the Darkwater sublevel, with its smells of Kichlan's cooking and its footprints of ash across the cement floor.

  Then Devich knocked.

  He greeted me with a grin as I opened the door, and swept inside. One arm wrapped around my waist as he pushed me up against the hallway wall and kissed me.

  "You are lovely," he said, as he allowed me to catch my breath. His eyes flickered over me, starting with hair, to scarf, to shirt and pants. "Like I imagined."

  With a frown, I straightened, and pushed him away. "The trousers certainly look better on you than me."

  "Hardly." And he whipped out a pale lily from his jacket.

  I took the flower, not entirely sure what I was supposed to do with it. Devich wore pants similar to mine, of a thicker cotton and with a satin stripe down the side. His shirt was the colour of sunset, his jacket black with a crimson satin lining. He looked roguish, charming, and his clothes fit altogether too well.

  "I don't think this is a good idea," I murmured, more to myself than Devich. But he heard me.

  His face grew serious, not quite stern. "You promised me, Tanyana."

  I lifted my eyebrows at him.

  "I don't understand the problem." He shoved fists into his jacket pocket and actually pouted. "You look lovely, you will fit right in. You belong with us."

  With a controlled breath, I kept my hand from my face. "Too late to back out now, anyway." Oh, I wished there was a way.

  "Not that you want to." Devich smiled again. "Trust me."

  He helped me into my jacket like a true gentleman and I realised it probably wasn't suitable for a ball, or whatever this event was going to be. It smelled like the streets, like damp snow and road dust. But the other jackets I had owned were veche-marked, or sewn with the pattern of Proud Sunlight. Still, Eugeny's fire-drying room scent was there, somewhere in the weave, as well as traces of Kichlan's cooking. I took the comfort they could give.

  Devich tucked the lily stem into an empty buttonhole on my breast, and I hoped it was enough to draw the eye away from the smudges, the dirt and the damp patches.

  There was a waiting landau hovering in the silvering twilight. I sat beside Devich, his arm wrapped around my shoulders and pressing my hair against his cheek, and tried to forget the last coach ride I had taken. I tried not to compare the icy night that whipped us through the torn doors of Kichlan's coach to the pion-heated air and down-soft cushions in Devich's. I closed my eyes to the four small lamps lighting the interior, looked down from the gold inlaid handles and ignored the plush, bloodcoloured carpet.

  We headed into the centre of Movoc-under-Keeper.

  The veche chambers took up most of the centre of the city. They spanned the bridge itself, local courts on the east bank, national and province buildings on the west. In the shadow of these buildings, the city changed. It still looked haunted to me, but instead of the apparently unaided movement of otherwise inanimate objects – from walkways to coaches to food stalls – the older parts of the city were occupied by the ghosts of time. Age wore down on them. Not in a way that dulled the handcrafted beauty of polished marble, or blunted the pointed grace of rows upon rows of tall conifers. Rather, as the apartments and the factories fell away behind us, as the streets narrowed and the landau was forced to slow down, it felt like a weight of memory, of bells and moons and years, draped over us. These were the foundations of Movoc-under-Keeper as we knew her, built in the protective shadow of the Keeper Mountain. Our history, our ancestry, our past. And my own face, reflected in the coach window, could have been the spectre of any longdead debris collector.

  Not all the buildings we passed were veche chambers. Indeed, some of the most beautiful were the homes of the oldest families in Varsnia. My reflection paled further as we pulled up at the gates to one such family home.

  Devich was from a younger family, I had been certain of it. How could he have been invited to a place like this?

  "Just what circles do you swim in?" I asked. To my horror, my voice shook.

  Devich simply laughed. "Me? Oh, I'm not much of a circle swimmer. But some veche members are interested in what we do. They consider debris somewhat of an oddity, they're curious. Lord Sporinov is one of them." His face brightened. "Oh, he'll be happy to talk to you!"

  "Wonderful." Just what I wanted. Now I was an oddity in baggy, inappropriate clothes.

  But as I glanced at Devich from under my eyelashes I realised what this meant. Lord Sporinov? An old family, then, and a member of the national veche. If he was interested in debris then maybe he would be interested in listening to how I came to be able to see it. And just why I needed a tribunal of my own.

  "It is a great opportunity," Devich said.

  More than he could know.

  A small army of servants pulled the large silver gates open. At first I thought that was odd: I'd expected them to be powered by pions. But perhaps a wealthy man with an interest in debris collectors liked the old-fashioned touch.

  The landau glided down a long driveway, flanked on either side by dormant fruit trees. They would look beautiful as the weather warmed, sprinkled with pale flowers and the bright green buds of leaves. For now they were all gnarled branches in bare grey.

  The house itself was big enough to be a veche chamber, and as intimidating. Marble steps, warmed by the light from many lamps, led up to a set of large wooden doors opened wide. Colour and light spilled from them. Silhouettes meandered at the top. Fainter shapes danced behind.

  All too soon we were at the steps. Devich leapt from the landau with unhealthy enthusiasm and held out a hand for me. What would he do if I refused to come out?

  "Come with me, Tanyana." He smiled his beautiful smile, and his large hand didn't waver. "You belong with me."

  I gripped his hand and let him lead me down the coach's tight steps. Then he hooked his arm in mine and was sweeping me up the carpet of light, to the open doors and certain doom.

  There were a few men smoking fragrant cigars at the top of the steps. They spoke in a low and constant whisper that lulled as Devich led me past. I held my head high and tried not to step on my hems.

  An aging servant dressed in a shirt and pants of imitation gold thread gazed down his nose at us as we stepped through the open door. Devich flicked his fingers – doing something I couldn't see to invisible pions – and with a nod and a sweep of his arm, the servant invited us inside the Sporinov home. I realised, as I stepped into warmth and light and noise, that the whole exchange had happened without a word being said.

  But then I entered Lord Sporinov's home, and it cast all other thoughts from my mind.

  I may have been employed by the veche, but I had never been invited to an old family ball. I had worked for those newer to power. Architecture and planning were not high on the veche agenda. Old families, whose pion strength had established them as rulers long before the revolution even happened, they controlled the enforcers, they dealt with foreign powers, they dictated how much of Varsnia's binding knowledge we wanted to share. I had never been important enough, never been vital enough to the future of Varsnia, to warrant an invitation before.

  I couldn't imagine why I was now.

  Gold-edged carpets ran in smooth lines over a polished marble floor. Different coloured lights shone in flameshaped glasses that hung from the ceilings on gold chains. Curtains the colour of buttery cream swept over wide windows. And the house was full of beautiful people. Women in dresses that hugged their body shape and were sewn of silk and light-reflecting glass beads. Some women wore a wider skirt, layered with satin and lace. No colour repeated itself in their attire. I saw blue like the sky before dawn, green as the newest sprout from the trunk of a tree, and icy white. Jewels sparkled from ear lobes, necks, wrists and hair.

  I realised, with a strangely satisfying kick in the gut, that I wore jewellery far brighter than these women ever would.

  Men followed these painting-perfect images of femineity around like shadows. Each was a mirror image of Devich, only older and without the mischievous smile.

  Still latched firmly onto my arm, Devich guided me past these, the oldest, the richest, and the most beautiful in Varsnia. I caught sight of a thin young woman, dressed in a skirt that nearly swallowed her. With her large eyes, dark skin and ever-so-charmingly mussed hair, she looked closer to a skittish deer than a woman at a ball. Men hung about her in a circle and vied for the attention of those dark, luscious eyes. I had never seen anything as beautiful, yet Devich's expression darkened when he noticed her, and he looked away. The awkward way she stood, the jerking, fumbling way she tried to walk, started me wondering. What was happening to the pions inside her body? I remembered the rumours, the members of the old families who would snatch pretty women from the streets like gems hidden in mud for their entertainment. What better chains to keep her here than those that already existed beneath her skin?

  Devich kept up his pressure on my elbow and she was soon lost in the crowd.

  "Here we are," Devich murmured. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes bright and focused with a frightening determination. "Our host."

  A tall and greying man stood straight, proudly, on a small step that kept him a few inches above the rest of the ballroom. A much younger but no less proud woman held on to the crook of his elbow. She wore so much silver sewn into the fabric of a long, thin dress that she shone in the light like she was a jewel herself. Together, the couple surveyed the ballroom like shepherds over their flock. They listened politely to the men and women before them, nodding, answering in monosyllables when appropriate, and being altogether gracious and lordly.

  I wished I could have taken off my jacket. Surely there was a servant hovering around for that express purpose. But Devich didn't slow, and all too soon we had broken through to the front line of the Lord and Lady Sporinov's audience.

  Devich released me long enough to bow, but hurried to grip my elbow again as if I was about to make an attempt to escape.

  "My lord Sporinov," Devich said grandly, silencing the constant twitter of the people around us, their bird-like vying for attention. "And my lady Rana. I thank you, again, for your gracious invitation."

  The lord and lady turned their faces toward us in a slow and bizarrely coordinated movement. "Devich," the lord said. "You came." His regard was an abrading wind, his wife's cold as ice.

  I dipped into the best bow I could manage with Devich still attached.

  "I did, my lord."

  "And what have you brought?" Rana asked.

  I flicked my eyes up, met hers and held them until she looked away. I was no thing.

  "Allow me to introduce Tanyana Vladha." Devich didn't seem to realise how uninteresting I was to these people, how low. "The debris collector."

  A murmur ran though the crowd around the lord and lady, and gradually spread. I could feel heat beneath my cheeks and knew it would make the scars stand out more.

  The lord Sporinov suddenly seemed to animate. One moment he was doing an accurate imitation of a wax statue and the next he was alive. Even had colour in the face and movement in his eyes. He shook off his wife and descended from their single step.

  "A collector? Truly?" He held a hand out to me. I shook it, fairly certain I was about to wake up.

  "Indeed, my lord." Devich glanced around at the jealous faces, and his smile turned from enjoyment to triumphant. I wished it hadn't. "You spoke to me of your interest in my work, and I thought I could bring a friend who knows far more about it than I do."

  "A friend?" A dry voice muttered from the circle.

  "Yes." Devich caught my eyes and winked at me. "A very close friend indeed."

  "Well, dear lady, this is quite an occasion." Lord Sporinov maintained a hold on my hand. His palm was cool and dry. "Yes, indeed."

  With a toss of her blonde hair, Rana stepped down and stalked to a table laden with drinks. Most of the crowd hesitated, seemed to notice the lord's distraction, and decided to follow the lady instead. Only a few of the older men remained.

  "I'll return in a moment." Devich headed off in search of a drink himself.

  I was left alone, ringed by the aging heads of old veche families, and feeling like a moth pinned to a board, surrounded by butterflies.

  "Let's have a look at you." Lord Sporinov studied me, from hair to toes. "Bit of a strange one, aren't you?"

  I coughed. "I wouldn't say so, my lord."

  He chuckled. "Got a bit of spirit, then? Always good to have."

  "Do they all dress like you?" asked a large man with a bald forehead bright with sweat. "The women, I mean."

  "No, my lord." I had no idea who any of these people were, but had decided I couldn't go wrong with the title.

  "Just you then?"

  "Just me."

  "Because of that?" He pointed at the scars on my neck and cheek.

  "No, sir."

  "Curiouser still." Sporinov patted my hand. "Now, tell me all about it."

  "My lord?" I asked.

  "Debris, of course. Tell me what you do."

  "Well, my lord, to understand that you must understand how I came to it. I used to be a pion-binder. I was a strong one. Then–"

  "Start early, do you?" A thin man with yellowing skin interrupted me. He touched a long ivory pipe to his lips, drew a deep breath and released smoke into my face. I blinked, coughed. It smelled nothing like Eugeny's tobacco.

  "My lord?" I asked, unsettled.

  "When you collect." He waved the pipe in a slow arc. "Early morning?"

  "Y-yes."

  "Long way to travel?"

  "Yes." What was this? What did it matter how far I needed to go in the morning or how early I rose to get there? "But, really, that's not important. If you will listen, sirs, I will tell you about how I fe–"

  "And do you do a lot of walking?" This time I was interrupted by a truly ancient man. His eyes were white and he carried a long, ebony cane with a gold handle. Walking? What did it matter?

  "Please, my lords–"

  Lord Sporinov had been holding my hand the whole time, his eyes trained intently on me. He patted the back of my fingers. "We're just old men, dear girl," he said. "Interested in your world. Please forgive us our curiosity."

  "My lord, there is nothing to forgive. But I am trying to tell you something no one else has heard. Something strange and unique." I latched onto my oddity status like it was a lifeline. "I know you are curious about debris, and it is vital to understand how one comes to see it in the first place. I fell, my lords, from a great height. And they said it was an accident but I know–"

  "Tell me about this." Sporinov drew back the sleeve of my shirt with a lazy finger. "What is this beautiful thing?"

  So I explained the suit, and was obliged to show it shining on my wrists. I explained about jars and teams.

  "And now," I tried again. "If you will just listen–"

  But all at once the old men turned away, as though they had lost their collective interest in me at the same time. A few smiled at me, a few gave easy nods, then they wandered away and rejoined the ball. Only one hesitated, watching me intently. And I realised that I knew him: the inspector who had visited my construction site the day of Grandeur's fall.

  I lifted my free hand to him, I tried to take a step forward, but Sporinov held me tighter that I had realised. "Wait," I said. "You were there. You saw them, didn't you? The crimson pions, the ones that destroyed my statue. You're a veche inspector. You must have seen them too."

  But the old man just shook his head. "Let it go, girl," he whispered. "It really would be easier if you just let it go." Then Sporinov coughed pointedly, and the inspector disappeared into the crowd.

  I stood, still beneath Sporinov's hand, mouth open and unable to understand why I hadn't managed to tell them the truth. To press for my tribunal. The perfect opportunity and all they had let me talk about was the ridiculous and the mundane.

  "Thank you, dear girl, for sharing that with us." Sporinov patted me again.

  Share what? I hadn't, really, told them anything.

  "You're quite a determined young thing, aren't you?" There was an indulgent humour in Sporinov's smile that I didn't understand. I felt strangely like a pet beneath his gaze. "Even when the world aligns itself against you, you keep trying. It pleases me. But I wouldn't try too hard, if I were you. Not everyone would find it so amusing." Then he caught sight of his wife, and pushed purposefully through the crowd toward her.

  I was left among the guests and their finery, to endure the surreptitious glances and outright stares. I lifted my chin. What did it matter that I stood out among the tailored and the diamond-encrusted like a stone among pearls? What did I care that the host treated me more like a rare animal on a leash than a guest? Or that Devich, who had convinced me I belonged here, who had dragged me to the door, had suddenly disappeared?

  Devich. He had left me with these men. Sporinov's words shuddered through me. They had almost, if I thought about them hard enough, if I twisted them with the image of Pavel leaning so angrily above me, sounded like a threat.

  Where was Devich?

  Shoulders straight, chin high, I pushed my way through the guests to a long table heavy with full glasses. Rich amber brandies, deep red wines and faint blue spirits twinkled in the light like a constellation against the pale tablecloth sky.

  I caught edges of conversation.

  "Let them try it! Hon Ji thinks they can rival Varsnia, we'll show them true meaning of power."

  "Heard they had spies in Movoc-under-Keeper. Even Sporinov is hiring enforcers, just in case."

  "By the Other, I swear it. The veche is hiding something even from us. A weapon that will put Hon Ji firmly back in their place."

  The usual speculations and proclamations of Varsnian supremacy. I'd heard them all my life, and paid them little heed. The critical circle revolution began in Varsnia, but it had spread. Around us, nations grew strong on their borrowed technologies, and occasionally rumours of war would trickle down from the veche. I wasn't sure how much I believed them, because nothing ever came of it. Deals to share pion technologies, promises to stop training soldiers, even the odd skirmish. Part of me had always thought the veche made them all up, just to start conversations like these.

  I selected the largest glass of red I could find and headed to a corner where I could sip it in peace, until the guests and the host and the loss of Devich simply wouldn't matter.

  "T-Tanyana?"

  I turned to a soft, restricted-sounding voice, and found Tsana, resplendent in a gown of rich tree-leaf green sewn with tiny, white beads in the shape of flowers. Her cheeks were flushed with the heat of the room, her eyes – set off so well by the colours in her dress – swam rich and brown. Her thick brunette hair was piled high on her head so her neck seemed longer, the skin paler and more delicate. Another flower, made this time from diamonds, shone on her neck.

  For a moment, I considered pretending I was someone else. Because the bright flowers that decked her so beautifully reminded me hauntingly of the critical circle in which she had once stood. And my scars tightened, perhaps remembering the panic and pion skill that had created them.

  "It is you." Tsana stepped forward as I stepped back, pressing us both into the corner I had tried to hide in, the unsteady shadows an inefficient cloak. "What are you doing here?"

  And that snapped me out of my fear and bad memories. I held the wine easily at my waist and lifted an eyebrow. She had always seemed shorter when I was her critical centre. Somehow easier to look down on.

  "I am Lord Sporinov's guest." I bent the truth just a little out of shape. "As, I assume, are you."

  Tsana, flustered, waved a flat hand like a fan at her face. "Of course. I... I'm sorry. I hadn't expected to see you."

  Ever again, I didn't doubt. I took a larger than usual sip. "You were wrong."

  "Yes. I'm sorry." She glanced over her shoulder. "Grandda is a friend of Vladir. We're always invited. To the balls." She fussed with the pleating below her waist. "It's good to see you, my lady."

  Now she was someone I wasn't about to correct. But I gave a sigh. "I'm sure that's not true."

  If anything, Tsana's flush deepened.

  "Come now, I know what happened. Volski told me." I hoped she could see every bandage and scar, hoped they were all plain and unavoidable.

  "V– Volski?" Tsana began to tug on the pleats so violently I was surprised the seam didn't tear.

  That was strange. "Yes, we met, accidentally. A few sixnights ago now. Didn't he tell you?"

  She shook her head before glancing around the room, and I realised how terrified she was, how much she didn't want the elite here, the old families who had always counted her among their kind, to know what she had done to me.

  I took pity on her.

  And it felt good to have someone to pity.

  "Is there a balcony somewhere?" I asked. "I could do with some air."

  A grateful nod and Tsana gripped me by the hand. She led me across the ballroom, through a throng of revellers gathered to watch as the dances started, and out of one of the large, gold-edged doors that rimmed the ballroom. She ignored the calls from a group of young men gathered to smoke by the carriageway, and found a seat in the shadows between house and nightflooded garden.

  With a graceful sweep of her skirts, Tsana sat. With a wince at my uncomfortable and out of place waistband, I joined her. I wondered why Volski had kept our meeting to himself. Was he ashamed of me, of what I had become? Or was he trying to spare us both? Tsana her guilt, and me my humiliation.

  "What happened to you?" Tsana breathed the question into the cool night. Beneath my layers, and with my wine to warm me, I barely noticed the bite of the chill.

  "Isn't that my question?" I swallowed a large mouthful of the wine. It was spiced with cloves and elderflowers, their combined scent threatening to make me sneeze.

  Tsana shuddered. "Oh, my lady. I am so sorry. Grandeur broke. I saw you fall. I tried to catch you but glass was falling and I got, I got–" she made a hiccuping noise in her throat "–I got confused."

  If I was still the lady she called me I would have drilled her on that. How could a professional pion architect get confused and nearly cost the circle centre her life? But I wasn't, and I didn't know how long it would take Tsana to realise that. The relationship between us was as fine, as fragile, as the thin glass stem in my hand.

  "Do they hurt?" she whispered.

  "Less than they used to."

  A moment of silence.

  "What happened?" Tsana did not give up, and it made that glass stem that much finer.

  "I was–" Pushed? Did I really want to tell that to another of my old circle who wouldn't believe me? Was there really any point trying that again? I knew the answer. "I don't know. Grandeur broke, as you say. I fell, as you say. But Grandeur hit me on the way down." I touched the top of my head, the wound for which there was no scar. "She knocked something out, and took the pions from me." I rested the glass on my knees to keep it steady. "When I woke up I couldn't see them any more. I could see something else instead."

  And for the first time that exchange didn't seem quite so poor. Not with Kichlan's cooking scenting my clothes.

  "There was something strange happening, wasn't there?" Tsana stuttered.

  "When?"

  "On Grandeur. Something, I don't know how to say it, it felt like something was pushing us around. Like every time we tried to help you, something got in our way. I thought you might know what it was. I thought you might be able to explain it. But if you can't..." She gave a shrug with one smooth, graceful shoulder.

  I gaped at her. Of course, the one person who would believe me was the one person I had decided to lie to. "Did you tell the tribunal that?" I eased my hand where it gripped the glass too hard. Wine rippled. "Did you tell anyone that?" Maybe this was what I needed? Maybe, with Tsana supporting me, someone would listen!

  "But it was nothing. You said you didn't see anything."

  "No, but did you–?"

  "I was lucky to get out of the tribunal in one piece, my lady. Considering what happened, what I did to you." She swallowed hard; I could see the moment in her neck. "I could have lost my place in the circle, I could have been charged for negligence and shipped to the colonies to– to–"

  She closed her eyes, and my stomach dropped.

  "So I held my tongue."

  "And now? You know something happened out there, Tsana. You're the daughter of an old family; you're a member of a nine point circle! The veche would listen to you. Have them open another tribunal, I will stand beside you and together we will tell the truth!"

  Tsana touched a shaking hand to the diamond at her throat. "A tribunal?"

  "Yes!"

  "But they already had one."

  "So we make them open another. They will listen to you."

  But Tsana shook her head. "Oh, I couldn't. I disgraced myself. So did you. And I don't think I really saw anything that day, maybe I'm just feeling guilty. It was my fault you got hurt so badly. That must be it. I'm sorry. Really."

  I looked away from her pale face, from the panic and the fear there. Perhaps she was not the best ally to have. Perhaps she wasn't strong enough to help me. Or so inclined.

  "So." She cleared her throat. "What are you doing now?"

  With a frown, I turned back to her. How could she not know? But then, I hadn't known what it took to make a debris collector before my fall.

  "I can see debris, Tsana. I'm a collector."

  "Oh." She lifted her head from its conspiratorial tilt, levering her shoulders away from mine. And as cold air rushed into the distance she had put between us I realised this was where residual respect ended, and the realisation that I was different began. I had told Devich. I had always known. I did not belong with these people any more. "That explains why Vladir likes you. He's fascinated by debris." She shifted, barely half an inch, but away from me. "Is it that terrible?"

  "Collecting? Not really. Dirty, disgusting sometimes. Not terrible."

  Tsana gazed into the garden as I answered, showing the graceful line of her jaw, the fine muscles in her neck.

  "There's a lot of walking," I continued.

  "Oh."

  When would she excuse herself? Had she assumed I was still an architect, was that why she had bothered to talk to me again? A scarred architect with a horrible past, but a binder of some skill?

  Something in me refused to let her go, refused to be snubbed by a pretty fool with family connections who had nearly succeeded in killing me.

  "Will you do me a favour, Tsana?"

  I regained her attention. "A favour?"

  "Yes. Repayment, let's say."

  Her straight back grew rigid, her jaw set. But she nodded jerkily. "Of course, anything I can give you."

  Did she think I was going to ask for kopacks? "I need to borrow your skill to fix something. I can't do it. Not any more."

  "What is it?"

  "A hole in the ceiling where I work. Foot or so wide, a few inches deep. Cement."

  "Is that all?"

  I remembered days when that could be considered small. "That's all."

  "Payment." She dug into a small pocket in her skirt and drew out a slide. Small, glass and impenetrable. "Have a messenger contact me. We will arrange where and when."

  That easy, was it, when I couldn't use the slide and couldn't even afford a coach ride to her door? But I took it anyway, rather than explain. I would walk to Tsana's doorstep one Rest, and arrange a time with her maid. I wasn't above those things, was I? To get Sofia off my back.

  I held the slide tight against my palm. Its edges were hard, and bit into my skin. "Thank you, Tsana."

  "You are welcome, Tanyana." She stood with the same sweep of her skirts. "I should return. My mother can fret if she does not know where we are. Old families are made and broken by their honour."

  I remained sitting. "I'll contact you soon."

  Tsana nodded and hesitated for a moment, before gathering her dress and hurrying out of the shadows and back into the mansion.

  I held the slide and sat in the darkness.

  Above and behind me, music played, people laughed, and the smell of food wafted out to churn my stomach.

  How long could I sit hidden in the cold shadows?

  "There you are."

  I turned to see Devich leaning against the mansion wall, looking down at me like I was a lost kitten, or an errant puppy. Light from the window striped his face with warm, diffused lines.

  "You're missing the toast," he chided me, not really angry, rather amused.

  I stood. "Where did you go?"

  He chuckled. "Missed me? You had Lord Sporinov and his closest cronies eating out of your palms like a bowing, preening flock of pigeons." He grinned at his own wit. "You didn't need me at all!"

  "I didn't say I needed you." How had he convinced me to come here? How had I allowed myself to believe nothing had changed? I was too different now; I had moved on. "I think it's time to leave."

  Devich, taken aback, tried take my hand. I didn't let him. "They are toasting, Tanyana. You know it's rude to leave before the toasts are finished."

  "No one will notice."

  He opened his mouth to protest.

  I said, "They won't."

  For a moment I thought Devich would leave me to fend for myself, as he glanced over his shoulder to the open doors and the carpet of light running down to the carriageway. Was the landau waiting for us? Had Devich paid the driver? Could I walk home before dawn came?

  But he sighed, and shook his head. "This is a mistake. But if you really want to leave, we will."

  "I do."

  Devich held out his hand again and I continued to ignore it. I walked past him, and heard his shuffling feet follow slowly.

  Applause echoed from the open doors. I headed for the stairs, but a low, gravel-dry laugh slowed me. A man leaned against stone beside one of the large open doors. His face was hidden in shadow, save for the fiery end of a cigar he was sucking.

  "Don't like them either," the man said in a voice as dry as his laughter. "I've tipped my glass at too many toasts, and they never change." He straightened, and stepped from the shadow.

  I realised then how very old he was. He stooped beneath a coat that was too big for him, and walked slowly, his shoulders hunched, his knees bent. Faint wisps of pale hair hung like cobwebs over a bald and sun-spotted head. His eyes were sunken, blue lost in watery red, and his hand, where it clutched the ivory head of an ebony walking stick, shook so the point rattled against stone. The long, thin cigar remained in his mouth as he walked and he breathed smoke in and out with every pronounced breath.

  A bright pin lanced his silver necktie. On its woven pewter head, a bear roared. An ancient ruby was clutched in its jaws.

  Devich sketched a sharp bow. "My lord Sporinov."

  The old man chuckled. "You're a sharp one."

  It took me a moment to understand. This was Vladir's father, surely.

  "Thank you, my lord." Devich glanced at me, and made tipping movements with his head.

  I repressed a groan and bowed instead. "My lord." Why was it so difficult to leave this place?

  "You're a lady?" The old man leaned forward, putting so much weight on his walking stick it bent, and peered at me. "Don't look much like a lady to me." He laughed again. "But don't let that upset you. Nothing looks much like it used to do."

  It hadn't upset me.

  "Ah, now I know you." A smattering of empty spaces broke up the teeth as he smiled. "You're the one Vladir's so excited about. You're the Unbound."

  From legend, from children's tales and fanciful stories, that word reached out to grab me.

  "Unbound?" I whispered.

  "Heard that before, haven't you? Didn't you know what you were? Didn't my son tell you?" He made a strange snorting sound. "Acts like he knows everything, doesn't he? I can still teach him a few things, if he'd shut his mouth long enough to listen."

  I knew what I was. "I am a debris collector."

  "That's a pretty name for this new age. Not always called that, you know. Didn't always collect, did the Unbound."

  Didn't they? What other purpose could we have, if not to collect the waste of the world and keep its systems working smoothly, cleanly?

  Devich, suddenly, was at my side, gripping my elbow, turning me around. "Your pardon, my lord," he said to the old man. "But our coach is waiting."

  "Well, go and catch it. I won't keep you." He shuffled so he could look over his shoulder through the open doors. "Toasts still going? I'd never bore my guests like this." He spat out the nib of his cigar, still glowing. "Yugeve? A cigar, boy! A cigar!" And he shuffled slowly inside, calling to some servant I couldn't see.

  I turned. Sure enough, the landau was waiting. The driver had been watching us with interest, but was suddenly absorbed in his own knees.

  I allowed Devich to guide me into the coach. We sat in silence as it slid through the streets of Movoc-underKeeper. When it pulled up at my apartment I opened the door myself, dropped to the paving stones, and had unlocked my front door before Devich had even paid the driver.

  I was about to close the door when Devich hurried up the path. He jammed an arm in the gap and winced as I pushed against it. "What are you doing?"

  "Good night, Devich."

  "Not without an explanation. And please, keep doing that. Let's see who tires first."

  I took my weight off the door, and he nudged it open. With a sigh I stepped away and he entered the hallway, rubbing his arm, pouting.

  "What's wrong?" He wasn't exactly angry, but he was close to it. Somewhere in between anger and hurt. "Why did we have to leave like that? Why did you jam my arm in there?"

  Only then did it occur to me that he could have let himself in, whether I had shut the door or not. I had opened myself to this man. He wasn't going away that easily. "I told you I didn't belong with those people any more. And tonight only proved that."

  He shook his head.

  I scowled at him, and tore the scarf from my neck. I picked at the shirt buttons near my wrists and pulled the whole thing over my head. It felt better without the bulk of clothes.

  "Tanyana." Devich stepped very close. One hand cupped my chin, the other slid over my hair. Gently, he placed a soft kiss on my lips. "Tonight I saw you hold the attention of some of the most powerful men in Movocunder-Keeper, and the whole of Varsnia itself. I saw you walk into a room filled with the rich and the powerful with your head held high, with your back straight, and a bearing that said 'This is who I am, and I don't really care what you think about that'. Do you know how amazing you looked beside the puffed-up finery and the artificial smiles? You were magnificent, you are magnificent." Both of his hands held my head. "I wish you could see that."

  I wanted to ask him if he'd seen the woman who was once my subordinate lose all her respect for me. Or if he knew what it was like to be treated like an oddity, like a specimen under glass. But his smiling lips were so close, and his hands were so warm. And Devich had made a place for himself among those people, he had been given the invitation, and he had melded well into the dancers and the feasters and the drinkers. If he thought I belonged there, if he still respected me and knew me as a woman, not an insect, then perhaps I did.

  It was enough. Enough to let go of the angry ache in my belly. Enough to lean against him as he kissed me, and work the buttons in his sleek shirt. As he did the same to my ill-fitting pants I remembered the jar of pills in my drawer and wondered how long they would last.