EIGHTEEN

Jonas stared around the ballroom. Outside, the noise of the crowd was still going, and the light was getting on into evening. The chalk patterns were still there on the floor, but he could tell now that there was no power to them any more; they no longer had that faint not-quite-glow to them.

On the other side of the circle from him, Urso was out cold. Asa stood over him, a splintered chair in their hands. They were shaking slightly. They took a deep breath, then looked across at him, their eyes wide. He tried a tentative smile, and after a moment, Asa returned it. He didn’t even know what they were doing here. He’d expected them just to deliver the message, not to come back with Reb.

He blinked, and looked over at Reb. She was still on her knees, eyes fixed on the space where Beckett had been a moment before, muttering under her breath. The hand that wasn’t strapped across her body was foraging through her pockets. Sorcery. More damn sorcery. Cato, a few feet away, was also looking at the place where Beckett had disappeared. His head was cocked slightly to one side, and his eyes were thoughtful.

Something had happened, while they were in that circle. Something had changed, inside Jonas’ head. It felt like a door had opened onto a part of him he’d never known about. His flickers had only been a tiny porthole onto that. His skin felt like it was vibrating, as though if he looked down it would be glowing like a night-fish.

He had no idea what he thought about any of it. He didn’t dare put a label on it, although he couldn’t help thinking back to what Cato had said, earlier, in that little room.

He looked over at Cato again, who seemed to have come to a decision. He backed out of the circle, keeping a careful eye on Reb, who seemed entirely engaged in whatever it was she was doing with the contents of her pockets, and walked around the edge of the room to Jonas.

“Time for me to be off, I think,” Cato said quietly, eyes flicking back towards Reb. “But – look. I can still take it away, if you want. If you want to go home, and you’re sure that you can’t do it with this in your head. But at this point, I have to warn you, it’s going to hurt like hell, and…” He exhaled, ran a hand across his face. “I don’t – I think you should be very certain that that’s what you want. Very certain.” His gaze was serious, and sympathetic. “But if you want to stay, if you want to keep what’s yours, born into you – well. I can teach you to use it.”

He smiled that charming smile, but this time there was something real under it, something that reached his eyes. It made him look like Marcia’s brother more than just superficially.

“You already have an in with the cityangel,” Cato added, that smile twisting sideways a little. “The new old cityangel. You could be a very good sorcerer.”

He glanced down at Reb again, and nodded sharply. He was away and out of the room before Jonas had finished processing what he’d just said.

He remembered, suddenly, the flicker he’d had back in Cato’s room, when Reb had broken in, just before he met Marcia. Him and Cato discussing something – something that had to be sorcery – together. He’d assumed that it was about his flickers, Cato explaining them, about to get rid of them for him. But maybe…

He could choose. That image could be Cato introducing him to sorcery. Or it could be Cato about to take his abilities away. He could be a sorcerer. Or he could lose it.

Reb and Asa seemed to come out of their dazes almost simultaneously. Jonas wondered whether Cato could have had something to do with that. Surely not? Reb swore, shook her head, jaw clenched, and got up. She went over to Urso and prodded at him with the toe of her boot. Asa set the remains of the chair down and came over to Jonas.

“I don’t – I don’t think I want to stay here,” they said. “Unless Reb needs us for something, I suppose. Can we just go home, Jonas? Back to the squats?” Their voice wobbled slightly.

“We should help sort that one out,” Jonas said, nodding at Urso. “But then – yes. Yes. I want out of here. And Asa – thanks.”

Their grin was a bit shaky, but they slapped him on the shoulder. “Couldn’t have done anything else, hey? Can’t leave a fellow messenger in the lurch, you know. Or a friend.”

A fellow messenger. Asa thought of him as being one of them, as belonging here.

His mother had been very clear that his flickers didn’t belong on board ship. The new thing that he could feel inside his head – that would belong even less.

Cato’s offer circled around his head. I could teach you to use it.

The ships would start leaving tomorrow. They’d all be gone in a week’s time. And yes, they’d be back again, but… he knew, really, that if he stayed now, that would be a decision in itself.

k k

Marcia knelt on the floor of the Chamber foyer, the grey marble cool under her knees. Daril sat on the floor, his head down on his knees, shuddering.

She’d always thought of Daril as old, experienced. Knowing what he was doing, even if what he was doing was a terrible idea.

Looking at him now, she remembered that he was only five years older than she was, and he wasn’t nearly as in control of everything as she’d always believed. Bad decisions, bad situation. What would she do, if she’d been dealing with his father instead of her mother? She let herself think of herself ten years from now, still trailing round after Madeleine and not allowed to do anything for the House, for herself. Would she, too, start making worse decisions?

Daril was right, to an extent. That was the other thing.

But that didn’t solve the question of what to do with him now. The faint sounds from beyond the main Chamber doors were changing. The session was coming to an end.

She could still drag Daril in there, swear a charge of treason against him there and then. For a moment, she could see it happening. She could envisage Gavin Leandra’s reaction, the shock of the assembled Houses. Legally speaking, it was the correct thing to do. He and Urso should both pay for what they’d done. (And Cato? She swallowed. She wouldn’t be able to protect Cato, and Daril would hardly be inclined to.)

But then what? What would happen after that?

She didn’t know what was happening, down at the embassy. It hadn’t worked as Daril had expected, that much was clear, but did that mean Reb had succeeded in whatever she was intending to do? And what did that mean for Beckett?

The she remembered, with a lurch of her stomach, how Daril had said that they’d been let into the embassy at all. He’d promised that, once he had some power, he would put a stop to it. He might even have been telling the truth. But in any case: he wouldn’t be stopping it, now, yet it still had to be stopped. At present, Gavin and Madeleine were still intending to confiscate these damn ships.

Bringing that into the Council Chamber might solve the problem. Surely sense would prevail; surely the Council would shout the idea down. But that would be to the detriment of her own House, as well as House Leandra; and, worse, it would surely cause catastrophic damage to Marek’s relationship with Salina, to have the whole thing publicly acknowledged. At present Kia apparently knew; but Kia had agreed to a solution which simply stopped the idea, without publicising it, suggesting that the relationship was still salvageable. If it was out in the open, formal Council business, Kia might have to react differently. Salina might have to react differently.

Worse, what if the Council didn’t vote it down? What if there were more people who fell into the trap that Gavin and Madeleine had fallen into? There was, after all, general resentment about the increases in the trading fees. And if this whole plan came out, it would also become public knowledge that the Salinas ambassador had allowed Urso to use the Salinas embassy to attack the Council, which would be guaranteed to further inflame bad feeling. Both Gavin and Madeleine, when they chose, were gifted speakers, from powerful Houses. Could they convince their fellows to back them? Marcia wasn’t sure she wanted to take that risk.

Not only that, but it seemed almost inevitable that at some point the matter of the cityangel would come up. The Upper City largely chose to believe that there was no such thing, but the Lower City would not react well. And what if Beckett hadn’t been restored? How would people react to that news?

Part of her still wanted to drag everything out into the light, to point out what had happened and how; but she could see, clearly enough, that it wouldn’t change anything the way she wanted to. If anything, it would solidify the current Council in their methods.

Which left the alternative. Managing this privately, behind House walls. Convincing Gavin and Madeleine to drop their idiotic ideas. She had Daril, who might not be Heir to House Leandra, but who was a candidate, and who had attempted to overthrow the Council; and the only other House Leandra candidate, Urso, was also in the whole thing up to his neck. She could use that – and her promise of secrecy about it – to put pressure on Gavin. He couldn’t risk letting both treachery and involvement in sorcery taint his House.

What about Madeleine? If she got Gavin to back down first, then the fact that Madeleine would be standing alone might sway her mother. Would Cato’s involvement, and the consequences if that came out, sway her at all? Marcia couldn’t believe so, much though she might want to; Cato’s disinheritance had been absolute, as far as Madeleine was concerned. The fact that Urso had been manipulating her, that might be relevant.

Marcia rolled a bead on her bracelet between her fingers as she thought. She had something against Kia, too. Something that she could use in negotiations. An improved deal for House Fereno with Salina. That might be enough to sway her mother. And the possibility of her Heir standing publicly against her; Fereno would look like fools, in public, if it came to that.

She sighed. It was a thin web, but she just needed to hold it together for long enough for the moment to have passed. Neither Gavin nor Madeleine could do this alone. In all honesty, Marcia couldn’t see how they could have pulled it off even working together. If she could break the links apart right now, neither would be able to put it back together, at least not immediately.

She looked down at Daril, still on the floor. He’d get off without paying for his decisions, and that rankled. On the other hand – a slow smile started on her face – now he would owe her one. And at some point, she would be able to collect.

Well then.

Two hard thumps came from within the Chamber – the Speaker calling the session to a close. Time to move.

“Daril.” He looked up, his eyes still wild. “Come on. Session’s done. We need to get out of here.”

She hauled him to his feet. He was still clutching his arm, but he came willingly enough, out of the Chamber and down the street to House Leandra.

“What are you going to do?” he said, halfway there. His voice was quieter than usual. “Swear treason against me?”

“I don’t think that’s going to help anyone,” she said. “What I’m going to do right now is, I’m going to talk to your bloody father.”

“He’ll disown me,” Daril said.

“Not if he doesn’t want his warmongering to come to light, he won’t,” Marcia said grimly.

Daril stumbled and would have fallen if Marcia hadn’t caught him. “But – why?”

“Your complaint is legitimate,” Marcia said. “Your methods were not. Your father is a manipulative shithead, and always has been. And now you, and he, and House Leandra, will owe me a favour. I will be back to collect, don’t worry.”

Daril started to laugh. “You’ve grown up, Marcia.”

“Something like that,” Marcia agreed. “Here we are.”

She steered him across the courtyard and up the steps towards the door. He was walking a little more steadily now.

“It’ll be a while before your father’s back from the Guildhall,” she added. “I won’t insist you wait with me. But you could order me an infusion.”

Daril was still laughing a little. “Roberts,” he said to the man who had opened the door. “Please show Fereno-Heir to the small parlour, and show my father to her when he arrives.”

Roberts’ eyebrows twitched very slightly. “Will you be waiting with her, sir?”

“Uh – no. No, I think best not,” Daril said.

He bowed to Marcia, full formal. “No doubt we’ll speak again soon,” he said, and took himself, slowly, but straight-backed, towards the stairs.

Marcia sat in the parlour, sipped the infusion that Roberts brought, and ate a plate of biscuits. She was starving. While she did all of that, she thought about what to do next. It seemed all too soon that Gavin Leandra arrived.

“Urso Leanvit is a sorcerer,” she said, without preamble, when Gavin saw her and began spluttering. “And he’s been playing you. You’ve come very close to betraying Marek between you. And whilst I will leave Daril to discuss the details with you, he’s been up to it in his neck as well. Abandon your absurd plans to impound Salinas ships, and I will let the whole thing disappear. Otherwise…” She shrugged. “It is up to you whether you think House Leandra can rid itself of the taint of treason, sorcery, and the intention to act without Council approval.” That last one might be the kicker, now she came to think about it. The Council might have accepted something that had already happened, for their own profit and to avoid looking toothless. But to hear of it in advance, they would have to act strongly to retain their power.

“If you tell the Council about any of this, it will fall on your House as well,” Gavin said, his eyes narrowing.

“On my mother,” Marcia said. “And, perhaps, on my House. But not on me, and then I will be free to rebuild the House as I please. You do not have an Heir at all, and neither of your candidates have clean hands. I do not believe you are in a position to call this one, Leandra-Head.”

Gavin seemed to be leaning a little more heavily on his stick as he nodded, once.

“Interesting, Fereno-Heir.” He cracked a sudden smile, not a kind one. “I only wish I could see you speaking to your mother.”

Marcia chose not to respond to that.

“I’ll wait to see what decision you make,” she said, and walked past Gavin to leave the house.

She stopped in the hall, and turned back. “One other thing. If you name Urso Heir, I will tell the Council about his sorcery. If you wish this whole thing to disappear, I most strongly suggest that you stop manipulating Daril and name him Heir. The current situation is untenable, and Daril’s decisions are in part your responsibility.”

Her mother would have to wait until she’d got back to the Salinas embassy. She had a deal to make with Ambassador Kia t’Riseri. And she still didn’t know what had actually happened there.

On arrival at the embassy, only Reb was still there. Urso was out cold, and a doctor, apparently on retainer to the embassy, was examining him. Reb’s clothes were ripped and her unsplinted arm blistered with burns to the elbow.

“Jonas has gone home, with Asa,” Reb said. She looked exhausted. “We’d have been screwed without Asa. And it was Jonas who created the hole, although… well. It was complicated.”

“What about my brother?” Marcia asked.

Reb scowled. “Did a runner straight after, while I wasn’t paying attention. He’s not daft. He’s hardly going to hang around for the fallout. I should have grabbed him before he left.”

“Looks like you had enough to be dealing with,” Marcia said. “But what about Beckett? Did they… ?”

“I don’t know,” Reb said, her frustration clear. “There was this, this whirlwind, and then Beckett walked into it and it all just – disappeared. Hopefully – well. I haven’t tried a spell yet, I just did some purification stuff to get rid of the rest of the ritual markings. Maybe soon.” She rubbed at her face. “I need to deal with Urso, too, once he’s conscious again. He’s a sorcerer, after all. I need to…” Her voice trailed off.

“You should get the doctor to look at that arm,” Marcia said, fighting the urge to do it herself.

“Yeah,” Reb agreed, shrugging in a way that suggested that she might or might not actually bother.

Marcia sighed. She had things to do. She couldn’t look after Reb right now, much though she might want to. “Where’s the ambassador? Kia t’Riseri?”

“Politics, huh?” Reb said. “Locked in her office.”

The office was on the ground floor.

“So why?” Marcia said, bluntly, once she’d marched in there.

“Your poxy Council is going to steal our ships,” Kia spat. She was sitting behind her desk, looking furious.

“Some idiots are trying to,” Marcia corrected. “Were trying to.”

“Your House, Fereno-Heir.”

Marcia shook her head. “No. Not any more.”

Kia looked confused.

“It’s a bloody stupid idea,” Marcia said. “You have far more experience than us, and far better contacts. You have a boat-building industry. We don’t. For certain, it is possible to build all of those things. But it costs, and it’s going to damage trade while we do it.”

“I don’t even understand why they thought of this in the first place,” Kia said, but some of the heat had gone out of her voice.

“Well,” Marcia said. “Partly because Urso was playing both sides to precisely this end. But he found it easy because of the rises in the last couple of years.”

“But –”

“Yes, exactly. You and I both know that any ships would have had the same problems, and had to make the same charges. The Council are – let’s say that sometimes they are a little out of touch, and sometimes they are just wilfully ignorant.” Marcia sighed. “But to be honest, right now that is the least of your worries. The other part of Urso and Daril’s plan, I am prepared to bet,” she’d realised it while thinking all of it over, waiting in House Leandra, “was that by being here, Salina would take the fall. And Daril would have used that confusion – riots in the street and all that – to take over.”

Kia frowned. “But Daril said – what they were doing, no one would know.”

“Want to bet?” Marcia said. “If any of this gets out – the cityangel, for pity’s sake, Kia! – there is nothing in the dimensions that I can say that will protect you. Salinas ships will be barred, trade be damned.”

“I wasn’t even there,” Kia protested, weakly.

“You let them in here,” Marcia said. “You were in it up to your eyeballs and we both know it. And I’m guessing that your own people won’t be terribly impressed with sorcery on the premises, either. Now – I don’t think either of us want a trade disaster. And I’m guessing you don’t want to be stripped of your post.”

Kia had gone pale.

“Now,” Marcia carried on, “as a senior House member, I would like to think about both problems at once. As such, it would I think be in both of our interests to hide your involvement altogether.”

Kia’s eyebrows shot up. “Do go on.”

Some time later, Kia had been neatly tied up in her office, ready for the guard to find. Urso could be charged with breaching diplomatic premises and kidnapping an ambassador. And Marcia was reflecting with some pleasure that she now had something on the Salinas ambassador that would be a bargaining chip for a good long time.

k k

Reb stood just inside her front door, safely closed behind her, and let her shoulders slump. She was bone-deep tired. But there was one more thing she had to try. It was foolish, given what had happened last time, to do this without someone to anchor her. But Marcia was off politicking, and Jonas had slid off back to the squats with Asa, and really there was no one else she could ask.

A sobering thought, that; that the only people she could have asked to do this, she’d known for a bare handful of days. What had she been doing for the last two years? Mourning was all very well, but none of the friends she’d lost would have thanked her for honouring them by this abrasive solitude.

Other sorcerers. Urso. She still had to deal with Urso, though right now he was being dealt with by the Guard for the more mundane aspects of his behaviour. Such as ‘kidnapping’ Kia – that had been an excellent idea of Marcia’s. She could get whatever was left over once they were done with him.

Then there was the question of Cato. He’d helped Daril and Urso, for certain, but… that smile, just as things had fallen apart. It had looked like it was down to Jonas, but perhaps…

The important thing was that Reb should have known what was happening with Urso. She should have known that there was a new sorcerer around. But neither should he have been the only one. That was her responsibility, too. Her friends wouldn’t thank her for the fact that two years after the plague, she’d not been teaching a single new sorcerer. The talent had to be there. It was her job to find it. She needed to step up to the plate.

But first of all, she had to at least start to check that there would be any Marek-magic to train people up to.

She squared her shoulders and walked into her inner room. Taking a pinch of nettle weed, she invoked the guardian-spell. This time the response rang immediately, reverberating in her ears without sound, a clear pure chime. She still didn’t have the first clue what had happened there, but, some way or another, all was well.

She washed her hands, working around the splint. (Maybe, tomorrow, a healing spell. That would be a relief. But not now.) Hands clean, she walked back into the front room and stopped dead. Beckett stood there; but Beckett subtly altered. Beckett who carried Marek with him like a cloak. You couldn’t begin to doubt Beckett’s nature now. Was this, even, still Beckett? The cityangel had never had a name, before.

“Reb!” the cityangel said, happily.

“Beckett?” Reb asked cautiously.

“Who else? Ah. I see. I like Beckett, yes. I will keep it.”

“What happened?” Reb said. “To the other one. I mean, I take it you are back now?”

“Yes. The other. Well. You could say that I – ate – the other one. Not quite right, but close enough.”

Reb grimaced and decided against further enquiry.

“But magic, Reb. I have realised what a terrible state Marek magic is in.”

“Yes,” Reb agreed, wincing.

“I stopped paying attention. The plague…” Beckett’s self seemed to dim, suddenly, to shrink inwards, then they looked at her again. “I was wrong.”

“We have to go on.,” Reb said. “We have to – I have to – move on, start finding sorcerers again. I know. I’m sorry it took me so long to realise.”

“We both suffered,” Beckett said softly. “It is past, now. We move on. I am glad that you are with me on this.”

Reb’s heart felt lighter, somehow. “But what of Cato? And Urso?” she asked.

“Cato is still one of mine. Twisty, but mine. I would not overlook Cato, if I were you,” Beckett said. “Urso, however, you can leave to me. Urso is no longer a Marek sorcerer.” Beckett bared their teeth.

“Right,” Reb said. “And new talent. I was just thinking that I should be looking. Should have been looking already.”

“New talent is out there, indeed,” Beckett said. They seemed to be amused by something. “I am glad we agree. I will see you again, no doubt.”

They flickered, and disappeared.

Reb scrubbed at her eyes. All of this, all of it, could wait until tomorrow. Now, she was going to sleep.

k k

Marcia walked up the stairs to her room, back straight, in case her mother was still watching. Telling Madeleine exactly why her plans had been so foolish, and what they were now going to do instead, had been… well. Perhaps the toughest thing she’d done in the last decade, including her and Reb nearly being obliterated by a rogue cityangel. The deal – the extremely favourable-to-House-Fereno deal – that Marcia had concluded with Kia had helped. And she thought – she hoped – she might have a bit more of Madeleine’s respect now. It was time, after all. And Marcia was to oversee the working-out of the trade deal over the next five years.

She could, however, have done without the formal Mid-Year meal afterwards, with its twenty guests and dozen courses. She shut her door and slumped against it, eyes shut.

“Well, sister. Wasn’t that delightful?”

Her eyes flew open.

Cato lounged on her bed, smiling cheerfully at her.

“Cato? What in the – you’ve got a nerve, showing up here.”

She reached for proper anger, or at the least annoyance, but couldn’t find it. Cato was Cato, when all was said and done. He was still her brother.

“What?” he asked, eyes disingenuously wide. “It all came good in the end, right? The cityangel is back, the Council remains as it ever was – lucky us – and I got the first half of my money, at least. Always get as much as you can in advance, that’s my motto.”

“No thanks to you, any of it,” Marcia muttered.

Cato spread his hands. “Perhaps I trusted that you – or that someone – would be smarter than Daril b’Leandra, sister.”

She looked narrowly at him. “What did you do?” she challenged him. “In the embassy, I mean. I know you what you did in the park.”

Cato sighed. “In the park – Marcia, I promise you, I thought we were replacing the cityangel and all would be well. I’m sorry about that.” His voice was serious for once.

“So, after all that – you suddenly thought better of it once you were in the embassy?” Marcia said.

Cato blinked at her. “Are you by any chance suggesting that I let my client down at the crucial moment? Why, Marcia, that would be unethical.”

She knew, from extensive previous experience, that she wasn’t going to get anything more explicit out of him. She rolled her eyes, and he grinned.

“So,” he said. “Did you make political hay out of the whole thing?”

“Let’s just say I have plans,” Marcia said. She looked down at her fingers. “Daril wasn’t entirely wrong, you know. His methods were appalling, but some of what he was complaining about…”

“Yes. I noticed that. I wondered if you would”

Marcia took a breath. “I’ve been drifting a bit, I think. Letting Mother shove me around. Letting the whole situation drift, come to that – it’s not just me, after all. This – it generates an opportunity to step up, that’s for certain. I just have to work out what to do with it.”

“Well,” Cato said. “I’d back you against anyone, for that.”

She looked up at him sharply. His eyes were serious, and loving. Then he grinned, and the moment was gone. He swung his legs off the bed.

“In between all the serious politicking, though, if I were you, I’d find some time to go see the lovely Reb, hmm?”

Marcia glared at him. “What do you mean?”

“Why would I mean anything?” He blinked slowly. “I’ve known Reb a while, you know. Fellow sorcerers and all that.”

“She doesn’t think much of you.”

“Very competent, Reb is,” Cato said, ignoring her. “Tediously moral. No wonder you get on.” He grinned at her. “Or get…”

“Oh, shut it, you.” Marcia caught up a cushion from the chair, and threw it at him. He dodged, laughing, and suddenly they were fifteen again. Impulsively, she stepped forwards and hugged him. “I was going to see Reb anyway, thank you all the same. Look after yourself, you. And now shoo. I need to get to bed. I am tired.”

He hugged her tightly, then let her go. He sauntered to the open window, sketched a vague salute, then swung his leg over the sill and was gone.

Marcia stared at the window for a moment, then shook her head. She could get rid of the creeper that climbed the wall around her window, if she ever chose to. For security.

She wouldn’t.

Only Cato was Cato. And it was warded against anyone but him, ever since the night he left, ten years ago.

She really did want to see Reb. But that would have to wait for tomorrow.