The city of Agatos sat at the southern end of the Erastes Valley, where the valley narrowed to no more than a couple of miles across before opening onto the Yttradian Sea.
To the west and east of Agatos, the hills rose quickly to steep, jagged mountains that buttressed the sea with sheer cliffs. It was cosy, in a kind of rocky way. In the west of the city, a precipitous ridge of rock, called Giuffria’s Spear (or, in parts of the Warrens where they were always impressed by their own sense of humour, Giuffria’s Cock) jutted from the mountains into the body of the city, effectively cutting off the southern, ocean-facing part of the western city from the northern, valley-facing part. The Ash Guard fortress sat hard against the end of the ridge. It was an old building, far older than the Senate and the palaces on Horn Hill, dating back to the days when Agatos was still a contested city. Unlike the rest of the city, it was not whitewashed. It crouched like a belligerent stone toad, letting the rest of the city know exactly what it thought of it. I had never been inside — like most mages, I kept as far away as possible — but behind its four-storey bulk, I suspected it stretched deep back into the rock of the ridge.
Where they put mages they don’t intend to let out again. I shuddered.
The Ash Guard didn’t tie my hands or blindfold me. They simply closed around me as they marched me from Thousand Walls, down Agate Way, and through the city to their fortress. You would be surprised at how quickly people cleared out of the way of the Ash Guard, even if they weren’t mages. I tried to make a joke about it, but not a single one of the Guard cracked a smile.
“Tough crowd,” I muttered.
They didn’t laugh at that either. Maybe the Ash on their faces made them irritable. I didn’t feel much like laughing myself. I kept seeing the body of the Master Servant on the floor of Carnelian Silkstar’s office. I didn’t even know her name. I didn’t know if she had a family or friends. Did she like reading books and visiting the theatre, or did she like dining at the tavernas on Bayview Plaza, where you could look right down over the white roofs of the city to the glittering waters of Erastes Bay, without having to smell the sewage that emptied beyond the harbour wall? Whatever she was passionate about, she wouldn’t be doing it again, and I couldn’t help thinking I was to blame. My bad ankle throbbed with every step, and I stamped harder. It stopped me thinking too much.
I had lost sight of Benny almost immediately. Unlike me, he hadn’t warranted a squad of Ash Guard. The last I’d seen was him being manacled by the City Watch and led off.
Dammit, Benny! Why couldn’t you have stuck to robbing ordinary rich people? Why did you have to steal from a high mage? And why hadn’t I spotted the booby trap?
I forced the thought away. Feeling guilty was the last thing I needed here.
The cobbled square in front of the Ash Guard fortress was empty except for a few pedestrians hurrying by, heads down. There were none of the usual hawkers or entertainers you would expect to see in a city square. No one, mage or ordinary citizen, wanted to be near the headquarters of the Ash Guard. A dead rat lay in the gutter, body half gnawed. Distantly, I heard shouts from the docks and the hoarse protesting of gulls. The faint wind brought the smell of fish drying on racks on the docks.
The Ash Guard marched me inexorably on.
The entrance to the fortress consisted of double doors made of heavy, old wood still studded with iron. Inside, a well-lit passageway led into the building. I stumbled along, half dragged by my guards. About twenty feet in, the walls changed. Now, they were constructed of oddly-speckled bricks, where Ash had been baked into them. I suspected there was Ash in the mortar between the bricks, too. The whole place was a magical dead zone. I couldn’t help but feel a rush of despair as I was led deeper.
I was taken to a large, circular chamber. Smooth, high walls reached up to what appeared to be viewing galleries. I squinted to see if anyone was up there, but the ceiling was made of strutted glass, and the glare of the sun made it impossible to tell. If I had access to my magic…
There was a sturdy table in the middle of the room, with comfortable, padded chairs on either side and a plate of flatbreads, along with a pot and two cups, dead centre. The captain saw me looking.
“Help yourself,” she said.
The flatbread was still warm under my hand. My stomach gurgled at the smell rising from it, and I shot the Ash Guard captain an embarrassed look. The pot contained a light, yellow-green tea.
“It’ll settle your stomach,” she told me. “Now, wait here. I’ll be back.”
This wasn’t what I had been expecting. I had heard terrible stories of what went on in the fortress, admittedly from people who had never been inside, but still. This hospitality made me immediately suspicious. In my experience, people were only nice to you if they wanted something. I wasn’t in the mood for giving it to them, breakfast or no breakfast.
It’s their job to deal with mages, I reminded myself. Most mages saw themselves as being rather important in society. How better to take down their defences than to make them think they were just around for morning tea?
I didn’t let it stop me helping myself to tea and flatbreads the moment the captain had gone, but I told myself I was remaining suspicious. The tea was wonderful, and it did settle my stomach. When I started eating the flatbreads, I couldn’t stop until there was nothing left but crumbs.
They hadn’t been foolish enough to leave me a knife for the bread, though, and two of the Ash Guard remained at the door.
I was starting to feel almost human again, although bruised, exhausted, and weak, when the captain reappeared. She pulled out a chair opposite and slapped a file on the table.
I reached instinctively for power, to ready myself, and wanted to throw up again.
The captain raised an eyebrow.
“Worth a try,” I muttered.
“So. You’re Mennik Thorn, a freelance mage. How’s that going for you?”
“I prefer Nik. And until this morning, not too bad.”
Her eyebrow rose even higher. I found myself wondering if it was just going to keep going up her forehead and over the back of her head.
“Really? Over the last six months you’ve earned a grand total of three crowns, five shields, and seven pieces. I’ve met beggars who earn more than that.” I must have looked shocked, because she added, “What? You’re a mage. We’re the Ash Guard. We keep a close eye on all of you, particularly ‘freelance’ mages.”
“You follow me around?” I desperately tried to remember if I’d noticed anyone lurking about too often. I sincerely hoped they hadn’t witnessed that unfortunate incident in Blackheart Plaza, because what had been left of my clothing hadn’t been enough to protect anyone’s modesty, even mine.
A smile twitched under the Ash. “We do have other things to do, you know, and you’re hardly the most dangerous mage in the city.” She glanced down at the file. “Although you do find yourself in interesting situations.” That was a polite way of putting it. “But we know who you’ve worked for — or not worked, in your case — and what you’ve been up to.” She reached for a cup, poured herself some of the tea, then set it back down. “Here’s what I don’t understand about you. You’re a mage.”
“Bit late to deny it, I suppose.”
She didn’t laugh. “You could be rich. You could have power, influence. You don’t have to be broke.”
I shrugged. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to that. Mages were power hungry bastards. Not all of them, of course, but I had seen it in enough of them. Depths, I’d seen it in the Countess. Something about having that power demanded ever more of it, and what they would do to get it, well, that was a slope I didn’t want to slip down. For a while, just a very short while, years ago I had felt that urge, too. It had revolted me. I had seen where it would take me and the price I would have to pay, and I couldn’t do it.
“Other young mages attach themselves to high mages,” the Ash Guard captain continued, “and if they don’t like the idea of that, they work directly for the Senate or they get a position with a wealthy merchant or a prominent family. You’re nowhere near the most powerful mage in the city, but there are plenty of worse mages doing better for themselves. And you had a position with the Countess. You were set, but you gave it all up to work for a few copper hands for anyone who wanted to employ you. Help me understand.”
“Guess I’m just a people person.”
Except that wasn’t it at all. Leaving the Countess’s service had been the best thing I had ever done, no matter how poor it had left me. It might have been the only reason I was still alive, but I wasn’t about to share that with the Ash Guard.
After a moment she nodded. “All right. Shall we get on with the interview?”
I waved a gracious hand. Or it would have been gracious if I hadn’t ended up scattering crumbs across the table.
“I am Captain Meroi Gale,” the Ash Guard captain said, “and I would really like to know what you were doing at the Silkstar Palace.”
Yeah, I bet you would, I thought.
The truth hurt, they said. In this case, that hurt would be literal. The penalties for theft in Agatos were severe, although they didn’t seem to have much effect on the crime rate. If admitting to theft got me off from murder, maybe it would be worth it. Still, I wasn’t ready to let them chop off my hands.
“It’s the Feast of Parata,” I said. “Thousand Walls always opens up for the Feast of Parata. We were just paying our religious devotions.”
She snorted. “The courtyard opens up. Not the private house. Your companion, Benyon Field, is a known thief.”
“Benny’s never been convicted of anything. He’s just unlucky.”
This time her expression of disbelief was clear through the Ash.
“Something you’ve got in common,” she said. “All right. Quiz time. Do you know how many mages I’ve had sit in that chair and tell me they didn’t do it, honest, Captain? And do you know how many of them walked out again?”
“All of them?” I said, hopefully.
Her eyebrow made another dart for her forehead.
“After they’ve realised that protestations of innocence don’t gather any stones,” she said, “they threaten and bluster. The stupid ones threaten me with their own magic, even though magic doesn’t work in here. The slightly cleverer ones threaten me with their patron high mages, if they have one. A high mage could bring Giuffria’s Spear crashing down and flatten the whole fortress, killing every Ash Guard inside without getting close enough to have their magic disrupted. You would think that would be an effective threat, wouldn’t you? Except it never happens. Not once in hundreds of years. You want to know why it never happens, no matter how closely a suspect might be connected to a high mage?”
No, I thought, but found myself nodding anyway. Bloody, traitorous body.
“Because it only takes one Ash Guard with one pouch of Ash. That’s all. Just one. And you can never be sure you’ve got all of us. Anyone who pulls a stunt like that knows that the survivors — and there will be survivors, because we never keep all our knives in one sheath — will come for them and we will kill them, whoever they are and whatever they can do. No question. You know why I’m telling you this?”
I shook my head. Somehow it felt loose, like it might just bobble off and go rolling over the desk to plop down on her lap. I imagined her picking it up by the hair and continuing to lecture me.
“It’s because I’ve been up all night, and I’m tired, and I was supposed to be off shift two hours ago, and I’d really rather not go through all of that. How does that sound?”
“Uh…” I cleared my throat. “Good?”
“Fabulous. And just so we both understand, you have no rights here and no powers. Whether you leave is entirely up to me. None of your colleagues can rescue you.” She tapped the file. “Although you don’t actually have any friends among the city’s mages, do you?”
I shrugged. “They’re just jealous of my good looks.” I was trying for flippant, but my heart was racing and I could feel panic twisting and biting inside me. Keep calm.
“You look like shit.”
“Ouch.”
“A woman is dead, murdered with magic. We do not consider this a joke. The Ash Guard will defend Agatos. Do not think your life is anywhere near as important as that.”
I felt like she’d dumped a bucket of icy water over my head.
Think it through, Nik, I told myself. Logically. I knew I hadn’t murdered the Master Servant, and I didn’t think it was a coincidence that a magical murder had happened at exactly the time I was setting off the booby trap.
I wasn’t talking my way out of this. I would have to gamble and hope the Ash Guard had bigger things to worry over than a bout of thievery.
I raised my hands. “All right, all right. Benny and I were there to steal a ledger from Carnelian Silkstar, but the ledger was booby-trapped, and I didn’t see the trap until it was too late. That’s all I know.”
Captain Gale leaned forwards. “We’ve spoken to Carnelian Silkstar. He told us that there was a curse on a ledger, but all it would have done was to give you a bad case of the shits. It certainly wasn’t booby-trapped. Unless you had a particularly explosive case of the shits, something else caused the damage.”
My jaw dropped.
“I felt it trigger,” I said. “It was booby-trapped. I know what I felt.”
She tilted her head to one side, inquisitively. “You’re saying someone snuck into Silkstar’s library and set a booby trap without him noticing? A high mage’s library.”
“Or he lied,” I muttered.
It sounded weak, even to me, and I still didn’t understand how the Master Servant had died.
All hints of humour had deserted the captain now.
“Shall I tell you what I think? I think you murdered Master Servant Rush, but I think you made a mess of it. I think the blow-back from a badly cast spell almost took you out, too, and wrecked the library.”
I was already shaking my head. There had been a booby trap tied to that curse. I wasn’t wrong. Why, though? Why booby-trap that ledger? Whoever had done it could hardly have been after Silkstar. The explosion had nearly taken me out, but a high mage would have brushed it off like stray dandruff.
Someone had hired Benny to go after this very ledger. They had warned him about the curse. They must have known of his association with me and known Benny would come to me for help. When I broke the curse, the booby trap would explode and I would be dead.
Someone tried to kill you! Not by accident, not in the heat of the moment. It had been deliberate, careful, planned.
The thought made my whole body flush cold, despite the heat pouring in through the glass ceiling. My hands shivered uncontrollably. I quickly clasped them beneath the table. I felt sweat spring up on my cold skin. My lips were dry.
Dead. Why would anyone want me dead? The enormity of it sent my mind flailing for a moment before I could bring it under control. I knew I pissed people off, but this was extreme and dangerous, and if they got it wrong, they would have a high mage after them.
No. Stop. Calm down. It didn’t have to be personal. Maybe they just (just!) wanted to frame someone for the Master Servant’s murder. Maybe anyone would have done as long as that person could take the blame. It would be so much easier to frame someone who wasn’t around to protest their innocence. A shredded body caught in the act. The perfect patsy. Maybe they had set the booby trap, given Benny a deadline, and waited for us to spring it. Then, they had magically murdered the Master Servant and made themselves scarce, leaving people to draw the wrong conclusions from the scene.
Like the captain had.
Except we hadn’t died. We had got lucky — really lucky — and we had survived. Then the Ash Guard had turned up. They had been there fast. The explosion had knocked me out cold, but if I had been unconscious for more than a couple of minutes, Benny would have dragged me out of there. It had taken half an hour for the Ash Guard to march me back from Thousand Walls to their fortress, most of that downhill. Getting there would have taken almost as long, particularly uphill. The Ash Guard didn’t routinely patrol wearing Ash, because Ash destroyed all magic, good, bad, or harmless, that it came close to. Too much of the city relied on magic for that to be an option. Someone must have tipped them off that something was going to happen nearby, and the Ash Guard must have been waiting. Whoever had planned this had been thorough. When we didn’t die, the fallback plan had been waiting, smeared in Ash and brutal judgement.
Captain Gale must have seen something in my expression, because she suddenly leaned back in her chair with a sigh. She slapped a palm on the file in front of her.
“Our assessment is that you don’t have the power to pull something like this off.”
I perked up. That was … unexpectedly good news. “So I can go?”
“Our assessments have been wrong before.”
I slumped back. “Great.”
“But you can go for now.”
Bet you didn’t plan for that, you bastard! I thought. Whoever had set me up had made a mistake.
As if she were reading my mind, Captain Gale shook her head. “You may not have had the power for this, but you are involved, somehow. I hope for your sake that your involvement is entirely innocent and accidental. If not, we will discover who you were working with and we will come for you.”
That wasn’t the most reassuring thing anyone had said to me today. I shivered all over again.
No, I told myself. They couldn’t get anything on me, because I didn’t have anything to do with it. If you’re not involved, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of. Which was a pile of steaming goat shit, because someone had worked really hard to make it look like Benny and I were involved.
I pushed my chair back and headed for the door. Maybe this hadn’t been personal, but someone had tried to kill me and Benny, and they had tried to frame us. I was going to find out who, and they were going to pay.
“Your friend,” Captain Gale said.
I turned. “Benny?”
“We don’t have him. He’s not a mage, so he’s not our jurisdiction. He’s in the custody of the City Watch.” Was that sympathy in the captain’s voice? Why sympathy? “You should know that he will be found guilty, no matter the evidence.”
I wasn’t naïve, but that still took me aback. How could they just find him guilty? And of what?
“Mr. Field has pushed his luck too far this time. You can’t rob a high mage and walk away from it. Carnelian Silkstar may have no influence in here” — she gestured at the Ash Guard fortress around us — “but the magistrates and the City Watch know on which side of their face the sun shines. You did try to steal from him.”
Benny had been caught red-handed, or as close to red-handed as he could be. What did I think was going to happen? What a fucking idiot I had been. I should never have got into this.
Goat shit, I told myself. This is not your fault. Benny got you into this, not the other way around.
Except I knew I wasn’t going to abandon him.
You don’t let your friends down. You don’t cut them loose. I might not know much, but I knew that. You just didn’t.
My legs were shaking as two Ash Guard men led me out of the chamber. I had a sudden wobble going through the door and almost bumped into the doorjamb. I did a little dance to make it look like I’d meant to do it, which only made the whole thing more obvious.
The truth was, I hadn’t been sure I would be walking out of the Ash Guard fortress at all. There was nothing quite so pathetic as a mage without his powers. I had acted confident, and I knew I was innocent (kind of innocent), but the Ash Guard answered to no one except their own strict laws, and if they had decided I was staying, stay I would.
The sun was blazing down from the clear afternoon sky as I stumbled out, and I squinted against the sudden brightness. The heat in the open square was intense and heavy, but at least it felt clean. I wanted to throw up my hands and shout, “Freedom!” Only I was worried the Ash Guard might take it personally and arrest me again.
I couldn’t just bust Benny out of gaol. I would end up straight back in the Guard fortress. I needed to think this through. Getting out of the heat would be a good start. I headed for the nearest street.
A group of old men looked up from under an awning where they were playing a noisy game of High Ground as I ducked into the shade beside them. I gave them a friendly wave, and they went back to their game, shaking their heads. Yep. Everyone thinks you’re a loon. Hey, any mage dragged into the Ash Guard fortress would be the same.
Counters clicked as one of the old men moved his piece around the board, demolishing several citadels on his way, to the outraged cries and curses of the other men.
High Ground was called the Game of Conquerors, and apparently Agate Blackspear, the self-proclaimed founder of Agatos, the Godkiller himself, had been a big fan. I had never really taken to it, because it required at least four players and I couldn’t think of three other people I could stand to be around for the seven or eight hours it took to play. That was a joke, but in all honesty, every game I had played had descended into bitter arguments by halfway through.
Whoever had set me and Benny up was playing their own game of High Ground. Prepare the field, line up your moves, strike. But it didn’t always play out the way you expected. With a shout of disbelief, the old man lost his emperor to an unexpected counter strike.
That’s right, you bastard, I thought at my unknown antagonist. The power of fucking analogy.
The smell of cinnamon drifted from a coffee house on the other side of the street, and the only reason my stomach didn’t rumble was because the cinnamon was cut by the fragrant stink of the small herd of goats making its way up the street, followed by their shepherd. I assumed they were on their way to the slaughter houses by the docks, but it never paid to ask too closely.
With a nod that no one noticed, I left the old men to their game before something could happen that would ruin my analogy.
Despite my protestations and my apparently well-known lack of magical power, the Ash Guard still thought I was involved. I was used to being an idiot, but this was the first time I’d been someone’s useful idiot. I didn’t like it.
Then there was Benny. I had always known that his stealing would catch up with him one day, but I hadn’t known it would happen when we were on a job together, and somehow that made it more personal. I didn’t have many friends — like I said, I pissed people off — and none had hung around as long as Benny. I wasn’t going to let the Watch chop off his hands. In a way, I had got lucky. The Ash Guard had no interest in common or garden thievery. If they cleared me of murder, I’d be a free man. Benny wasn’t so fortunate.
The Senate could pardon him, of course. Maybe if I’d been more respectable, if I’d followed the normal path for a mage and risen through society, I might have had contacts who could have a quiet word. My little sister, Mica, had taken that route. She had stayed with the Countess when I’d left and was now one of the Countess’s senior mages. But I had sworn long ago that I was never getting drawn into the Countess’s schemes again. The price was just too high.
The only other people with the leverage to spring Benny were the other high mages, the Wren and Carnelian Silkstar. The idea of being indebted to the Wren filled me with immense unease, and Silkstar wasn’t my or Benny’s biggest fan at the moment, seeing as he (rightly) thought we’d tried to rob him and (wrongly) thought we had murdered his servant.
But if I could track down the actual murderer and turn them over to Silkstar, maybe that would be enough to get him to overlook the burglary. High mages to a man and woman were proud and unforgiving, but this was all I had.
Yeah? I thought. Or are you just coming up with excuses to concentrate on clearing yourself of murder rather than helping Benny?
I swore, startling a priestess of Narth the Sleeping who was walking a couple of steps ahead of me. I was pretty certain Narth was dead, not sleeping, so I wasn’t particularly worried about the dirty look she shot me.
The obvious place to start would be the person who had hired Benny. Benny wasn’t getting released any time soon, but he should be able to tell me who his contact had been.
I had one other thing to take care of first, though. Benny might be a lowlife thief, but he was a good father, and he would be worrying himself stupid about his daughter. He would expect me to check that she was all right before anything else.
Benny owned a small house on the edge of the Warrens. Unlike the better parts of Agatos, and even unlike much of the Grey City, the Warrens hadn’t been planned. It had grown like fungus behind the western docks, narrow, dark streets and damp, crowded houses. Benny’s place was part of a cluster of houses no more than twenty yards from the true Warrens, and if I had to be honest, it was a whole lot nicer than my rundown apartment in the Grey City. There were no grand plazas here, but this borderland between the impoverished and respectable parts of Agatos didn’t slump under the weary poverty of the Warrens.
Benny’s house was a two-storey, whitewashed stone building, part of a block that enclosed a shared courtyard. Neat shutters were closed against the heat. Pots of carefully tended flowers stood on either side of the door. If you hadn’t known Benny the way I did, you would never have marked this as his home. The solid cedar door itself was locked, but a quick spell sprang it, and I eased the door open. I knew Benny didn’t have any magical wards against intrusion, because I’d offered to set some and he’d turned me down flat. Apparently, he couldn’t believe anyone would actually rob him, which, bearing in mind he spent half his nights rifling through the possessions of the wealthy, seemed touchingly naïve.
The house was dark inside, with only the open door throwing a sharp wedge of light onto the wooden floor. I drew in magic to enhance my senses.
It didn’t do any good. I had scarcely taken three steps into the house when a long, sharp blade touched my throat, and a voice whispered directly into my ear, “Hello, Uncle Nik.”
I managed to catch myself as a I stumbled, which was a good thing, otherwise I would have impaled myself on the knife.
“Bannaur’s balls,” I cursed. “Do you have to do that, Sereh?”
“You didn’t knock.”
“Would it have made any difference?”
“No.”
The knife slid away from my throat, stroking over my skin as gently as a feather. I shivered, then turned slowly to look down at Benny’s daughter. She stared back up at me with wide, innocent blue eyes. The knife, I noticed, had disappeared.
Sereh was eleven years old, and small for her age. I had known her since she’d been a baby. Depths, I had even helped raise her when Benny had needed help. But she still absolutely terrified me sometimes. It was partly those innocent blue eyes and the fact that she never spoke louder than a whisper, but it was mainly that knife of hers. She was also the only person I never heard coming. I thought she liked me, in her own way, but she was ferociously, dangerously loyal to Benny. Sereh would take on an incarnate god if she thought it was a threat to her father, and I’d put even money on her being the one who walked away. Being around Sereh always felt like tiptoeing through broken glass. If broken glass could leap up off the floor and stab you through the eye before you could blink.
I had no idea why Benny worried so much about her.
“Look, do you think we could get some light?” I said. Standing here in the dark with Sereh made me unaccountably nervous.
“If you need it, Uncle Nik.”
She led me through the house on silent feet and threw open the door into the courtyard. She settled on the edge of the steps, feet kicking freely. I carefully moved past her.
The courtyard was paved around the edge, with a lemon tree and a pair of peach trees shading a stone bench and a shallow pool. Laundry had been hung out to dry on lines that crisscrossed the courtyard. Sereh had spent a week rearranging the lines a couple of years ago, and it had taken me a few months to realise that anyone coming over the roofs would have a hard time entering the courtyard without disturbing the lines. Sereh didn’t share Benny’s touching innocence about the safety of this place. I could imagine her crouching in the dark like a spider touching its web, ready to leap into action at the slightest disturbance of the lines.
Beds of lavender, basil, coriander, and thyme scented the air. At the far end of the courtyard, two little children were playing with hoops.
“Dad’s not here, Uncle Nik,” Sereh said.
“I know. That’s the thing. Your dad and I were doing, um, a job.”
“You were stealing.”
I winced. Sometimes Benny was too honest with his kid. “Yes. Your dad was hired to steal something from Carnelian Silkstar, but it went wrong. Your dad’s been arrested.”
The knife was in Sereh’s hand again. I hadn’t seen it appear.
“Are we going to break him out?”
“What? No. Not unless we have to. We need to find a legitimate way of getting Benny free or Carnelian Silkstar will just track him down again. You can’t hide from a high mage.”
“Maybe we should kill Carnelian Silkstar.” Her voice was still soft and quiet.
Fuck me. My fingers tightened on the guardrail by the steps. “You can’t just kill a high mage.”
Sereh’s head cocked to one side, and she gazed up at me with those unsettling blue eyes. “Why not?”
I had never met Sereh’s mother. I had been too focused on trying to prove myself as a mage around the time Sereh was born, and I hadn’t seen Benny for a couple of years. Sereh’s mother had died in childbirth. Benny told me that her mother had been a Dhajawi merchant princess, and while a merchant princess seemed unlikely, she had certainly been from Dhaja, because Sereh had those characteristic blue eyes, and her skin was much darker than Benny’s and even a shade darker than mine. Whoever her mother had been, if she had been anything like Sereh, she must have been terrifying.
“It’s just … It’s not a good idea.”
Sereh’s expression didn’t change, but I could tell I wasn’t convincing her.
“Look, your dad wouldn’t want you to.”
Apparently those were the magic words, because the knife was gone again. Now was as good a time as any to chance my luck.
“I think you should come and stay with me until your dad gets out. It’ll be safer.”
Maybe not safer for me, or anyone within a block radius, either.
She gave me a quizzical look. “Why? I know all the ways in and out of here, and I know where all my knives are hidden.”
Of course you do.
“I think your dad would prefer it.”
It seemed the magic words only worked once, because she shook her head.
“I think he would prefer it if I stayed here. You only have magic to protect you.” Her knife flicked out and was gone again before I could blink.
“How about, you know, food and stuff?”
She gave me a pitying look. “Uncle Nik. I’ve been to your apartment, remember? You tried to cook for me. I think I’ll manage.”
Rude. But, fine. I knew when I was beaten. At least I could tell Benny I had tried. And despite Sereh’s confidence, I would be sure to check up on her regularly. Benny would do the same for me.
“I saw your sister yesterday,” Sereh volunteered.
That took me by surprise.
“Mica? Down here in the Warrens?”
Mica was actually my half sister, and she was six years younger than me. We didn’t see much of each other. Despite the fact that we had both grown up in the Warrens, I doubted she had been over this way for years. As one of the Countess’s favoured acolytes, she had moved smoothly up through society, while I had bumped along the bottom like a pot tied to the back of a cart. Mica had always been a better mage than me, anyway.
“Of course not, silly!” Sereh said. “She was up in Highstar Plaza. She’s done well for herself. I saw her house. It’s much nicer than yours.”
Of course it was, and I didn’t even own my apartment.
“What were you doing up at Highstar Plaza?”
“Violin lessons. There’s an old lady on the other side of the plaza who teaches.”
I blinked. “You do violin lessons?”
Her head tilted. “Would you like to hear me play?”
I had completely lost control of this conversation. I cleared my throat awkwardly. “Maybe not right now.”
Sereh’s blue eyes gazed guilelessly at me. “Is Mica my auntie?”
I think my eyes must have boggled. “What? No!” She tried hard enough to pretend she wasn’t my sister. She wasn’t about to start adopting my friends.
Sereh suddenly burst out laughing. “You get so flustered, Uncle Nik. It’s sweet.”
I coughed. “Um. Are you sure you don’t want to stay with me until your dad gets back?”
The laughter was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. “Why? Are you scared, Uncle Nik?”
Bloody terrified right now, I thought.
“No.” I edged past her into the house. “I need to get to work if I’m going to get your dad out.” I paused, looking down at her. “Promise me you won’t do anything stupid, all right?”
She didn’t reply. She just sat there on the step, twirling her knife in her fingers.
Shit. And now I had to worry about her trying to kill Carnelian Silkstar, too.
Well done, Nik, I told myself. You’ve just managed to make everything worse. Again.