“What do you know about poets?” Izza asked that afternoon, as Cat did handstand push-ups on a stretch of bare floor.
The woman’s back and shoulders rippled with muscle; her toes pointed straight at the sky and the sagging roof. Six weeks give or take since her injury, one of those shaking from withdrawal, and already so strong. As if pain hurt her differently from normal people. “Lots of questions today.”
“Just curious.”
“Poets in general or”—Cat growled as she pressed herself back up into handstand posture—“specific?”
“I’ve been thinking about the man who saved me from the watch,” Izza said. “He was a poet. Or he said he was.”
“Saving”—through clenched teeth as she descended into another rep—“isn’t a poetish”—and up again—“thing to do.” She paused for breath this time in her handstand, but her arms did not shake.
“He called himself a bard,” Izza said, remembering the coat proudly worn and the pedigree proudly proclaimed. “What’s that mean?”
“Could mean a lot of things.” Cat bent her legs, set the balls of her feet on the floor, and stood, swooping her arms up and back like wings. She grabbed a jug of water and drank half in three long swigs. “‘Bard’s’ one of those words, like ‘cop,’ that shift depending on who says it. Iskari have this old bardic tradition, dates back to the Devirajic Age, you know, courtly love and all that. Truth and honor and beauty and ladies’ handkerchiefs. Then there are Camlaan bards. Tale-twisting, curse-spreading, cheats at cards and politics and marriage. Back in Alt Coulumb most of the bards have some kind of relationship with the Crier’s Guild, spreading the day’s news, so they end up kind of like spies, or reporters I guess. They hear news, pass it along. You know where this guy’s from?”
“Iskar.”
Cat set down the jug. Water sloshed inside. She sat still. When she spoke again, she sounded more serious. “Do you know his name?”
“Margot, he said. Edmond Margot.”
“An Iskari poet named Edmond Margot.” Her face and voice had closed like doors.
“You know him?”
“I’ve read his work.” She crossed her arms over her knees and frowned. “And he knows about this Blue Lady of yours?”
“He claimed to.”
“Would anyone have told him?”
Izza shook her head. “Nobody I know. The Blue Lady was our story. Secret.”
“Mind if I ask you a question? It’s a little personal.”
“Go ahead.”
“Tell me about the Blue Lady.”
“You heard the stories I told Ivy and the others,” Izza said.
“Stories, yes. I’m more interested in a description.”
Izza wandered around the warehouse, looking for something to kick. She found a suitable rock and with one sweep of her sandal sent it skittering off among broken crates to shock a fat scuttling beetle from its den. “A description.”
“A few details, that’s all. What she’s like.”
“What she was like.”
Cat blinked. “That’s right. You mentioned that she was gone.”
“She died. Happens to gods a lot around here.”
For some reason that seemed to set Cat at ease. “She wasn’t the first.”
“No. But she was nice. And I told her stories, so she was more mine than the rest.”
“Keep going.”
The beetle retreated into the shadow of a piece of broken masonry. Izza knelt, grabbed another stone, and judged the distance. “She was a bird, and a shadow, and a friend.” She tossed the stone in the air and caught it twice, testing weight. “The noise to make a rich man look the other way while you reach for his pocket. The hand that catches you when your grip slips and you’re about to fall. Speed and silence.” She threw the rock as hard as she could. Crack. The beetle’s guts smeared black through the dust. “You wouldn’t have liked her very much, I guess.”
“A goddess of thieves,” Cat said, as if the thought was funny.
“I don’t know about thieves. She was ours.”
Cat nodded. “My goddess back onshore, she was moonlight and order and water and stone. A lantern in dark places.” For the first time, she didn’t sound angry at her old life. Sad, instead, and distant.
“I guess they wouldn’t have got along.”
“No,” she said, though she didn’t sound as if she saw the humor. “There is one thing about bards you should know.”
“What’s that?”
“They attract stories. They’re sensitive to them, pick them up out of the air, out of dreams. If Margot knows about the Blue Lady, it doesn’t mean much more than that he’s good at his job.”
“He doesn’t just know the story,” Izza said. “He believes it. He thought the Blue Lady led him to me, even though she’s dead. That’s why I asked you what happens when gods die.”
Light glistened off the sweat that slicked Cat’s arms and face, outlined contours of muscle. Izza remembered her as a silver statue, breaking Penitents bare-handed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Cat said. “If I were you, I would keep away from this guy. Dead gods are trouble, and so are men who’re mad for them.”
“He could help the kids after I’m gone. They can take care of themselves mostly, but it’s always nice to have a friend. Besides, I feel like I owe him something. He got me out of jail, and I ran because I was scared.”
“You don’t owe him.”
“What does it matter to you?”
She laughed, hollowly, into the floor, and shook her head. “That’s a good question.”
Izza felt something sharp and small break inside her.
Cat looked up. “I care about you, kid. I won’t say I know what you’ve been through, but I understand why you want to get away from this life. I want to help you before you hurt yourself, or someone else does the hurting for you. You need to let all this go. The island, your kids, the Blue Lady, the poet. They can take care of themselves.”
“You’re scared,” Izza said.
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry.” Izza did not bother keeping the scorn from her voice. “I’ll make sure no one finds you.”
And she left, before Cat could say anything more.