This is how Adelina found out: she was going along the street thinking about the problem of Scholar Reinart’s book and how it might be either published without loss or the discussion killed once and for all. He says he does not want to publish for the sake of vanity, but that is it. And isn’t that why we all chase it?
She wasn’t really paying attention to the people around her, but then she heard Bella’s name on the lips of the news crier, and saw people crowding around him.
Well of course, she has won again. For a moment she wasn’t sure whether she’d rolled her eyes visibly or inside her head. No one seemed to notice, though.
She had foregone the Arena match. A waste of money that could be spent doing public good. Still, why the push and shove over this news? The crowd was all elbows and backs, but she managed to squeeze close enough to hear, “Unexpected Twist: Kanto Kills Student!” and then, in response to the rush of questions, “You’ll have to spend your skiff to get the rest of the news, but believe me, it’s worth it!”
Her fingers trembled as she fumbled through her purse for the copper coin. This is bad, this is very bad. Bella killing her own student—that had to be the result of some terrible accident, and how could Bella have let it happen? She is too skilled not to be able to control her blade—no, something must have happened, some force intervened.
The newsprint was so fresh that it smudged her fingers as she opened up the page to read.
It wasn’t until she saw the speculations that Bella and the student had been lovers that she was truly shocked. Not a social convention to be flouted; loving and teaching do not think together, as the Trade Gods say. But they quoted Myrila, of all people, confirming it, and if she said a thing of Bella, it would most probably be true.
But she would go and ask the source. Surely she is unhappy and needs comforting.
She hurried along. It would give her an excuse to skip the afternoon gathering with the Manycloaks as well. Bella and Emiliana had never sat well with each other, but her mother would be forced to agree that this disaster merited time spent with Bella.
But she found her plans thwarted when she arrived at the boarding house on Greenslope Way.
It was bad enough that Scholar Reinart shared this space and there was therefore always the chance of running into him, but Adelina had never liked Bella’s landlady. The woman was far too conscious of Bella’s stature and all too aware of the glory (and profit) that it brought to her establishment. Take the bard, for example. Would he have come to live there if it hadn’t been for Bella? No, certainly not. And Captain Saltsail. There was another one who had chosen the house because of the tenants, since he had that mad passion for Bella for so long, even though she’d never followed through on it.
Adelina wished now, though, that she hadn’t been quite so obvious about her dislike. It might have helped her negotiate with Abernia, who stood, arms crossed, barring the doorway.
“Miss Bella doesn’t want to be seeing anybody, that’s what she said.”
“But I’m her friend! You know that, I’ve visited here dozens of times.” Somehow being denied access to Bella made the situation seem even more dire, as if her friend were bleeding, and in need of bandaging, with Adelina so close but unable to supply the need.
“I can take a message, I told you that. Twice.” Abernia unfolded and refolded her arms, standing with her feet planted solid as a fir tree.
“Very well, I’ll leave a note. Can you bring me some paper?”
“No. I don’t have any.”
Adelina stared at Abernia, unwilling to believe the woman was lying directly to her face. “Not a scrap?”
Abernia didn’t even bother to reply to that, only shook her head and kept staring Adelina in the face. Behind her in the hallway, Adelina could see a boy hovering, trying to catch her attention. The boy Bella had hired off the street, the one she said was her errand runner. Bella had taken in plenty of strays over the years, but never Human ones, and Adelina had found herself wondering if it marked some change in her friend or was simply—probably—random happenstance?
What would Bella have done, under similar conditions? She toyed with the idea of physically pushing Abernia, a good solid shove so she could get past her and go up the wide wooden staircase with its jonquil-carved banister to Bella’s quarters on the uppermost floor. But Abernia had both inches and pounds on Adelina, and something about the way she stood, and the way her lip twisted, that suggested she would be fine using them.
“Very well,” Adelina said, exhaling. “I will go back to my offices and write a note.” She pointed past Abernia. “Send the boy with me and he’ll bring it back to her.”
“Teo?” Abernia, surprised, spun to look at the boy, who looked as though he could have kept butter in his mouth, he was that cool. He stepped up with a nod. He wore a jacket with odd, floral buttons. Those were a Coinblossom device, and if they were on the buttons, she would bet that it had been Marta’s garment. How like Bella. She probably hadn’t thought twice about giving her lover’s cast-off to her servant. That was the thing that was both infuriating and endearing, all at once, about Bella. It wasn’t that she was mean—far from it—or that she ever tried to hurt people. It was just that the way she lived, the way she was, sometimes people got hurt.
Would Teo be one of them? He fell in behind her and they started off down the street with Abernia scowling after them.
“So what is really happening?” Adelina demanded after half a block.
“Ma’am?” His voice faltered and cracked. He was very young. Bella had said he was from the country, that he’d fled some sort of bad situation. She’d been amused by the fact that he’d read most of the penny-wides often enough that he could quote them. Adelina wondered whether he had ever thought he would become associated with Bella.
At any other time, she would have talked with him about them, would have asked his opinion of various ones and seen which was his favorite (everyone had one, and it was Adelina’s pet theory that which one you liked the best said a great deal about your character and personality). But she had something entirely different—or at least somewhat unrelated—in mind, and so she said, “Bella. Is she truly sending everyone away, or is that Abernia’s interpretation of her wishes?”
“Well,” he said slowly, “I think it’s Bella’s wish, really, but she didn’t really spell it out to Abernia, at least while I was around. She came home from the Arena before I did—I had to fight with the crowds, and Abernia did too. I went up to see her and when I knocked on the door, she told me to go away, and have Abernia come up with a pot of chal. Since then I don’t know that she’s eaten all that much, but Abernia would know that better. But Bella just sits in her room.”
“What does she do there?” Adelina wondered out loud. It was mostly to herself, but Teo answered, nonetheless.
“She watches out the window,” he said. “The Fairies in the pine tree near there. She watches them. Feeds them sometimes. I think she lets them shelter inside when it’s very cold, but that’s something Abernia would scream at if she found out.” He scowled. “She doesn’t understand how dangerous they can be.”
Adelina stared at him. “Watches the Fairies?” Not at all what she expected.
He nodded. “She likes them,” he said.
She had known that Bella liked creatures, but not that the liking had extended to something Adelina had always thought of as vermin.
When Adelina had been very young, it had briefly been fashionable to have Fairy pets, a kind that had been brought from the Southern continent, and which were trailed about on small gilt leashes. The first time she’d seen one, fluttering after her friend Terinka, she’d cried and cried until Emiliana agreed to get one for her, a rare concession, although she’d gotten Adelina to promise any number of things about her chores and studies for the year to come.
In reality, the Fairy had been much less enchanting than Adelina had hoped. Its breath stank from the lumps of meat it ate, and it was given to swooping at her, chittering, in a way that startled and alarmed.
Bella had tried to persuade her that Fairies were not all bad, that the ones she had known were warped from being raised in captivity, but even so, she disliked Fairies and smaller birds and even the gray and silver moths that came out of the South on late Winter evenings, no matter how prettily Tullus wrote about them.
“I’ll give you coins, if you’ll send word to me if anything changes,” she said. She reached for her pocket but he forestalled her with a hand.
“I will bring word,” he said with dignity, “but there is no need to pay me for it.”
She looked at his proud face, his reddened eyes. How does Bella manage to inspire such devotion in us all?
Nonetheless she pressed a silver skiff in his hand and said, “It is not pay, but here in the city it is the custom to express our appreciation when we feel someone has gone above and beyond. It is a manner of honoring the Trade Gods Diahti and Diahmo, so perhaps you will do me the favor of taking it?”
That is how she had been taught to couch it when she was a child, and the formula, so automatic it rose to her lips without her thinking about it, had always served her well. It did now, for he tucked the coin away without demurring further.
“Did you know the girl?” she asked. “Skye? The student?”
Teo’s face closed. “I am Bella Kanto’s servant, not a gossip,” he said. His hand strayed towards the pocket in which he’d stowed her coin.
“No, no, of course not,” Adelina said quickly. She stepped away, severing the conversation before he could speak again, and hurried down the street.
It was snowing heavily by now, thick muffling flakes that made the entire world seem quieter, but that only made the thoughts racing through her head seem louder, more urgent.
Bella had killed people before, plenty of them. That would not concern her. But to have killed a student, and not just a student but perhaps one that she had loved? Bella would be scarred inside from that, and Adelina could not imagine how her friend might heal from the blow. Jolietta left her scars enough.
She took a tram up three terraces to the Duke’s Junction, and a pedal cart along lower Archway to the Tumbril Stair. From there it was a straight shot down to the Nettlepurse manor, a chance to see things from above, the snow swirling everywhere, and the roofs softened by the accumulation. The snow squeaked and crunched underfoot, but everything else seemed dead and muffled by the enveloping whiteness. A good night to stay inside, to drink chal, and talk with family or friends.
Would Bella do that? Adelina didn’t think so. Instead, she’ll hole up in her apartment, living on the food Abernia sent up, pretending that the world doesn’t matter. That is Bella’s way and always has been.
They were scheduled to meet in two days and talk about the match—a special edition of Bella’s adventures always included a close, exacting account of the match, written by Adelina at Bella’s dictation. The House could dispense with that custom on this occasion, and that would be much kinder than the alternative.
What will happen if this soils Bella’s reputation to the point where it hurts her sales? According to the Trade Gods, any publicity was good, but reputation was part of the convoluted system. Bella’s finances were good enough to survive anything like that but it underscored the need to find some other way for Spinner Press to make money—depending on Bella was simply too risky, and surely, surely the state of affairs could not continue. She cannot always win.
Will more students fall in trying to achieve that? A shiver crawled down Adelina’s spine. It was like a ghost story, some tale of doomed lovers colliding, one killing the other, to be haunted all her life by regret.
But this was Bella Kanto, Bella Kanto the unsinkable. Who had weathered so much in life—surely she’d easily sail through this as well. The storm hadn’t been brewed yet that could defeat her. That had always drawn Adelina to her, that attitude, that unquestioning acceptance that she was beloved of the universe, and that it would always conspire to keep her happy.
Not this time, though. That wasn’t what had happened this time at all.
The next day, she found the damage was even less than she had feared. How unfair was that, that Bella could literally kill a girl, could cause a riot in which others died, and still remain Tabat’s golden hero? Yes, surely Bella will be all right in this. She’ll probably even find a way to turn it to her advantage.
She didn’t need to worry whether or not Bella would keep the appointment. She would, and while she might be a trifle subdued, she would make a joke or three nonetheless, the usual irreverent dry Bella humor, and soon Adelina would find herself laughing despite herself.
The most infuriating thing about Bella Kanto, that quality. And at the same time, the most charming.
What would the girl have thought of Bella as a lover? Adelina remembered Bella’s practiced grace, her hands, her expert attentions, honed by a hundred lovers. That would spoil you for anyone else. She wondered if perhaps Bella had not, after all, been rather lucky. A teen as fixated as Marta would be an uneasy thing to deal with.
Emiliana had not given up hope, Adelina could tell that. And indeed, she insisted on taking her daughter to see yet another speaker that afternoon, saying Adelina could learn much from her, and Adelina had acquiesced, rather than fight that battle.
The young woman was introduced as Jilla Clearsight, a Merchant who was in the process of establishing her own trade, taking some kind of picture, from what Adelina could tell, although the introductory speaker was frustratingly vague about the technology.
But Jilla was mesmerizing. Tall and straight, she stood and let her voice ring out clear as the bells from the Duke’s tower, speaking of days to come, of economic promises, of this and that, to the point where Adelina just let the words sing through her, without listening hard to their meaning.
Afterwards, she made her way through the press of the crowd, who seemed dazed and murmuring, to speak to Jilla.
“I saw you talk the other day,” Jilla said, pulling her aside. “Your mother brought you, yes?” Her eyes flickered over to Emiliana, who stood nearby talking with others. “She seems a formidable lady.”
“She is,” Adelina said, disarmed by the comment, despite the discomfort of standing looking at a mirror of what she might have been, if she had not flubbed that first speech. “She means for me to try again.”
“Will you?”
“She is, as you said, formidable,” Adelina said with a touch of despair.
“I might be able to help you,” Jilla said. “But not here. May I call on you?”
“Come to the Press where I work,” Adelina said. “We will talk there.”
She wondered what the woman meant by help, but she did not seem bent on seduction. Instead there was an earnestness about Jilla that was appealing.
She considered Jilla as the woman thanked her. She had mixed blood, dark brown hair and pale skin.
We’re of the same age. Children of this new, modern era. That’s what draws us together.
On the way out, she said to her mother, “The speech was very beautiful.”
“She is a clever young woman,” Emiliana said. Her face was perplexed. “But I cannot say that I remember much of what she said, only of liking it.”
And cast her mind back as hard as she could, Adelina could say only the same.
“Drop me at the Press?” she asked. “I have manuscripts to pick up to read at home.”
“You work too hard,” Emiliana said.
“I work to advance,” Adelina said. “Surely you approve of that?”
Emiliana dropped a reluctant nod. As the cab paused outside Spinner, she said, “We will talk tonight.”
Another speech, surely. But Adelina only waved and went inside.
“You have a visitor,” Serafina said as Adelina passed.
“Oh?” Adelina paused. “I had no appointments this day.”
“Eloquence Clement came to ask you questions,” Serafina said, her tone disapproving. “When I told him you were not here, he said he would wait, and went to look at the presses to entertain himself in the meantime.”
Adelina angled her head to look at her secretary better in the light. “Why don’t you like him?”
Serafina hesitated. “It is not that I don’t like him. But my family follows the Moon Temples.” Her fingers tugged at the silver coin hanging around her neck. “He acts as though he is wooing you, all smiles and winks, and that is not a relationship the Temples would approve of.”
Adelina’s pulse fluttered in her throat. All smiles and winks? She swallowed and said, “I didn’t know you followed the Temples. Your name isn’t a typical one.”
Serafina dropped her gaze to the feathery tangle of scrolls on the desk before her. “We keep two names, by tradition. My Temple name is Competence.”
“Well-suited to you.”
Serafina’s smile gave away as much as a sealed envelope.
Adelina tried to keep her tone level. “Very well, noted. Send down and fetch him in a few minutes.”
In her office, she hastily smoothed her hair and straightened her clothing. She stood in front of the little mirror beside the door, looking in the silvery glass to see her cheeks flushed, lips curling upwards of their own accord. Smiles and winks. She was glad that she had dressed for the occasion of the speech rather than for work.
And was glad again, when Eloquence, entering, said, “Ah, you’re full of grandness this day. I hardly dare speak to ye.”
“Good day, River Pilot,” Adelina said, smiling as she settled herself behind her desk. I had forgotten the exact color of his eyes, like the sea at midday.
“Call me Eloquence, Merchant Scholar, and we will put aside titles, aye?”
“Very well,” she said, then dared to test his first name in her mouth. “Eloquence. Serafina said you had questions?”
“I am preparing the next part of the manuscript and had questions about some of the instructions you had given me last time.”
She cocked her head. “Didn’t you listen the first time?”
“Aye,” he said solemnly. “But I would like to go over them all again, start to finish.”
Her brows furrowed. “Why?”
“Because it lets me sit and listen to your voice,” he said, smiling and winking, and despite how she tried to keep it down, her heart leaped up in return.