Authors: Max Gladstone
44
Kai wore a red shirt to hide the blood from her neck. She slid Kevarian’s business card into the pocket of her slacks as she tugged them on. Izza watched from the corner, knife at her side. Kai exaggerated her limp, leaning heavily on nightstand, dresser, wardrobe. She didn’t try to run. Even fully healed, she doubted she could have outrun this murderous whip of a girl.
“Where do you come from?” Kai asked to relieve the silence. She didn’t think Izza would answer.
“The Gleb,” she said.
“Long way from home.”
“What’s home?”
Kai tried again as she buttoned her shirt: “How did you know Margot?”
“He saved me.”
“From what?”
“From someone who was asking too many questions.”
Kai left the button at her neck undone. “Let’s go.”
“Put on a coat.”
“It’s hot outside.”
“Put on a coat.”
She took a linen blazer from her closet. “Why?”
“You’ll have my knife at your back. So you don’t try anything.”
She pulled on the jacket, and limped toward the stairs. “Give me a hand?”
“Use the rail.” Izza gestured down the stairs with her knife.
“I might fall.”
“Then you fall.”
She descended slowly. Her knees buckled, but she kept her feet.
She waited in her living room for Izza.
The girl wrapped her arm around Kai’s waist beneath the blazer. The knife pressed up into Kai’s side. If she tried to run, the jacket might rip, but it might also pull Izza along—they’d both fall, and the knife could end up anywhere.
She almost ripped the card in half then, and damn the consequences. Curiosity stopped her, and fear. If Ms. Kevarian saved Kai’s life, she’d expect payment. Besides, if this girl was telling the truth, she might need the Craftswoman’s help later.
They stumbled four legged out onto the porch, and toward the fence. Kai sweat from the knife at her side as much as from the heat.
“Where are we going?” she asked when they reached the street.
“The poet’s place. East Claw. So you can see him dead. We’ll take the back roads.”
“Are they safe?”
“Let me worry about that,” Izza said, in a tone that meant she didn’t plan to worry much.
They turned right, south, downhill, toward the ocean.
Night birds whooped in the canopy. Izza burned at Kai’s side, a heating coil in the shape of a girl. Kai felt no give in her, no softness at all—bones and muscle, sinew and tendon. She had a springy gait, the kind of light step that never assumed solid ground beneath her feet.
Down and into the city. Trees and spreading lawns gave way to plaster and brick. Izza turned them onto a side street Kai hadn’t realized was a street: a narrow alley so crowded with trash bins and old crates and chained-shut doors it seemed a dead end. Kai knew the island well; an hour before she’d have sworn she could navigate it blindfolded. But she lost herself as Izza turned them off the first alley onto a second, and then a third.
“Are you sure this is the right way?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve never been here before, is all.”
“Of course not.”
Kai bridled at the assumption of that sentence, then realized the girl was only stating fact. Of course Kai wouldn’t know these alleys. She never needed them.
“These are safe paths for you,” Kai said.
“Yes.”
“Safer than main roads.”
“Not everyone’s as lucky as you are.”
They rounded a sharp corner and came to a chain-link fence. Izza stopped walking, so Kai stopped, too.
“Can you climb this?” Izza said.
“No. We could go around. Greenfrond’s over that way somewhere, I think.”
“Too risky.”
The girl had few good options. Use the main road and trust Kai not to shout for help, or take these back alleys at half speed.
“I’ll pick the lock,” Izza said after a while. “You lean against that wall there.”
“Okay.”
“No one will hear if you call for help. And even if they hear, they won’t come.”
“I figured.”
Izza walked Kai to the wall, and slid out from under her arm. Kai lurched forward without support, but caught herself against the bricks. Logical: Izza didn’t want herself between Kai and the wall. Concerned even now that Kai was faking. Fair. She was, a little. Exaggerating for effect.
The girl knelt by the gate’s lock. From a pouch at her belt she produced two metal tines, inserted one into the lock, twisted slightly, and inserted the second. The girl frowned at the lock like Mara frowned when working though a tense point of theology.
Mara. Where was she? The Craftswoman might have lied, might be responsible for her disappearance after all—if she had disappeared. People worked late. People had accidents. Kai hadn’t been home for a month after her disaster in the pool. But if so, why couldn’t she find Mara in her nightmares? Why couldn’t Ms. Kevarian?
And what did it mean, that the hospital nightmare wasn’t hers?
The lock clicked open. Izza stepped back with a curt, professional nod. “Come on.”
She helped Kai through, swung the gate shut after, and reached back to close the lock.
“Polite.”
“If the folks who own that lock see it doesn’t work, they’ll buy a better one. If I clean after myself, they won’t know I was ever here.”
“If you tell them their locks don’t work, and show them ones that would, they might pay you. Even give you keys to them.”
Izza shook beside her.
“Are you laughing?”
“You really think that might happen?”
“People earn a living that way, in my world.”
“You live in a strange world.”
“I guess.”
“A key’s the last thing I want.”
More silence. Another turn, down an alley that smelled of cat piss.
“What do you have against keys?”
“People with keys worry about keeping locks locked.”
They walked hidden paths behind and beside the streets Kai knew. Twice they crossed a main road only to dart again into cover. When other people neared, even beggars, Izza pressed the knife into Kai’s back. Kai didn’t need the reminder.
They smelled smoke four blocks from Margot’s apartment, and met the crowd soon after. Izza hesitated, but at last steered them into the human current. Drunks and salesmen and grandmothers squeezed her and Kai together. Men cried and men sang. Three women shouted at a crying girl. Boys scuffled on the sidewalk until the crowd forced them so close they had to make peace or bite each other. Sour-sweet musk of striving bodies, acrid breath, sandalwood and rosewater and leather. And smoke, always, beneath the other smells.
The crowd thinned and smoke thickened as they turned onto Margot’s street. Black billows dwarfed human works below. The curious crushed in a ragged line against a Penitent barricade. The house where Margot lived was a fire-licked ruin. A bucket line fought the flames. Across the street, a clutch of watchmen surrounded a bent gray-haired woman in a nightdress; others knelt beside a prone and shrouded body.
Kai and Izza reached the front line, and held the yellow barricade to bolster themselves against the crowd.
“You didn’t mention a fire,” Kai said.
“It wasn’t on fire when I left.” Penitents paced in front of them. Rock ground against rock as their heads moved, scanning the crowd. “We need to go.”
“We need to learn what happened here.”
“I know what happened.” She pressed close so she could whisper in Kai’s ear. “They killed him. Then they set the fire to cover it up.”
“If the Watch killed him, why set the fire? They don’t need to find any evidence they’re not looking for.”
“Let’s go.”
A watchman kneeling behind the body stood and wiped smoke from his eyes: Claude. He turned a slow circle from old woman to fire to body to the crowd—and saw her. His eyes widened, and he jogged toward them both.
Izza tugged Kai back into the surging crowd, but Kai resisted. “Come on.”
“No. That’s the guy I asked to arrest Margot.”
“He’s in on it.”
“Can’t be. He did time inside the Penitents. He’s reformed. Straight as light.”
“I told you, the Penitents killed him.”
“Claude’s seen us. Leave now and he’ll think this is my fault.”
“Isn’t it?” The knife dug into her skin.
“Go on,” Kai said, and hoped she sounded less afraid than she felt. “Kill me, and you’ll never get to the bottom of this. Or trust me, and we might.”
Telepathy, she knew, was impossible. Minds could be read, but only once extracted, and extraction broke them. She could guess Izza’s thoughts, though, from the twitch that moved through the girl like a ripple over a horse’s hide. If Izza slipped away, escaped into the crowd, she would leave Kai in the shelter of coconspirators. If she stayed, Kai might turn her over to the Watch.
Nothing Izza had said or done so convinced Kai of the girl’s innocence as that moment of fear.
“I won’t turn you in,” Kai said. “Trust me.”
Izza did not move. Nor did she answer.
Claude pushed between the Penitents in front of them. “Kai.” Soot streaked his face. The crowd shouted questions, and he ignored them. “Kai, what are you doing here?”
“I was in the area. That’s Margot’s house.”
“I brought two Penitents to arrest him. Found the place burning. The old woman, the landlady, almost choked to death.” Claude turned to Izza. “Who’s this?”
The blade bit her back. Trust me. “I was drinking in the Godsdistrikt. Saw the smoke. I ran here. Lost my cane in the crowd. Almost fell. The girl helped.”
“Out of the goodness of her heart I’m sure,” Claude said.
She pointed to the shroud. “Is that who I think?”
“It’s Margot. Landlady identified the body, even all burned up like that.”
“Dead in the fire?”
“If so, fire’s developed a bad habit of snapping necks. Maybe doctors will know more.”
“Shit.”
“Come with me, Kai. We need to talk.”
“I asked you for help this morning. I asked you to arrest Margot. I asked you not to tell anyone.”
“I didn’t,” he said. She couldn’t tell whether he was lying. “I didn’t, Kai.”
“What happened?”
“The place was torn to nine hells. Door broken off the hinges. Walls shattered.”
“Who could do that?”
“Best guess?” he asked, rhetorically. “A woman snuck onto the island about six weeks back, an unlicensed avatar—we figured a missionary, or a joss smuggler’s muscle. We almost caught her when she came ashore, but she broke a couple Penitents and went underground. Maybe this is her work. In which case you’re in danger, too.” He reached for her. She retreated. “Come on, Kai. We can help.”
“You fucked this up. And he’s dead.”
“Don’t make this difficult.”
“You want to arrest me?”
“We’ll call it protective custody if we have to.”
So easy to take him up on his offer. Let Claude take care of her. Let him and his Penitents save her from this mad girl with a knife.
“Protect me like you protected him?”
“Kai. Trust me.”
“I’m leaving, Claude.” She turned away. Her arm lagged behind: Izza, slow to believe Kai would pass this chance at safety. Her hesitation only lasted a moment. Claude watched them go.
* * *
They found an abandoned bench by the bay. Dark water rolled between the Claws. Dots of light drifted in the black: boats with lanterns lit, under the stars. Kai suggested they sit. Izza released her, and she lowered herself onto spray-wet wood. Izza sat at the opposite end of the bench. After their quadruped wandering, the few feet gaped between them.
Waves washed against pier and land, bearing their tithe of eroded soil out into the World Sea. Kai wondered if mainlanders knew they lived under siege. Or did they rest in comfort atop their continents, and ignore the gnawing doom of water?
Perhaps her father had seen the ocean differently. Perhaps Kai would have, if she’d taken to the sea. But these days Kavekana’s children swam in other oceans.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” Kai said once the waves lost their mythic depths and became waves again.
“I wouldn’t have believed me,” Izza replied.
“You knew him?”
“Not well.”
“That was him, under the shroud.”
“Yes,” Izza said. “Was that watchman your friend?”
“A kind of friend.”
“The kissing kind?”
She laughed, and heard the bitterness in her own laughter. “Once. Not anymore.”
“Why did you go to Penitent Ridge this morning?”
“You were following me.”
“Yes.”
“I asked him to arrest Margot. For his own good.” When she closed her eyes they burned from smoke.
“Tell me more. Tell me what you know, or think you know.”
“These are sacred secrets. I can’t tell anyone who’s not a priest.”
“I’m a priest,” Izza said, slowly. “Of a sort.”
Kai didn’t answer.
Izza stood before the ocean, and raised her right hand. “I won’t betray you. Blue Lady forsake me if I lie. Smiling Jack gnaw my bones.”
Kai heard the weight of her words. Belief, deep held. “I don’t recognize those gods.”
“You don’t know all the streets on this island. Or all the gods.”
“Those aren’t Gleb gods, I mean.”
“I didn’t say they were,” Izza said. “Now I’ve sworn. Tell me.”
Kai looked up and down the road, and behind them. Dockside was as empty as it ever got. Cargo wagons rolled past. “There’s a pool at the heart of Kavekana’ai where our idols live. Only priests can enter, but somehow Margot got inside. He drew the idols’ power, and used it to write great poems. Thing is, people only bring their fortunes to Kavekana because they believe we’ll keep them safe. The fact that he could do this is dangerous to us. And the people he stole from aren’t nice. If they found out, they might have come for him. Maybe they sent someone to do their dirty work. Could have been that woman Claude was talking about.”
“Not her,” Izza said. “I know the woman he meant. She didn’t do this. The Penitents did.”
“They don’t kill.”
“I saw it.” There was a fire in Izza’s eyes that Kai didn’t dare contradict. “And it saw me. I heard Margot’s neck snap. A Penitent chased me halfway across town. Its eyes burned. I am not lying to you.”