The Prophecy Machine (Investments) (28 page)

“I don't know what we'll face out there, I don't know what we'll find to eat. I know that we're going, all right? We don't have a choice. If someone has a better idea, I'd be pleased to hear it now.”

“It's not that we don't approve, dear. It's just—frightening, is all. The thought of having no idea where we're going, what we'll find there …”

“And that's exactly what's kept us here, what's blinded us up to now.”

Finn shook his head, frowned at the grim, peeling paper on the walls, at the spiderwebbed ceiling, at the threadbare carpet on the floor.

“We'll leave an hour before sundown. Tonight. That gives us time to see where we're going before it gets dark. By the time night falls, we'll be safely out of sight. I doubt anyone will bother to track us down. If they do, we'll be ready for them, you can count on that.”

“I know we can, dear.”

“Well, you can. We'll—get out of this …”

He was wet, hungry, ready to drop for lack of sleep. Letitia reached for him and drew him back to the bed.

“Finn, I really think you should sit. It won't do any good
to keep talking about this. What we all need to do is get some rest.”

“Good idea,” Finn said, pulling gently from her grasp, “I appreciate the thought, but there's much I have to do right now. This room is a ruin, but there are items here we can turn to good purpose for our trip. These drapes, which are filthy, could serve as a tent. The bedposts will serve as poles. If we break up the chair—”

“Finn,” Letitia said, as gently as her nature would allow, “I'm going to strike you, dear. I have never done that before, but I will surely do it now.”

Finn blinked, startled. There was something in those black, enormous Mycer eyes, something close to anger, something close to fire. Something new in this bold, defiant beauty, something haughty, something naughty, something wild.

Bones and Stones
, he thought,
whatever that is, it is terribly attractive, though I do hope she can't find anything to throw …

And, in that instant, she did. Reached out and clutched at an object, reached out unaware, lifted up Julia, ready to hurl her through the air.

“Letitia, don't!”

Letitia didn't hear. Letitia was hungry, Letitia was beat. Weary, strung out, tired of the same shabby dress. She yearned to wash her hair, soak in a tub, yearned to be anywhere but here. Something was squirming, squawking in her hand. She didn't know what and didn't care …

The door swung open and struck the wall hard, raising a veil of dust. Letitia froze. Finn reached for his blade, then remembered he'd left it in a chair across the room.

Sabatino slouched in the doorway, dressed in resplendent lilac hues, watching with a vain and arrogant grin.

“Oh dear, a family quarrel. What a nice surprise. Do go on, pay no attention to me. When you're finished, you'll
find fresh linens, clothing, lotions and such. A tub and hot water, all right here, just outside the door.

“And—I nearly forgot—luncheon is served very shortly in the dining salon. I think you'll find it quite a treat. Squeen is maimed for the moment, so the meal should be a real delight.”

Sabatino paused, inspected Letitia up and down, then down and up again. It imparted such lewd and open desire that Letitia felt a rush of color to her face.

“There is nothing so arousing as a woman full of ire,” he said. “You are fortunate indeed, Master Finn.”

Finn went for him, unarmed or not, but the fellow was gone in a lavender blur before he could stalk across the room …

“T
HIS IS ANOTHER OF THAT DANDY'S DESPICABLE
jokes,” Finn said. “Fraud, chicanery and lies have stained the man's soul. Treachery's the only skill he knows. He must be a fool to think we'll fall for something so utterly transparent as this.”

“I'm certain you're right, dear. He's cunning, devious and sly.”

“And we're not taken in, not by a whit.”

“If you'd like, I'll scrub your back, Finn. Then, if you please, you may do mine.”

“I'd be delighted, for sure.”

The tub was made of staves, held in shape by hammered copper bands, rolled in with steamy water buckets from the hall. It was clearly not a tub for two, but once Letitia let her dress slip to the floor, dipped a tiny toe, and immersed her lovely self, Finn was not far behind. He backed up against her, so close that her legs had to wrap around his front. A rather tight squeeze, but wasn't that the idea, after all?

“I'll bet that feels good,” Letitia said, scrubbing him with a brush. “It's been some time.”

“It has indeed,” Finn said, scarcely aware of any brush at all.

“I'd give a silver penny to know what he's up to,” he said, watching Letitia's wiggly toes.

“Well, whatever it is, this wonderful tub and real soap and—clean clothes! That's no trickery, Finn, that's real!”

“Oh, it's trickery all right, make no mistake in that.” He leaned back against her, resting his head in the hollow of her shoulder, whispering in her ear.

“It's a cruel hoax, my dear, playing on our needs. All this is meant to distract us from some other purpose hatching in his devious mind.”

“What, though? I can't imagine what it might be.”

“Nor I, and it doesn't greatly matter, since it plays right into
our
plans to make our way out of here tonight.”

He kissed the steamy droplets on her cheek, and nibbled at her ear.

Letitia leaned away and gave him a wary look. “He said there'd be real food. I don't intend to miss that.”

“We won't, we won't. I can't imagine he knows what decent food is, but we'll gladly play along. The bath, the clothes, the food—it all bends in our favor instead of his. We'll be much better prepared to make our move. Cleaner, clothed and fed. The fellow doesn't know he's filling all our needs.”

“Oh, I know it's going to work. It's a good plan, Finn. And we
are
going to eat first, right? I feel it's essential that we do.”

“Well, yes. I think he might grow suspicious if we don't.”

“Come here, please. Turn around, love.”

Finn felt his heart leap. “I—think I can. If I stand up
first. I don't want to flood the place. We might go right through the floor.”

Letitia watched his clumsy gyrations, hiding a laugh behind her hands.

“Take your time,” she said, with a glow, with a glimmer, with a shine, with a very saucy hint in her great enormous eyes.

“I'll be right here, love …”

And Julia Jessica Slagg, aware there were times when she shouldn't be around, took a lizard nap beneath the chair.

Sometimes she felt Finn had built in a toggle or a spring, a tiny little switch that said
forget you're even here
. She couldn't say for sure, and could never quite remember to ask …

T
HE FIRST THING FINN NOTICED WAS THE TABLE.
It was painted a shade of creamy white. Not black as it was the day before. Closer, he realized that it wasn't painted, but merely scraped clean.

Beside him, Letitia drew a breath, dazzled by the sight before her eyes. There were truffles, pickles, cheeses of every sort. Steamy roasted potatoes split down the middle with a buttery lake inside. Fish grilled crispy brown, fragrant with a lemony sauce.

And greens, to Letitia's great pleasure. Crispy, leafy treats of a color she'd nearly forgotten. Even the dishes were whole, and the vessels made of glass.

“I have to say,” Letitia said, “in spite of my intense dislike for you, I must say this is a stunning feast you've set before us this day. Don't you think so, dear?”

“I expect it's ill-mannered to ask, but do I have your word nothing here is laced with deadly herbs or drugs? No foul or septic powders, no poison of any sort?”

Sabatino looked hurt. “Of course not. If I'd not already called you out, I would do so again.”

“Is that a yes or no?”

“You may trade plates with me if you like.”

“Oh, no you don't,” Finn said, with a sly and knowing grin. “That's just what you'd do, isn't it? You're ready for that, you'd expect me to ask.”

“Eat, Finn, it's delicious.” Letitia stabbed a bite of vinegar greens, savored it a moment, closing her eyes in delight.

“Oh, my, that fish looks divine. I shouldn't, but I simply have to try.”

“I don't sense any virulence in the air,” Julia said from Finn's shoulder. “Of course, there could be something I've never sniffed before. There
are
things I can't detect at all.”

“I'm stunned to hear it,” Finn said, wrinkling his nose at the fish, risking a tiny bite.

“What concerns me more is
why
you're doing this? You have some reason, Sabatino, and I doubt it's too obscure.”

“You're quite right, of course. And you as well, dear lady. There is no need to mask our loathing for one another, it makes for a most unpleasant meal. Oh, and I must say you look enchanting. That gown fits you well.”

“I'd rather you didn't, but thanks all the same.”

The gown was quite nice, an enchanting shade of blue, and it certainly fit, Sabatino had seen to that. If Letitia hadn't done hasty work with pins, she'd be naked to the waist.

“You didn't cook the meal,” Finn said. “I doubt you made the dress. This crockery is whole, everything's clean …”

Sabatino wagged a finger at Finn. “You're such a curious fellow, I knew you'd have to ask. Not a healthy trait, I might add. There's a place I go for ale now and then,
TAVERN
,as it's called. Some people go to
BAR
—I wouldn't be caught in there, of course.”

“Neither would I.”

“No, you would not. At any rate, the food was prepared
by the keeper's wife. The gown is her daughter's. If you could see the wife, you'd know it wasn't hers.”

“And what's it all for? You never got to that.”

Sabatino held his glass up to the light. It wasn't turnip wine, but he didn't seem to mind.

“My father is mentally impaired. Poor fellow gets daffier by the day. I should have taken action before. I've put up with his madness, but I cannot afford to indulge him anymore.”

Letitia raised a brow. “He won't be joining us, then?”

“Very astute, miss. No, he will not.” Sabatino spoke in warm and earnest tones as if he were gathered with family and friends.

“He is obsessed with that outrageous folly in the cellar. I can't say whether this nonsense warped his mind, or whether he was bonkers all along. It hardly matters now. I've put an end to that before we end up in the street. He has poured his last coin—and mine—down the drain.”

“I see,” Finn said, trying to catch the man's ever-shifting eyes, hoping a glimmer of truth might leak through the barricade of lies. For, no matter what Sabatino said, Finn was certain he could not avoid deceit for more than a minute at a time.

Sabatino faced him, then, with a most sincere and artless smile as if he'd guessed Finn's thoughts all along.

“You and this charming lady can be grateful to me, Finn, have no doubt of that. Surely you guessed Father lied, that if, somehow you failed to return, he would give Letitia safety here, that
I
was the villain all along? He said I'd set a trap for Master Finn, did he not, my dear? When he came with that false and deadly offer to aid him in his folly down below?

“Yes, I know about that,” he said, catching Letitia's surprise. “I know a great deal. I have this shameful hobby of listening at doors.”

Sabatino's eyes glittered with specks of gold in the flickering candlelight. “Oh, I know some other things, too, things I'd never tell …”

Whatever those things might be, Finn didn't want to hear.

“You'd have us believe you didn't set the trap?”

“Certainly not. There are easier ways to dispose of you, sir. And there's clearly no honor in such a device. Did you not detect the inventor's weakness for pulleys, ropes and such, for the needlessly complex? I should think you would, a craftsman like yourself.”

“Your father told me it was you,” Letitia began, “so I would think …”

“… So you would see him as your savior after I supposedly murdered Finn. He sent Squeen William out to get the lizard, and the wretched fellow caught himself in Father's trap.”