practices – and their own magical traditions. After the war the Bureau of Magical Affairs had made it their business to bring the nation’s practitioners under thumb, combing the disparate threads of the Art into a single weave – but the Bureau of Magical Affairs, like every other government organ, held small sway amongst the seafarers.
I imagined there were other avenues of the Art that the Throne had yet to strangle. Tarasaighn augurers drying herbs deep in the swamps of their homeland, heretics drawing otherworldly diagrams and whispering strange prayers – but I didn’t know any of them. I knew the Rhymer, and I hoped he’d come through for me. He always had before.
Yancey drummed his fingers against the table, unconsciously and in perfect rhythm. After a moment he matched the beat with a nod. ‘Yeah, I might know somebody – how far out you want to look?’
‘Far as I can get.’
‘There’s a witch-woman, lives in the Isthmus. I’ve never had occasion to seek her services but word on high is she’s legit – even the mobs toe her line, leave her little offerings and make sure not to cross her.’
‘And the Throne remains blissfully ignorant of her activities?’
‘Brother, her corner of Rigus, there ain’t no Throne.’
‘She got a name?’
‘Mazzie. Mazzie of the Stained Bone. Ever hear it?’
‘Muttered under the occasional breath. You think you could put us in touch?’
‘I’ll send someone around tonight – Mazzie keeps late hours. She gives the go ahead, I’ll leave directions to her place for you tomorrow morning.’
‘Stand-up, as always.’
Yancey was confident enough in his character not to be particularly grateful for my validation. He went back to his drink. I realized suddenly we’d run out of things to talk about. I didn’t remember that happening so much between us, back in the day. ‘How’s your mom?’
‘She’s all right. She asks about you some.’
That was a lie, though a kind one. I’d been close to Ma Dukes once, before my blindness and stupidity had put her son into danger some years back. Yancey had eventually forgiven me for my foolishness, but his mother wasn’t so casual about the peril I’d brought down upon her seed.
I pulled a couple of ochres from out of my money pouch. ‘I almost forgot – I owe you some coin for dropping my name to the Count of Brekenridge.’
‘Yeah?’ His eyes narrowed quizzically. ‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure,’ I said, setting them next to his drink.
He looked at the coins for a long moment, then raked them off the table. ‘Sweetness, bring me a bottle of something that bubbles,’ he yelled over his shoulder, before turning back to face me. ‘You sticking ’round to enjoy it?’
‘I’ve got somewhere to be,’ I said, standing. ‘And I imagine our server will be a better companion – help keep you cool.’
His laughter was well bought at twice the price.
14
The Queen’s Palace was not the second, nor fit for the first. A flophouse a few blocks from the docks, ugly even by the standards of an ugly trade. Its clientele consisted mostly of streetwalkers renting love nests by the hour, and addicts one short rung above abject destitution.
I knew it all right. Better than I’d like to admit, well enough that I didn’t need to waste any time dancing with the clerk at the front desk. I plopped down an argent and tapped two fingers beside it, and my silver was replaced with the register. There wasn’t a real name to be found, but one from three days prior was so obviously made up that I felt certain I had my quarry. I took note of the room number and nodded to the receptionist. He placed the faded tome back beneath the counter and went back to not seeing anything. I slipped upstairs.
The lock on her door was nothing of the sort, a bit of tin I could have opened with my fingernail, though for appearance’s sake I slipped a thin spurt of metal out from my satchel and spent a few seconds teasing it open.
The door swung open on a small room, a largish closet really, barely big enough for a small bureau and a lumpy bed. She was sitting on this last, staring out at the alley below, but she turned when the hinges squeaked, pulling a small dagger from beneath the pillow. The hilt was burnished silver with a fire opal in the pommel, and she held it towards me, less a weapon than a talisman to ward away evil.
I closed the door after me. ‘Whatever you’re paying, it’s too much.’
‘What are you doing in my room?’ she hissed, torn between fury and relief that I wasn’t someone worse.
‘This is your room? I thought for sure it was the High Chancellor’s office.’
‘Stay away from me,’ she said, waving her blade about in an unbecoming moment of melodrama. ‘I’ll cut you if you come any closer.’
‘I wouldn’t. You’ll need to pawn that thing in a day or two, and bloodstains will bring down the value.’
Her shoulders dropped six inches, and she set the knife back on her bed. ‘What do you want?’
I took a seat on the edge of it. ‘A hundred thousand ochres and a country estate – but at the moment I’ll settle for you back up in Kor’s Heights where you belong.’
‘What made you think my answer would be any different than it was last night?’
‘I’d hoped another day of futility might slake your thirst.’
She brought her spine into perfect vertical alignment. ‘Then you didn’t understand who you’re dealing with.’
‘Better than you’d think, maybe. I’ve had some experience with the Montgomery stubbornness.’ A black stump of a candle flickered from the windowsill. It would be out soon, and the houseboy would gouge her for the replacement. ‘How are you so sure your brother’s death wasn’t what it looked like? You say Roland was a hero, fine. A hero ain’t a saint. So he sought the occasional release of a woman, and didn’t mind paying for it. There’s not so much sin in that.’
Her face turned the color of her hair, but she managed to keep her voice even. ‘My brother wasn’t some . . . whoremonger.’
‘You’d know that, at ten? Roland the sort of man to divulge bedroom peccadilloes to his little sister?’
‘I knew my brother.’
‘You didn’t, not really – and anyway, you’ve spent the last twelve years turning him into a saint. You’ve dismissed the most likely possibility because you don’t want it to be true, and you run around stirring up trouble because it’s more exciting than going home and living your life.’ The bed was the length of a coffin, and our faces nearly touched.
‘So that’s it then? Turn tail and head back to Daddy? Marry some callow noble, take up crochet and pump out children?’
‘You won’t find having your throat slit any more fulfilling.’
‘I’m getting closer.’
‘To an unmarked grave, maybe.’
She shook her head firmly. ‘I paid a visit to the Veterans’ Association this afternoon.’
‘I’m sure they were pleased to see you.’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you? You’d think that Joachim Pretories would pay every courtesy to the sister of his dead commander, especially with Roland’s picture papering the walls.’
‘Thinking gets me into trouble. I avoid it whenever possible.’
‘He told me I didn’t have any business being there. He told me to go back home, and he told me it in a fashion I found rather aggressive.’
‘Joachim Pretories is a bad man to antagonize.’
‘Then you do think he was involved.’
‘I don’t think anything, I just told you that. But were I to break with habit, I’d tell you that whatever sins may or may not darken the man’s conscience, he can’t very well sit quiet while you knock about the city, all but accusing him of complicity in your brother’s murder.’
