I drew a reluctant breath. “I—”
“Forty talents,” Devi said hungrily. “Guild rates. And I will take you to bed.”
For forty talents I could buy Denna her own half-harp. I could . . .
I looked up and saw Devi staring at me from across the desk. Her lips were wet, her pale blue eyes intense. She shifted her shoulders back and forth in the slow, unconscious motion of a cat before it pounces.
I thought of Auri, safe and happy in the Underthing. What would she do if her tiny kingdom was invaded by a stranger?
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t. Getting in is . . . complicated. It involves a friend, and I don’t think they’d be willing.” I decided to ignore the other part of her offer, as I hadn’t the slightest idea what to say about it.
There was a long, tense moment. “Goddamn you,” Devi said at last. “You sound like you’re telling the truth.”
“I am,” I said. “It’s unsettling, I know.”
“Goddamn.” She scowled as she pushed the bottle and pin across the desk.
I pricked the back of my hand and watched the blood well up and roll down my hand to fall into the bottle. After three drops I tipped the pin into the mouth of the bottle as well.
Devi swabbed some adhesive around the stopper and drove it angrily into the bottle. Then she reached into a drawer and pulled out a diamond stylus. “Do you trust me?” She asked as she etched a number into the glass. “Or do you want this sealed?”
“I trust you,” I said. “But I’d like it sealed all the same.”
She melted a daub of sealing wax onto the top of the bottle. I pressed my talent pipes into it, leaving a recognizable impression.
Reaching into another drawer, Devi brought out six talents and clattered them onto the desk. The motion might have seemed petulant if her eyes hadn’t been so hard and angry.
“I’m getting in there one way or another,” she said with a chill edge to her voice. “Talk to your friend. If you’re the one that helps me, I’ll make it worth your time.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Haven
I returned to the University in good spirits despite the burden of my new debt. I made a few purchases, gathered up my lute, and headed out over the rooftops.
From the inside, Mains was a nightmare to navigate: a maze of irrational hallways and stairways leading nowhere. But moving across its jumbled rooftops was easy as anything. I made my way to a small courtyard that at some point in the building’s construction had become completely inaccessible, trapped like a fly in amber.
Auri wasn’t expecting me, but this was the first place I’d met her, and on clear nights she sometimes came out to watch the stars. I checked to make sure the classrooms overlooking the courtyard were dark and empty, then I brought out my lute and began to tune it.
I had been playing for almost an hour when I heard a rustling movement in the overgrown courtyard below. Then Auri appeared, scurrying up the overgrown apple tree and onto the roof.
She ran toward me, her bare feet skipping lightly across the tar, her hair blowing behind her. “I heard you!” she said as she came close. “I heard you all the way down in Vaults!”
“I seem to remember,” I said slowly, “that I was going to play music for someone.”
“Me!” She held both her hands close to her chest, grinning. She moved from foot to foot, almost dancing with her eagerness. “Play for me! I have been as patient as two stones together,” she said. “You are just in time. I could not be as patient as three stones.”
“Well,” I said hesitantly. “I suppose it all depends on what you’ve brought me.”
She laughed, rising up onto the balls of her feet, her hands still together, close to her chest. “What did you bring
I knelt and began to untie my bundle. “I’ve brought you three things,” I said.
“How traditional,” she said, grinning. “You are quite the proper young gentleman tonight.”
“I am.” I held up a heavy dark bottle.
She took it with both hands. “Who made it?”
“Bees,” I said. “And brewers in Bredon.”
Auri smiled. “That’s three bees,” she said, and set the bottle down by her feet. I brought out a round loaf of fresh barley bread. She reached out and touched it with a finger, then nodded approvingly.
Last I brought out a whole smoked salmon. It had cost four drabs by itself, but I worried Auri didn’t get enough meat in whatever she managed to scrounge up when I wasn’t around. It would be good for her.
Auri looked down at it curiously, tilting her head to look into its single staring eye. “Hello fish,” she said. Then she looked back up at me. “Does it have a secret?”
I nodded. “It has a harp instead of a heart.”
She looked back down at it. “No wonder it looks so surprised.”
Auri took the fish out of my hands and laid it carefully on the roof. “Now stand up. I have three things for you, as is only fair.”
I came to my feet and she held out something wrapped in a piece of cloth. It was a thick candle that smelled of lavender. “What’s inside of it?” I asked.
“Happy dreams,” she said. “I put them there for you.”
I turned the candle over in my hands, a suspicion forming. “Did you make this yourself?”
She nodded and gave a delighted grin. “I did. I am terribly clever.”
I tucked it carefully into one of the pockets of my cloak. “Thank you, Auri.”
Auri grew serious. “Now close your eyes and bend down so I can give you your second present.”
Puzzled, I closed my eyes and bent at the waist, wondering if she had made me a hat as well.
I felt her hands on either side of my face, then she gave me a tiny, delicate kiss in the middle of my forehead.
Surprised, I opened my eyes. But she was already standing several steps away, her hands clasped nervously behind her back. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
Auri took a step forward. “You are special to me,” she said seriously, her face grave. “I want you to know I will always take care of you.” She reached out tentatively and wiped at my cheeks. “No. None of that tonight. This is your third present. If things are bad, you can come and stay with me in the Underthing. It is nice there, and you will be safe.”
“Thank you, Auri,” I said as soon as I was able. “You are special to me, too.”
“Of course I am,” she said matter-of-factly. “I am as lovely as the moon.”
I collected myself while Auri skipped over to a piece of metal piping that jutted from a chimney and used it to pry the cap off the bottle. Then she brought it back, holding it carefully with both hands.
“Auri,” I asked. “Aren’t your feet cold?”
She looked down at them. “The tar is nice,” she said, wriggling her toes. “It’s still warm from the sun.”
“Would you like a pair of shoes?”
“What would they have in them?” she asked.
“Your feet,” I said. “It’s going to be winter soon.”
She shrugged.
“Your feet will be cold.”
“I don’t come out on top of things in the winter,” she said. “It isn’t very nice.”
Before I could respond, Elodin stepped around a large brick chimney as casually as if he were out for an afternoon stroll.
The three of us stared at each other for a moment, each of us startled in our own way. Elodin and I were surprised, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Auri grow perfectly still, like a deer ready to spring away to safety.
“Master Elodin,” I said in my gentlest, friendliest tones, desperately hoping he wouldn’t do anything that
