“Which one of you wrote this?” She sniffed gently at the envelope, and the scent of it told her nothing.
Everything about the room was suddenly wrong. She didn’t want to be here in this quiet citadel, this orderly heart of her temporary power. The business between her and Locke was thieves’ business; she needed a thief’s freedom to face it. And a thief’s most comfortable roof was the night sky.
She swept an alchemical globe into her coat pocket and shook her boots off, scattering flakes of drying mud on the floor. Barefoot, she padded to one of the room’s tall windows and cracked it open.
Sabetha had adjusted the lock mechanism herself and rehearsed the process of slipping out many times; she’d mentally mapped four distinct routes around and down from the roof of the Sign of the Black Iris. The stones beneath her feet were cool but not yet unbearably cold.
Up she went, night breeze stirring her hair, soft moonlight showing all her possible paths. The world of streets, alleys, horses, and lamps receded below her, and she grinned. She was fifteen again, ten again, hanging on ancient stones with nothing but skill between herself and the fall.
She was on the roof, quiet as a sparrow’s shadow, heart pounding not with exertion but with the thrill of her own easy competence and the anxious mystery of the envelope.
Her rooftop sentry, crouched in the shadow of a tall chimney, all but exploded out of his shoes when Sabetha’s hand fell lightly on his shoulder.
“Take a break,” she whispered, straining to keep the sound of her smile out of her voice. “Get some coffee and wait below for me to come fetch you.”
“A-as you say, Mistress Gallante.” To his credit, he was tolerably silent as he moved off. Not a patch on a proper Camorri skulker, but willing to make an effort.
Sabetha settled into his spot, pulled the alchemical light from her pocket, and once again turned the envelope over and over between her fingers.
“Get on with it,” she said, knowing it was empty theater for an audience of one. “Get on with it.”
Minutes passed. Silver cloud-shadows moved and blended across the dark rooftops. At last she found her hands taking the initiative from heart and mind again. The seal was cracked before she knew it, the letter slipped out. The handwriting was as familiar as her own. Her teeth were suddenly chattering.
“Dammit, woman, if you’re vulnerable to him it’s because you wanted to let yourself be vulnerable. Get on with it.”
Dear Sabetha, she read:
I have instructed J. to put this into your hands directly and so presume to write your name, selfishly. I want to say it out loud, over and over again, but even alone in this little room I am afraid of sounding like a lunatic, afraid that you would somehow be able to sense me making a damned idiot of myself. At least, having written it, I can stare at it as long as I like. It keeps snatching my attention away. How can any other word I write expect to compete? This is going to be a long night. I suppose it’s true to the peculiar course of our courtship that so much of my courting takes the form of apologies. I like to think I have some talent for them; gods know I’ve had so many opportunities and reasons to practice. Sabetha, I am sorry. I have put my recollection of everything said and done since I came to Karthain under a magnifying lens, and I realize now that when I returned after escaping from your arranged vacation, I said some things I had no right to say. I took offense at your deception. I confused the business with the personal, and piled self-righteousness high enough to scrape the ceiling. For that, and not for the first time, I am deeply ashamed. It was wrong of me to throw such a fit. Sabetha sucked in cool air with an unseemly gasp, suddenly realizing she’d been holding her breath. What had she expected? It certainly wasn’t this.
Once, you will recall, I told you that I gave you my absolute trust as my oath-sister, my friend, and my lover. Absolute trust is something that can only be given without conditions or reservations, something that can only be rescinded if it was meaningless in the first place. I do not rescind it. I cannot rescind it. You tricked me fairly, using something I gave you freely. I am a fool for you not merely by instinct but also by choice. I apologize now, not to beg for sympathy, but because it is an obligation of simple truth and affection I owe you before I have the right to say anything further. I have pondered so long and furiously on Patience’s claims about my past that I have become thoroughly sick of the question. Though I desperately pray for the ultimate vindication of J.’s skepticism, I must admit I have no explanation that strikes me as convincing. There are shadows in my past that my memory cannot illuminate, and if you find that disturbing, I beg you to believe that I don’t blame you. Patience’s story has given us both a hard shock, and how I ought to deal with it is still something of a mystery. How you deal with it, I must and will leave to you, not out of despair or resignation but in deference to my conscience, that broken clock which I believe is now chiming one of its occasional right hours. I will not question your reasons. It is enough for you to tell me that you wish to keep this distance between us, and it will always be enough. Know that a single word will bring me running, but unless and until it pleases you to give it, I will expect nothing, force nothing, and contrive nothing contrary to your wishes. I desire you as deeply as I ever have, but I understand that the fervor of a desire is irrelevant to its justice. I want your heart on merit, in mutual trust, or not at all, because I cannot bear to see you made uneasy by me. I have failed and disappointed you often enough before. Not for all the world would I do so again, and I leave it to you to tell me how to proceed, if and when you can, if and when you will. Willingly and faithfully yours, Locke Lamora She turned the letter over, feeling ridiculous, looking for some other note or sentiment or mark. That was all there was; no pleading, no excuses, no demands or suggestions. Everything was now left to her, and that more than anything brought a tight cold pressure to her chest and left her shaking.
Failed her? She supposed that was true, if a touch ungenerous. The natural process of growing up was to stumble from failure to failure, and all the Gentlemen Bastards had been prodigies of survival, not sensitivity. But disappoint her? The trouble with the skinny, bright-eyed bastard was that he kept refusing to do so.
This letter was the work of the better Locke, the learning and giving Locke, the man who listened to her. Listened to her … What a banal sentiment it seemed in itself, but she’d been a woman of the world long enough to learn its rarity and desirability. It was amusing to use men like Catch- the-Duke pieces, but dupes listened with an ear for the main chance, for their own desires to be repeated back to them. After her years in the Marrows and this sojourn among the “adjusted,” by the gods, Locke’s company was more addictive than ever—a man who was proud and unpredictable and framed himself to her desires out of love and friendship, rather than her own subterfuge.
The corners of her vision misted. She rubbed the nascent tears away with her fingers, not gently, and sniffed haughtily. Gods damn this whole stupid mess! Her heart was opened again like an old wound, but what was coming next? What did the Bondsmagi mean to happen to that man she loved?
Was she being selfish in holding him at a distance, or was she being sensible, shielding herself against the worst that might be coming, and soon?
“Crooked Warden,” she whispered, “if your sister Preva has any meaningful revelations that she’s not using at the moment, would you let her know that I’m willing to be moved?”
Sabetha sighed. Be moved, certainly, but not move. Let the night be hers for a few more minutes. Let the business of the Black Iris click on like clockwork. Let the magi sit on their own thumbs and spin. She read Locke’s letter again, then stared out at the city, thoughts churning.
