“Yee slept later than usual,” said Aunty Djeneba as I came down. The courtyard lay quiet. Everyone had left already.
“I’m going out,” I said as I slipped my cane into a tube of cloth so no troll would spot it.
She frowned but said only, “Be cautious, Cat. The wardens is about.”
“Wardens of one kind or another are always about,” I muttered, spotting a crow on the roof.
Wreathed in shadows, I walked the avenue down to the harbor district. The storm had done a fair bit of damage. Men labored on roofs; women strung up washing. A dwarf mammoth hauled a wagon heaped with broken bricks and shards of splintered wood. Men had dug up one of the gas lines and were fixing its mechanism. The clock tower had lost a hand. But the city’s mood had a cheerful edge, as a person might who has escaped the bite of a tremendous hungry shark.
Yet a taut, anticipatory conversation whispered beneath the work. Something big was up. People stood with heads together. Folk glanced at the sky, as if gauging the weather.
I rang the bell at the offices of Godwik and Clutch. Keer emerged from the back and, with a tilt of her head, indicated that I might enter her office. We drank and ate, and the more we discussed the local batey season the more I thought I was going to have to jump up and start pacing.
When we finished our nuts and raisins and our tea, Keer tapped talons on her desk. “You are impatient to speak of another matter.”
I clasped, unclasped, and clasped my hands. “I am here to inquire if the offer of employment is still open.”
The troll whistled, crest fanning up. “So we open negotiations. I hope you will tell me what you think we might need.”
“You have a printing press out back. Might you need assistance with that enterprise? For instance, I could write a series of reports from Europa. Tales of the people there, and how they do things, and the stories they tell.”
“Exotic lands revealed through firsthand accounts.”
“My father was a traveler and natural historian. I can reproduce his anecdotes.”
“Many foreigners have stories to tell. Yours would need to appeal in a way others do not.”
“He knew General Camjiata. He wrote about him, and his legal code.”
She cocked her head. “Timely! I am intrigued by this proposition. We can arrange for other duties as well. It only remains to bargain over terms and if you will be needing a nest, a room.”
A room. Perhaps my color changed. Certainly I felt all blood had suddenly drained from my body, sucked away by an emotion I had no name for and dared not answer to.
“Yes,” I whispered, all the sound I could manage. All that mattered was Bee. The law offices would surely be a better place to scout out information on fire mages and politics. People would be less fearful and more talkative here. Polite words ticked like clockwork gears in my mouth. “I shall return with my things later today.”
“Such haste!” Keer rose as I stood.
Her gaze made me stiffen. She reacted with a twitch whose flicker made me instinctively grasp for shadows. Yet when I pulled at those threads, the confusing layout of mirrors and shiny objects scattered throughout the office yanked the threads up short, as if they were caught and tangled.
“Interesting,” hissed Keer in a way that made me want to bolt, but I knew better than to run. One had to stand firm, and look bigger than one was.
“Can you see the threads?” I demanded, finding the power of my voice.
She showed me her teeth. “What will you pay me for an answer?”
“What payment do you think you can expect?”
“Do you think I name my price first?”
“Can you suppose I will show my hand by naming mine first?”
She hissed a sound meant, I thought, to be a laugh. “An unusual negotiating technique.”
A hammering rush of excitement flushed my body. I was learning how to use the very binding that trapped me. “Answering questions with questions?”
“Betraying your knowledge of the maze.”
“What makes you think I have any knowledge of it?”
Her crest lifted as a strange crease narrowed the bold, watchful eyes. “As you rats would say, you have scored a point. Custom demands I acknowledge your step upward on Triumph Spire.”
“Triumph Spire, where the young bucks preen,” I muttered, recalling Maester Godwik’s words. I had thought it a physical place, like a rocky promontory, but now I wondered if it was more abstract than geological in the way that males competed for intangible but recognized forms of status. “Tell me, Keer, why would a cold mage from Europa work with trolls?”
Keer gave a hiss I took for an indication of amusement or anticipation. “Next round. Yours now the right to draw the circle and step inside.”
I hadn’t the desire to begin another round. “Mine the right. I will return.”
Trolls did not insist on a long ceremony of leave-taking, perhaps because sometimes one did not take one’s leave but was merely consumed after a loss. I took my leave, hoping to order my thoughts as I trudged home. No, the boardinghouse was not home. It was for the best, anyway, that I move out, because I was putting them at risk by living and working there.
Aunty’s gaze was steady on me as I came in the gate. “I hope yee got done what business yee had a mind for.”
I glanced away, for I found I could not tell her I was leaving. “I did.”
Her smile put me in mind of a basking lizard awaiting its inattentive dinner. “I don’ mind saying we shall miss yee this evening. Yee get a nap. Yee have not yet danced at an areito.”
I just could not tell her. “No. I haven’t done that.”
She exchanged glances with Brenna and Uncle Joe. I was too restless to nap, so I made myself busy with sweeping and mending while Brenna spent hours braiding Luce’s hair. Luce chattered the whole while for she was so excited that she would get to go with us. I could not bear to break Luce’s heart by not going. And I wanted to go; I wanted to dance and sing at an areito. Bee wouldn’t begrudge me one more night. Rory would enjoy such a festival! Tomorrow I could make my farewells.
It rained, but the clouds cleared off under a brisk wind. I washed in the shower, and afterward Luce, her hair done, dragged me upstairs to dress. She wore a lovely pagne and a new blouse. She brought a mirror and, while I dressed, held it to check the way her tiny braids curved in at the ends around the back. When I complimented her, she smiled.
“Oooh me stars!” She angled the mirror to show me the cut and fit from behind. “No wonder yee saved this for an areito! Yee look so fine!”
Normally I wore the wrapped skirt and a loose cotton blouse that was the common fashion, but over the weeks I had labored over piecing together a skirt from my ruined petticoats, one that flattered my waist and hips but gave me plenty of room for my long stride and for climbing if need be. The top had proved harder to devise, since there was no possible reason to wear layers of clothing as we did in the north. I had cut down my wool jacket to three-quarter sleeves and a hem that ended at my hip bones. The wool challis wicked the moisture off my skin; layered over my sleeveless cotton bodice, it was quite comfortable.
She set down the mirror, sat me on the end of the bed, and began brushing out my hair, as she liked to do, humming a popular street melody. I heard footsteps at the base of the stairs. Luce brushed on obliviously, unaware.
The low, sardonic voice was Kayleigh’s. “Is that a bed???”
“I thought it was time to get off those uncomfortable cots,” answered Vai in a tone whose cheerfulness made me suspicious.
“Then why is there only one bed, Vai?”
“I can only make one at a time. After I’m done with my regular work.”
A bed!
“Cat?” Lucretia bent to look in my face. “Yee went stiff, like a frog hopped over yee foot.”
Vai was still speaking. “Aren’t you going to the areito? Kofi hopes so.”
Kayleigh’s voice dropped to a murmur. “I have to go back. But I had to bring you this news. This is not rumor.
