A Little Taste of Poison (28 page)

So she'd gotten through to Lanzy after all. “He told you where to find me?”

“He did, but I had to hang about waiting for the dockhands to go off shift so I could sneak aboard.” Esmond shuffled sideways, peering around the corner of the wheelhouse. “Seems pretty quiet now, though. Think you're feeling up to—”

“Shh.” Isaveth grabbed his arm. “I hear something.”

Voices echoed across the dockside, rough and indistinct. Then a burly figure staggered out of a laneway, flanked by five brutish-looking workers armed with heavy tools, and Isaveth caught her breath in dismay.

The captive man was Lanzy.

“Boss won't be pleased if his little bird's flown away,” growled Barto, prodding Lanzy ahead with his crowbar. “You'll be lucky to keep your hide after this, let alone your job.”

“I told you, I didn't—”

“Save it, Lanzy. I don't care.” Barto spoke a few curt
words to the other men, who seized Lanzy, dragged him to a bollard, and forced him to sit while they lashed him to it. “Should have known you were too soft to do a real man's work.”

“You mean beating on a one-eyed street kid, or tying up a little girl?” Lanzy shot back, and Barto drove the hooked end of the crowbar into his stomach. He groaned and slumped, all defiance gone.

“Get on board,” Barto told two of the men, jerking his head at the freighter. “Check the hold and make sure she's still there.”

Esmond swore softly. “Time to move,” he muttered as he crept back to Isaveth. “It'll be tricky with this thaw, but we'll have to chance it.”

Below, the chain-ladder rattled against the ship's side as the two thugs began to climb. “Chance what?” Isaveth whispered, but Esmond touched a finger to his lips for silence. Half-crouching, he held out his hand.

Isaveth took it, trying to ignore the jellylike feeling in her legs, and they crept toward the prow of the freighter. Behind them, the clattering grew louder and the first man landed on the deck with a thump. He flicked on a spell-torch and played it across the deck, its yellow beam sweeping toward them.

Ducking low in the shadow of the wheelhouse,
Esmond scrabbled in his pocket and pressed a charm onto the heels of each of his boots. Then he stood up gingerly on tiptoe and slipped an arm around Isaveth's waist.

“By Sage Trofim,” he murmured, and Isaveth clutched him in alarm—but it was too late. Esmond rocked back on his heels, grabbed the rail with his free hand, and vaulted them both over.

Isaveth hid her face against his jacket, half-certain they'd go rocketing off into the sky, then drop like an anchor onto the ice below. But Esmond clearly knew some trick to using charms that she didn't, because they arced smoothly away from the ship's dark prow and landed with barely a crunch on the lake's surface.

“Stand on my boots,” he whispered. “The ice here is weak—I'll have to float us both across.”

He wasn't exaggerating. Cracks webbed out around them, spidering in all directions. Isaveth stepped onto Esmond's toes and hugged him tight as he skated toward the shoreline, propelling them forward with slow, cautious strokes.

High above, a hatch banged open, and a hoarse voice shouted, “She's gone! He broke her out!”

“Search the ship!” yelled Barto. “We'll check the dockside. They can't have gone far.”

Isaveth bit her lip, silently urging Esmond to go faster. They had almost reached the shelter of a neighboring pier when headlamps shone out across the dockside, and a carriage door slammed. Isaveth stood on tiptoe, straining to see over Esmond's shoulder as Mister Paskin strode onto the quay.

Barto rushed to meet him, pointing first to the slumped and silent Lanzy, then the ship. She couldn't hear their conversation, but she didn't need to: Impatience was written in every line of Mister Paskin's silhouette. He waved Barto away and stepped forward, cupping his hands around his mouth as he called up to the ship.

“You may as well give up, kids. There's nowhere for you to run. Why don't you come down, and I'll get you something nice and warm?”

“Like a bullet, no doubt,” Esmond muttered, pushing off for another glide. But his boots scraped ice, and it turned into a stumble. The float-charms' magic had worn off.

“Run!” Esmond gasped, shoving Isaveth away, then flailed and fell hard on one knee. The ice crackled—but Isaveth had already skidded into the shadow of the pier, safe from view. She spun and reached out for Esmond.

He hadn't just tripped, as she'd first thought. He'd flopped onto his belly and was crawling toward her on his elbows, a jagged starburst of dark water behind him.
His leg had plunged straight through the ice into the frigid lake below.

She had to get him to safety before Barto's men spotted them. Already their torch-beams were flashing along the shore. Isaveth stretched out flat to grab Esmond's wrists, ignoring the fresh pain in her own, and dragged him beneath the pier.

He was soaked from the hip down. Isaveth pulled off her gloves and tried to undo his bootlace, but the frozen knot refused to budge.

“Leave it,” Esmond whispered, but she could feel him shivering. He pushed himself back into the darkness, and she crawled after him as the workmen stalked the wharf above. The deep overhang should make it impossible to spot them, but if their pursuers climbed down . . .

“Just the ice breaking up,” said one of the men at last. “Come on, boss's waiting,” and they trotted back toward the freighter. Isaveth exhaled and began to slide in the other direction, but Esmond grabbed her shoulder.

“C-can't go,” he said through chattering teeth. “G-got to help Lanzy.”

Esmond was right: They couldn't just abandon the man. Yet if they stayed here much longer they'd freeze. Isaveth tugged off her knitted scarf and started rolling up Esmond's trouser leg to wrap it around him.

“No, don't.
You need it.” He shifted onto one hip, digging into his pocket. “Warming-charm in here somewhere.”

“We can't, it'll melt the ice.” Now she was shivering too.

Esmond blew out a weary breath. “Course not. Stupid of me. Sorry.”

Isaveth wound the scarf around his leg and tugged the half-frozen pant leg over it. She could hear the occasional shout from the men searching the freighter and dockside, but they were too far away for her to make out the words. Pulling her knees up against her chest, she squeezed closer to Esmond.
Please let them give up. Please let them go away. . . .

Esmond put an arm around her. She could feel him trembling and knew she was doing likewise, but she was glad of the extra warmth, however slight.
Please, All-One, keep us safe and bring us home again.

“Are you praying?”

She must have whispered the words without knowing it. Isaveth nodded, shy.

“Huh. Didn't know it was that easy.”

“Really?” She twisted, trying to see his expression, but he was nothing more than an outline in the dark. “You've never prayed?”

Esmond shrugged. “Not like that, just talking. Anyway
we never went to temple much. Father wasn't . . . he didn't . . .” He cleared his throat and fell silent.

Isaveth felt a sudden yearning to comfort him. She reached out, and her fingers brushed his scar.

“Don't.” He jerked his head away. “S'ugly.”

“It's not,” said Isaveth, with a rush of protective anger. “It's
you
.” Impulsively she stretched up and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for saving me, Esmond.”

He swallowed. “Isaveth . . .”

Whatever he'd meant to say was interrupted by distant shouting, accompanied by the clatter and thump of workers climbing off the ship. An argument broke out on the dockside, Mister Paskin snapping orders while Barto and his men barked and whined in protest. Then came the sound of a gunshot, and an abrupt, horrifying silence.

Isaveth flinched, but Esmond gripped her arm. They stared across the frozen lake as a limp body rolled off the dock by the freighter, hit the ice with a shattering crack, and tumbled into the deadly waters below.

“No,” she whimpered. “Please, no, not Lanzy—”

Esmond pressed the scarred side of his face against Isaveth's, his soft hair brushing her cheek. He held her tightly as the workmen yelped and scattered, a carriage door slammed, and with a crackle of tires on gravel, Mister Paskin drove away.

T
HE DOCK BY
the
Raider
stood empty, silent except for the soft lapping of water against the hole in the ice that had become Lanzy's grave. Like Mister Paskin, Barto and his fellow workmen had vanished; only the sagging loops of rope around the bollard and a dark stain at its base showed that a man had been murdered there.

“He had a family,” said Isaveth, her voice thick from crying. “He told me so.”

Esmond put his arm around her shoulders. “The Paskins will get what they deserve,” he said. “And so will Eryx. I promise.”

She scrubbed her eyes with the back of her glove, wishing she had a handkerchief. “You sound confident.”

“With good reason, for once. I've got a plan—but we've got to get moving or we'll miss our chance. Come on.”

They limped away from the dockside, leaning on each other like a pair of wounded soldiers. All the while Isaveth kept glancing over her shoulder, afraid that Barto or one of his companions would reappear. But they reached the main road in safety, and when Esmond fired off his cab-hailer, a taxi appeared as quickly as though he'd conjured it.

“Rollingdale Court,” he said, and flashed a money note at the driver, who lost his skeptical expression at once. Esmond opened the door for Isaveth, and the two of them climbed in.

“I can't take you home yet,” he said, pulling a warming-charm from his pocket. “I know your family's worried, but you're not safe there as long as the Paskins are looking for you.”

After what she'd seen tonight, Isaveth couldn't argue. She nodded, waiting for Esmond to say the invocation as he broke the charm. But he only held his hand over the pieces a moment, then glanced up and flashed her a smile.

The charm must have been a strong one, because all at once Isaveth felt as flushed as she had on her first visit to J. J. Wregget's office. She slid toward the door and started unbuttoning her coat as Esmond spoke again.

“I've got your satchel of spells back at the mansion,
and I grabbed that old journal Lilet said you'd been using. Do you have any of that sticky stuff left, or do you need to make more?”

Her fingers stilled on the last button. “What sticky stuff?”

As the taxi splashed through the slush-covered streets toward Rollingdale, Esmond explained what he'd discovered about Isaveth's curse-breaking potion, taking the two charms out of his pocket to show her. He was right: The spell had worked after all—as she'd have seen for herself, if she'd only let them dry first.

“I poured it all out,” Isaveth groaned. “I thought it was useless. And if I can't go home—”

“That,” said Esmond, “is the least of our problems. I brought your spell-baking ingredients, too.” He unwound her scarf from his leg and began kneading his chilled muscles. “Now that's settled, let me tell you the plan. . . .”

*  *  *

Isaveth stared into the mirror over the dressing table, amazed at her own transformation. The girl gazing back at her looked years older, and hardly like Urias Breck's daughter at all.

Half a bell ago, Esmond had brought Isaveth into the mansion through the servants' quarters and introduced her to a stern-faced woman named Olina. She'd drawn a
hot bath for Isaveth and let her soak while she whisked her dirty clothes away, exchanging them for a long-sleeved maid's dress and white apron.

Once Isaveth was presentable, Olina led her down the corridor to a room with a quilt-covered bed on one side and a dressing table on the other, bandaged her sore wrists so neatly they looked like an extension of her starched cuffs, and sat her in front of the mirror while she pinned Isaveth's wet hair into finger waves. A few disguising strokes of eye paint and lip tint, a white cap to cover her crown, and Isaveth's transformation was complete. As long as she kept her head down and her eyes meekly lowered, she would be just another servant.

“Now,” said Olina, handing her a pair of slippers, “I will show you to the kitchen.”

It was getting late in the evening, and most of the day-servants had finished up their duties and gone home. A pale-skinned girl washing pots in the great sink glanced up as they walked in, but one look from Olina made her blanch and go back to scrubbing.

Isaveth's satchel waited by the stove for her, as Esmond had promised. He'd run upstairs to make a couple of calls and change his clothing—as he'd said, it would be a pity to alarm their guests. But they'd gone over the plan twice
in the taxi, and Isaveth knew what she had to do. She opened the country-mage's journal, unpacked her ingredients, and set to work.

*  *  *

Esmond was pacing the lounge when his sister came downstairs, gowned in violet with a softly gathered bodice and beaded fringes all over the skirt. She looked lovely, but fragile—in fact, very like their mother. That was, until she pursed her lips in displeasure and marched over to smooth Esmond's hair and tug his neck cloth into shape.

“There,” she said, appraising him critically. “Almost respectable. Is that the door?”

The first guest to arrive was Eulalie's father, clearly bemused to be invited to drinks at the Sagelord's mansion when the family was still in mourning. But he took the glass Civilla offered him and settled into an armchair as the doorbell chimed again.

J. J. Wregget and his wife came next. The president of Glow-Mor had regained his ruddy color, and he shook Esmond's hand with such vigor that his half glass nearly fell off—but then he and Perline excused themselves and went to join Lady Nessa in her indoor garden.