City of Night (14 page)

Jay turned a chair toward the wall and sat on it, draping her arms over its back, and crossing her legs on the seat. She took a plate and had to shift position again to eat, pausing to drop food on the floor for the cat. It purred. And drooled.

Angel didn’t much care for cats, but they didn’t have a mouse problem when the cat was around. Which, mostly, he was; he could disappear for a week at a time, but he
was
a cat.

Duster shoved the cat out of the way and sat, hard, on the floor to Jay’s left.

The cat batted her knee with its paws, claws sheathed. Then it crawled into her lap. It was the only living thing in the place that could do that and still
be
living. Duster glared at everyone, as if daring them to say anything. The cat didn’t notice and didn’t care—but even the cat was careful when it came to Duster’s food. Duster reminded Angel of a feral farm dog—too accustomed to people to be afraid, and too hungry and wild to be anything but dangerous. Months, he’d lived here, and he didn’t understand her any better than he had.

But he was the newcomer here.

He held his peace; he was good at that with anyone but Carver. Jester finished second and started in on an impression of Carmenta which made it hard to eat. He pulled Arann into his farce, and although Arann did nothing but stand there and look at Jester as if he was insane, it worked anyway.

Even Duster laughed.

And Jay, Angel thought, watching the den leader, noticed. Jay noticed everything, and as if she could hear the thought, she looked up and met Angel’s gaze. He shrugged. Neither of them were laughing at Jester, but then again, Jay rarely found any mention of Carmenta amusing. Carmenta’s den had become a big problem in the last six months; Jay wouldn’t let anyone head out to the Common alone. She wouldn’t let them head out to the
well
alone.

Still, she let Jester go on, let everyone else laugh, let Arann pick Jester up by the back of his neck and dangle him a few inches off the ground. She promised she’d break arms if he dropped Jester on any of the plates that were still on the same ground, which sent Teller and Finch scuttling to pick them all up, and made clear to Angel why they were sometimes short plates.

But when the plates disappeared, Jay stood and cleared her throat. Her glance strayed to the kitchen, and Angel’s, following it, went there as well; Finch and Teller were working side by side, but he couldn’t see what they were doing.

He couldn’t hear them either, because Jester, in his infinite boredom, launched into an impression of Old Rath—and that one did make Jay laugh. Angel had only met Rath once, but he could see his cold, almost autocratic presence, his weary annoyance and his very obvious condescension, in Jester’s performance. In particular, the exact and perfect pronunciation, the bored, half-lidded expression, as he listed the flaws in Carver’s dagger work. Carver grimaced. If Angel had to bet, it was word- for-word what Rath had said to Carver on the day that Angel had been introduced. Jester had a memory for the spoken word that was astonishing. What he
did
with the memory? Not so much.

Of Angel, Rath had merely said, “Another one?”

It still stung, but Angel had said nothing, as if it were a test.

Rath’s lips had quirked in what might have been a smile on another face.

Jay cleared her throat again, and this time, her hands settled on her hips. Arann leaned over and dropped his fist on Jester’s head. Jester fell over.

Finch and Teller came back into the room carrying plates. They were the same plates, but there was different food on them. Cake.

“What the Hells?” Duster said, eyes narrowing.

Jay turned to Arann, who crouched down and pulled something flat from behind Lefty’s back. Lefty waved at Duster, as Arann handed the flat package to Jay.

“What
is
this?” Duster said again, looking from face to face in a room that was—for one miraculous moment—silent.

It stayed silent.

Jay took an audible breath and said, “Happy birthday, Duster.” She handed Duster the parcel; it was long, narrow, and flat.

Duster looked at it as if it were a snake, and its fangs were bared.

“Take it,” Jay told her. “It’s a present.”

As if that much weren’t obvious. On the other hand, Duster was still looking at the package with a mixture of fury, fascination, and horror. Her mouth opened, like a trap with no hinges.

More silence, and it was unbroken until Duster swore.

It was, as far as cursing went, impressive, even for a sixteen year old who’d spent all her life on the streets. She reached out and slapped the parcel out of Jay’s hand. It landed on the floor, but the noise it might have made couldn’t be heard over Duster. “I’m not some
fucking
birthday girl!”

Jay took a less audible breath. “It
is
your birthday.”

“It’s my birthday if some godsdamned Priest didn’t lie! What bloody difference does it make?” She swore some more, but as everyone had already cleared the ground at her feet, there wasn’t anyone she could easily kick.

Without another word, she turned on her heel and stormed out of the apartment. If Angel had ever wondered where that phrase had come from, he now knew: she looked like the type of lightning-heavy cloud that blocked out all light. But less friendly.

The slam of the door was almost a relief.

Jay waited for the sounds of stomping to recede, and then she winced. “Well,” she said, as she bent down and picked up the present, “that could have gone worse.”

“Yeah, no one’s bleeding,” Lefty added helpfully. “Can we eat that if she’s not here?”

“Might as well. But save her a piece.”

They all looked at Jay as if she were crazy.

Angel, on the other hand, pulled a plate off the floor and walked it to the kitchen. “This one,” he said, placing it on the counter, “is Duster’s.”

“The cat’s going to knock it off and eat it,” Lefty pointed out.

“The cat’s not stupid enough to eat Duster’s food.”

Lefty shrugged; it was true.

“Everyone else,” Jay said, easing herself back onto her chair, “eat. She won’t be back for at least two hours.”

“A copper on morning,” Carver offered. “. . . It was just an idea.”

Jay let the silence tell him just how good she thought the idea was.

 

“You knew she wasn’t going to like it,” Finch finally said.

Jay crumbled a piece of cake between her fingers as if forgetting it was supposed to be edible.

“Jay—”

She shook her head. “Yes, I knew she wasn’t going to like it. But it’s been three years. Maybe more. Everyone else has birthdays. She’s—” She shook her head again, and this time, she pushed her hair out of her eyes.

“She’s better than she used to be,” Teller said. “She’s always that little bit better than she was. We know it’s not easy. For her. For you.”

Angel had cleared his throat, and said, quietly, “She never relaxes unless we’re fighting, about to be fighting, or running from a fight.” He leaned against the wall. “But . . . she’s there, when we’re fighting. She’s there when we need her. She hates taking orders, but Jay—she takes them. From you.”

“I should order her to eat her damn cake and take her damn present.”

“If you did,” Angel said with a shrug, “she’d do both.” That much, he’d seen. If he could find nothing else to say about Duster, he could say that.

“I am
not
going to order someone to eat cake!”

“She doesn’t understand why it’s important to you.” Angel didn’t personally understand why it was important to Jay either. But it was; he could see that. “If you can make her understand it, she’ll eat.”

Jay could still surprise him. Maybe she always would. “I don’t want her to feel left out.” It was something that Finch might have said. Or at least that he wouldn’t have been surprised to hear Finch say.

“I don’t think she cares.”

“
I
care. Look, she’s never going to be entirely comfortable with family things, but this
is
her family. I want her to understand that. What family means to her—meant to her—it has to change. We’re her family, now. And yes, I know she’ll take orders, especially in a pinch. But it can’t just be about that.”

“Why?”

Jay looked up, met Angel’s gaze. “You tell me,” she said evenly.

He grimaced, acknowledging her point. His chin dropped toward his chest as he slid, slowly, down the wall. “She’s afraid.” He looked up and added, “And don’t repeat that unless you want me dead.”

Jay laughed.

Angel didn’t. “She’s afraid of being happy. This—all of this—it’s like a reminder of everything she doesn’t think she is. She’s not comfortable when people are relaxed and happy.”

Jay nodded. Angel looked up to see Teller and Finch; they were watching him carefully. Sometimes he felt like everything was a test. But at the same time? He felt like passing—or failing—didn’t really matter.

“It’s hard, to trust.” He shook his head, clearing the wrong words, trying to grope his way toward the right ones. “I don’t mean it’s hard to trust you. I trust you. It’s . . . easy to trust you, Jay. You have a foul temper,” he added, still musing; he almost missed her grimace. “But it’s not an ugly temper. Mostly.

“It’s hard to trust . . . this.” He lifted a hand, waved it, encompassing in that gesture all of the den who weren’t actively part of this conversation: Fisher, Lander, Lefty, Arann, Jester, Carver. Encompassing, as well, the small, cramped room, the warped shutters and open windows, the plates on lap or floor, the bedrolls which had been tossed in a large pile in the corner—even the kitchen. Perhaps especially that.

He gazed at his knees. “I lost my family in Evanston. My family, the farm, some of my friends.”

Finch touched his knee. “You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she told him.

He knew. He knew Jay’s rules about the past. But he smiled at Finch as he spoke. “Not even my nightmares were as bad as the truth. And it took me months to realize that it
was
true: they were dead. I had no home, no life, no chores. The chores? I hated them, but they were
what I did
.

“You found me,” he continued, his gaze tracing wood grain until it ran into Carver’s leg. “I followed you home.” He kept the bitterness out of the words without effort; the shame still tinted them. “How long have I been here?”

“Four months, give or take a few days,” Jay replied.

Four months. “It feels longer,” he told her, not looking at her. “But it feels real. I wanted—I needed—to find a place to belong. A home. A family. But there are some days I wake up, and I see the signal fires burning, and I see the smoke of bigger fires, and I hear the bells ringing—and I hear them stop—and I know, I mean,
I know
it can’t last. This,” he added, again waving his hand around the room in a circle. “And sometimes, when I know it, I’m afraid to want it too badly because if I want it, something will take it away.” It was hard to say the words out loud.

Hard to hear them. But Jay had asked.

“Duster’s more afraid of that than I will ever be. And when Duster’s afraid something bad will happen, she tries to make something bad happen, because then it’ll be over. The worst will have happened. She’ll have something to face down or fight.” He looked up at Jay then.

Jay nodded, her lips curved in something that was almost a smile. Not a smile, though; it was heavy with some sadness, some worry, that a smile couldn’t quite hold. “And you said you didn’t understand Duster.”

“I don’t. But I recognize my own fear when I see it in someone else.”

“Fair enough. But it is really any better to have nothing?”

“No. But if that’s all you’re certain you’ll have, sometimes you think it’ll hurt less if you bring it on yourself.”

Jay looked at him for a moment, and then nodded. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

She stood, picked up the plate that still had mostly cake on it, and gave him a rueful smile. “It’s not the way
I
think. Sometimes I need the reminder.”

Angel rose as well. “How would you see it?”

She shrugged, made her way to the kitchen. “I lost everything,” she told him. “I should have been able to do something. I didn’t. Or couldn’t.

“But I wouldn’t have made it this far without help. I had help.” She nodded in the general direction of the den. “This is my family. The only thing that scares me, these days? I’ll lose ’em
because
I don’t do something, or because I see something but I don’t understand it in time. It won’t be because I’m afraid they’re important, or even too important—they’re everything I’ve got. I’m not ashamed of that.”

S
INCE NO ONE HAD BEEN STUPID enough to take up Carver’s bet, Carver was no richer when the apartment door opened in the morning.