Engraved: Book Five of The St. Croix Chronicles (6 page)

Unlike the apparel worn for the rings, Osoba’s togs did not stand out from those who took to the streets by day. Working attire tended to consist of woolen or fustian trousers, sturdy belts and heavy shirts under patched wool or tweed jackets. He wore no hat—a scandal were he anything but the African prince the leaflets called him, and the fantastical title seemed fitting.

Unlike any other I’d ever known, Osoba’s hair was severely long, bound into a plethora of tiny plaits streaming down his back. The rich mahogany of his skin would never be softened, nor the eerie way his tawny gaze tended to bore through one’s social armors, but it was the most normal I’d ever seen the so-called prince appear.

When I made no move, his mouth slanted into a smile that did not reflect in the golden shade of his eyes. He had a stare reminiscent of Hawke’s in intensity.

And like Hawke, I would never be so careless as to assume Osoba harmless.

“What do you want here?” I asked, abruptly enough that he tilted his head to one side. His gaze roamed over my woolen shawl, the unstructured shape of the gown, and—with a flicker of laughter—at my boots peeking from beneath the hem, all framed in the narrow gap between door and frame that I allowed.

When it lifted again to mine, I saw within a steely determination that I had come to recognize in many of them what ran the Menagerie.

It was not for nothing that they were called whips.

Osoba made no move to push through the door, though I had little doubt he could—and in so doing, force me into an ill-advised scrap. Instead, he stood upon my stoop as though he had every right, in charge of his immediate surroundings in a manner I had never seen him so confidently display. Not even at the Menagerie.

He was strong, but Hawke had always been the greater of the two.

I did not like the parallels I drew between Osoba’s attitude and Hawke’s supreme assurance, especially when I noted the differences in the lion-tamer I had met prior and the one standing before me now. Osoba had always been somewhat particular in his attitude, but always deferential. Or rather, he had in Hawke’s presence. With no Hawke to mind him, his manner suggested that the balance of power had shifted dramatically in my absence, and I did not like what it might mean for me—or for Hawke.

I blew out a frustrated breath. “I will not invite you in,” I told him. “Get to your business and then you may leave.”

He obliged me. “I suspected your identity last night.” His gaze touched on my hair, once more its garnet hue. “I am too used to the black.”

I gritted my teeth.

“It was a simple matter to follow you to your—” his gaze flicked to the shabby door I braced more closed than not, “—home.” The thinly veiled scorn in the word stung. “You are not as careful as you should be.”

“That much is made all the more obvious by your attendance upon my stoop,” I replied, each word carved with icy precision. “Shall I engage in a bit of deduction?”

“No need,” he said over what I’d intended to be mockery and he took as rote. “I am here to speak to you about Menagerie matters. We may do so here where all who pass might hear, or we may do so inside.”

I closed the door in his face.

Maddie Ruth was not far. She leaned around the wall she’d tucked herself behind, her freckles all but faded in a white mask of fear.

I allowed her no time to panic. “Go upstairs, quickly,” I whispered, pointing up. “Wait in my boudoir and do not make a sound.” To her credit—and telling me all I needed to know of her mental state—the girl did not argue with me.

She had always feared Osoba. Enough so that she would leave me alone with him if it meant escaping his gaze.

I could not blame her. I would, however, protect her.

I strapped my weapon quickly just over my knee, where the gown would provide adequate cover. The leather abraded my softer flesh there, but I had little choice. I had not dressed for a confrontation.

Maddie Ruth took the stairs quietly enough, and given no other choice, I waited until I heard my door close softly behind the frightened girl before opening the only barrier keeping the lion prince from invading my domain.

Shabby as it was.

He possessed more faith in my amicability than I would have. I could not tell if my abrupt departure had offended him, but he had not left my stoop. I studied the set of his shoulders as he surveyed the lane beyond the rowhouses we sought refuge in. This unimpressive little street was not so busy as those nearest the markets and stores, but more than a passing cart trundled by with occupant possessing a good enough set of eyes and flapping lips for my comfort. The pedestrians looking for coin or for a further destination were not few, and say what one might about Osoba, he drew every eye.

“Out of the cold, then,” I snapped, and left the door open.

I did not have to see it to know he smiled. “Your kindness is matched only by your charm.”

A slim enough compliment that I gave it no acknowledgement at all.

Osoba passed me, waited patiently while I closed and locked the door in his wake, then followed me to the sitting room, which bore no real items of personal investment. For all he was aware, I lived here alone—or, rather more likely assumed, with the escort he’d seen accompany me within.

Osoba’s apparent cleverness amounted to little more than a foolish oversight on my part. I should have been more careful about my route.

Fortunately, I had no reason to believe him aware of Ashmore’s identity. Few in Society had ever met him, much less bothered with the absent guardian responsible for the curious wart that I was. There was little enough to link Ashmore with Osoba’s world.

I did not sit.

He, on the other hand, folded his lengthy body into the sofa. It amused me, in some petty way, that his knees came up quite a bit higher than the furniture was meant to allow. Seated, he appeared more of an overly long puppet than a prince.

I could not allow this man to sit here all day. I had no understanding of Ashmore’s schedule. If he returned now, all hell could break loose.

Irritated at the need, I took the bait of his lingering silence. “Speak,” I ordered, as lofty as the countess I had no desire to be.

“The Veil still searches for you.” As preamble, I’d heard fewer with more threat. He did not allow me the courtesy of a reply. “I assume you returned to speak with Hawke.”

“Is Hawke well?”

“No.” A simple fact; one that felt as though he’d slapped me with it. I took in a slow breath before I forgot entirely to breathe. “Tell me, Miss...” A glance at my hair, and his tone turned wry as he finished, “...Black. Is it your intent to trouble him?”

I would not tell him my name. He like as not already knew it, but it seemed something of a loss if I allowed him the opportunity to use it.

I braced one hand atop the armchair Ashmore favored and said nothing.

His was a question to which I had not yet developed a complete answer. Of course I intended to save him, if he was willing, but that in itself was liable to mean trouble for him. He likely wouldn’t even allow me the saving.

Hawke had always been a Menagerie creature, and to suggest that he would be grateful for its loss struck me as arrogant.

Then again, there was much I endeavored that could be called the same.

Osoba somehow sensed the uncertainties I held in regards to Hawke. Whatever intentions I maintained towards him, the lion prince plucked with ease. Either he was more perceptive than I dared credit him, or I revealed too much. He reached behind his head to sweep the heavy fall of beaded braids over his shoulder, and the clatter the wooden balls picked up filled the silence like rain.

I could not abide the overly emphatic quiet. “Why are you here?”

“I am extending to you an opportunity to visit him,” Osoba said. “One offer only, do not think I’ll offer again.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“Because unlike some,” he replied readily, “I consider Cage something of a friend.”

That surprised me. I narrowed my eyes at him, but read nothing beyond a thinly concealed distaste for either me or my surroundings, and that bleeding amusement that so shaped him.

If he were truly a lion-tamer, as the leaflets suggested, then it made him one of the most dangerous men in the circus. It all depended, naturally, on whether or not the Menagerie cowed their animals first. I suspected the Veil would not hold with beating them until docile, as was often the practice.

Whatever powers of persuasion this man possessed, it allowed him to escape the rings unscathed night after night.

Not a small endeavor. Only the knife-thrower’s apprentice could be lauded for the same courage.

And now this dangerous man sat upon my sofa—borrowed though it may be—extending a metaphorical hand to me.

What would he do if I bit him?

“I’ve a question,” I said, watching him for any sign of emotion or missed control. He seemed wholly at ease, which bothered me—bothered my pride, no less. Despite my many and varied accomplishments in a collector’s role, he did not fear me in the slightest. He should have. I intended to ensure he one day did.

He inclined his head. “I may answer.”

I softened no edges. “When did the Menagerie start peddling children?”

There
. A twitch, a flicker of an eyelid and a subtle tightening about his mouth. “After your departure.”

The answer was obvious, but it did not require prying; it was no white flag of surrender, but the cautious regard of a truce that he offered me. He did not lie or deflect, and allowed me a glimpse of his distaste for the subject matter.

As a proper whip, he’d like as not be unaware of further details, anyhow. He had never acquired new flesh for the sweets, to my knowledge.

Now was not the time to seek revenge. As much as I disliked Osoba, as dearly as I wanted to make him suffer for what he’d done to Black Lily during that aborted uprising against his Veil masters, he might very well be the only one who could facilitate a meeting between myself and Hawke.

Without dealing with the Veil’s new ringmaster, anyhow. I was unprepared for such a face-to-face meeting. I wasn’t certain that I’d ever be ready for such a reunion.

I lifted my chin. “Tell me of Marceaux.”

Osoba’s nostrils flared, like one of the large felines he was reputed to tame. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because we are not, nor will we ever be friends.”

“Poor excuse,” I replied flatly.

“Find your sources elsewhere,” Osoba returned without batting a thick black eyelash. Exotic in his ringside costumes, he was something only barely civilized in everyday garments. No amount of cloth would strip him of that nature that simmered just under the surface.

“How will you bring me to Hawke?” I asked.

“By the most direct method,” he replied.

“Why should I trust you?”

“You should not,” he returned easily, leaning back in the sofa. The brocade indented beneath his lean shoulders. He watched me as closely as I watched him; two opponents in a pugilists’ ring. “Shall I tell you a story?”

I crossed my arms, bracing my elbows upon the back of Ashmore’s chair. This position would provide little enough protection should Osoba wish to come at me, but all I needed was a little warning. I was not the helpless lamb he thought to treat me. I raised my chin. “Is that how you tame your lions? By story?”

Only one corner of his mouth curled up, and a black eyebrow lifted in tandem. “Perhaps.”

Curiosity had always been something of a weakness. I sighed, just so that he might know how much of a trial he was to me. “Tell me.”

He spoke with a powerful current in his deep voice, a quality reminiscent of a gifted storyteller. “Hawke was seventeen years of age when he first stepped foot in Limehouse.”

Two years older than I at my first visit, and while I did not know Hawke’s age to the year, I knew him older than me by several. “Was he a free man then?”

“There are none free,” Osoba replied, and left it at that. It told me nothing but that the storyteller had a gift for the philosophic. “Much of the East End was overrun. The gangs you know now were not the same then, and blood flowed in the streets as easily as the fog that chokes the life from this miserable city.” A venomous edge.

I watched his eyes carefully, studied his hands when he leaned forward and braced interlinked fingers beneath his chin. “What altered the course of it?”

“Hawke did.”

I blinked. “By himself?”

“You fail to understand the fundamental nature of the man,” Osoba said, grim amusement once more firmly in place. “It is not for nothing that he is the Veil’s own
wūshì
. He came to London already bearing the curse of a tainted blood. The Veil taught him what it was to harness it long before they brought him here.”

“A curse?” I scoffed. “Poor breeding, more like.” He wouldn’t have been the first of muddled blood to claim the mantle of wise man or sorcerer, such as the Veil called him in their Chinese tongue.

“Perhaps.” My guest scrutinized me, and what he saw made clear he bore no liking for it. “There was some doubt as to which beast would rise above the other.”

“Was there ever a risk of Hawke biting his master’s hand?” I asked dryly.

This time, there was no humor to soften the edge. “Yes,” Osoba replied. “Teach a tiger the taste of blood, and he will learn to crave it.”

“Does he crave it?”

He canted his head to a side. A wash of dark black plaits fanned over his shoulder, clicking softly. “What will you do if he does?”

“What would you do?” I asked, earning a lifted eyebrow in what I thought might be surprise, but he was as difficult to read as most whips must be.

“You have a remarkable gift for questions,” Osoba told me.

I had no need for such observations. “If I may strip some of the mystique from your tale,” I said instead. Osoba tipped his chin in acknowledgement, as if I required permission. I repressed an urge to snort. Maddie Ruth was a terrible influence. “You claim that Hawke was already gifted in sorcerous arts when he arrived, and through less than judicious use, single-handedly broke the back of the gangs that warred through Limehouse.”