Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) (60 page)

II

The dead man’s fixation on her—his eyes like two pins of coal—while Morigan and the Broker’s man were talking drove Mouse from the room. Even the most secret of the charterhouse’s hallways were well-traveled paths to her, and she took forgotten stairwells and poked up through hidden accesses as she moved higher and higher into the building. Memories surrounded her:
whispers of laughter, suggestions of footsteps walking alongside her, even once the sound of her name being called by young female voice.

Adelaide
was the caller’s name, a friend of hers during her years here, and it was Adelaide she was chasing, in a sense—as much as one can chase the dead. Mouse made it a point to honor the girl whenever she came to the charterhouse. One would be hard-pressed to find the strings to Mouse’s heart, yet they were present, if hidden under callousness, and Adelaide’s string was one that thrummed a melancholy tune when plucked. Her memory of Adelaide was not tarnished by the years, but polished through handling, like a favored pocket-chronex. She didn’t think of the girl as often as she should have, and that she regretted, for Adelaide was such an important part of her life.

You were like a wave sparkling in sunlight. Or like leaping into that wave perhaps, as your very presence was refreshing and bright
, she thought, and missed her friend achingly.

She climbed a constricting hallway and its precipitous steps and came to a grand crawlspace, empty and echoing as the belly of a ship’s hold, with the circular windows being cloudy portals to a dark sea outside. The rain began when she arrived, splashing down the windows and pelting the roof like hail. Curious shapes were about, which Mouse knew were merely sheets pulled over sharp-angled furniture or crates, though in the dimness an active or young imagination might confuse them for horned ghosts. Today, she fearlessly walked among the specters and amusingly recalled how Adelaide and she used to clutch each other when taking these same steps. This was the only place in the charterhouse where the masters never looked for them; it had been their sanctuary. She was smiling at these memories as she came upon the tribute to her friend: a nook with a brass-framed picture on the floor and bouquets of dead flowers around it.

When Mouse was alone, in the rarest moments, she allowed herself to cry. She was misty-eyed as she came to her knees before the portrait. Mouse had commissioned the picture from memory, and paid a pretty crown for the service in order to get it exactingly correct. Adelaide had been captured in watercolor, so there was an aqueousness to her appearance that was right at home with the girl’s Carthacian origins. Persons of the sea and surf who dared the Straits of Wrath to fish and plunder the ocean to the west, those
of Carthac, had the paleness of the sun to their complexions and the dazzle of blue water to their eyes. It didn’t matter how far one ended up from Carthac—and truly, Adelaide had drifted far—the ocean never left them. Salt was in their blood, and their heads were full of the free-blowing will of the ocean. Mouse had never learned Adelaide’s history, and the girl herself was far too young to understand how she had been carried to the Black City. Without the truth, they indulged in fantasy, at which Adelaide was marvelous. She could be a master’s bastard daughter, or smuggled princess lost in the West: they did not consider the reality of their situation unless they were forced to do so. Such cheerfulness is what drew Mouse to the girl at first glance. She remembered that time.

“How can she be smiling? Does she not know what’s in store for her?” thinks Mouse
.

A blond girl in little more than tattered clothes has been prodded into the dormitory at rifle point. She thanks the men for her escort, and waves to the other children in the room, who are silent on their wooden bunks, practicing their makeup in mirrors along the wall, or simply turning their faces to wherever the soldiers of the Iron City are not. Many bunks in the room are empty, and the girl skips over to the unclaimed bed next to Mouse and pleasantly asks, “May I?”

Mouse has no idea how to reply to this chipper dolt, who is surely a few wires shy of a properly connected brain. So she snorts and ignores the newcomer like the rest of her dormitory mates. Such ostracism scarcely dents the girl’s liveliness, for she whistles while she fluffs and remakes her bed. Mouse lies upon her bed and from the corner of her eye, she watches the stranger: entranced and suspicious of her. Every time the girl catches her, she breaks her whistling to offer a smile, which only adds to the redness on Mouse’s face. While the newcomer is tucking in her blanket, she discovers something under the mattress, and Mouse tries—without appearing to try—to see what has been found. No investigation is needed, however, for the girl strolls over, plops herself down near Mouse’s hip, and then disturbs her even more by poking her for attention
.

“You there, what’s your name?”

Mouse rolls over and faces the wall. “Mouse. Now leave me alone. You look like trouble, and trouble doesn’t last too long around here.”

“My name is Adelaide, not trouble. Nice to meet you, Mouse.”

“It is not nice to meet you,” huffs Mouse. “Now go away.”

Adelaide brushes her golden hair behind one ear as she whispers, “Well, that’s a shame you want me to go, as I found something interesting that I’m not certain what to do with.” She waits a few specks for a reply, which does not arrive. “Something very interesting,” promises Adelaide
.

Still Mouse holds out, though her curiosity is tweeting like a trapped bird
.

“I guess it’s all mine, then. Pity, as I like to share,” Adelaide says with a sigh, and is off the bed
.

“Wait!” hisses Mouse
.

Begrudgingly, she sits up and makes space for Adelaide to join her, then has the girl reveal what she has cupped between her small hands. It appears to be a thin rectangular box
.

“I think I know what these are,” mutters Adelaide. “But I couldn’t tell you from where. Gamblers’ toys. Demon decks. I think older folk used to play with them around me.”

“Play with them?” says Mouse
.

“Yes, let me show you.”

With a charming theatricality—a white smile and the sweeping wrists of a riverboat con man—Adelaide holds up a pack of cards. Whatever illustration was on them is faded, but they bear bits of teasing colors and shapes that belong in a carnival. Adelaide wastes no time in opening the pack and fanning the cards with that same practiced grace as before. Of all the glossy numbered pictures, Mouse cannot pick a favorite, as they are all magnificent: images of scaled monsters and bird-winged men, of sorcerers and warlords. A glint of black suddenly hooks her attention, and she pulls out the card of a beautiful dark-haired king. She knows he is a king, just as she knows who the pale man wrapped in green fire is
.

“Fates and Crowns,” whispers Adelaide. “That is what they called it, the game you play with these. That fellow there is the Everfair King, and most powerful in the deck next to the Wildman, Brutus.”

“Who taught you this?” asks Mouse
.

“Who knows?” shrugs Adelaide
.

Any concern is banished with another of Adelaide’s infectious grins, which Mouse feels twist her own lips, too. Mouse stares past the girl’s shoulders to
the slouched orphans in the room; they are keeping to themselves now, but would sell out this daft girl and her contraband cards in a heartbeat if it spared their hides in any small way. Mouse tidies up the cards and places them back in Adelaide’s hands
.

“Listen, Adelaide,” she coaches, “you can’t flash these around or you’ll meet the whip for sure. Hang on to these, keep them somewhere safe, and don’t take them out unless I tell you that you can.”

“All right.”

Adelaide searches her ratty gown for a place of discretion to hide the cards. Her fingers poke through her pockets and she frowns. Now, Mouse is a savvy child; she has learned the lessons of obedience and observance, and knows how and when to apply these traits for her benefit. Poor Adelaide has none of this wisdom, and her bumbling would be laughable if it wasn’t kind of endearing to Mouse. She has never wanted to help another besides herself, as there is nothing to be gained from such a transaction. Yet she wants to help this girl before she trips and kills herself from clumsiness
.

“No, no,” says Mouse. “You can’t do that. You’ve just arrived, and they’ll be taking those clothes and giving you a young woman’s frock like mine in a few sands. Here, just give them to me and I shall look after them.”

“Very well,” replies Adelaide, without the merest reluctance
.

Mouse is handed the deck. She shuffles back to one of the posts on her bunk and tells Adelaide to “cover her,” which Adelaide does by making a Y with her arms and acting as conspicuously as a bibbed fox in a henhouse. Again, Mouse feels the urge to chuckle. She represses it while she slips them into a slit cut in the side of her mattress, where she keeps a sharpened spoon and a couple of other items she has picked up in the charterhouse. She likes to take things, and she has yet to be caught. She finishes in a rush so that she can push Adelaide’s arms down and caution the girl that there are better ways to act discreet
.

“I thought I was,” declares Adelaide with utter seriousness, and Mouse erupts with laughter. Even if Adelaide isn’t in on the joke, she throws herself into it anyway, and the two girls cackle in escalating hysteria until their sides hurt. As it is so scarce a sound to be heard in the charterhouse, their joy draws the heavy footsteps of a warden, and Mouse shoos Adelaide from her bed
.

As they part, Adelaide whispers, “We’re going to be friends, you and I. You’ll see.”

And we were
, thought Mouse.

Out came a tear, then another, and still more. Mouse wiped them away roughly, as she was not used to weeping.
You’re here to get the cards, not for a memorial
, she reprimanded herself, and with that, her grief was bottled back up. With great consideration, she lifted the flaking bouquets around the tribute and set them aside: there were three bundles of flowers, representative of each of her visits. Lightning pranced about the attic, and the faded jacket of the pack was momentarily as vibrant as it once was, lurid with the outlines of snakes, twisting things, and men, all embroiled in a terrible battle. She paused before grabbing the deck—not from the picture, but from acknowledging the finality of this act. Once the memento was hers, this was her farewell to the charterhouse, to Menos, to that whole segment of her life. Not all of which was worth forgetting—particularly Adelaide—though she felt that she might.

“I shan’t forget you,” she promised, taking the cards.

Vortigern’s rich, layered voice crept through the stormy attic. “Forget who?”

What dastardly stealth the dead man had, though Mouse smelled his potpourri cologne now that he had announced himself. Acting as if she had been caught doing an unmentionable act, she slipped the deck into her pocket and quickly threw the bouquets over Adelaide’s picture. When she stood and faced Vortigern, it was with a scowl of contempt. She could not tell his expression, for at his back were flashing windows, though once he spoke he sounded sad.

“You lost someone, I see.”

Mouse ignored his observation. “Why are you following me?”

“We are due for a talk.”

After they had arrived in the Blackbriar estate and she and Morigan were separated, Vortigern had taken her to Lenora’s bedroom. He had appeared airy and distant, and she was questioning how, if at all, the witch had affected him. He sat her down, shared a deep stare with her that made her shiver with discomfort, and then smashed her doubts by twisting the bindings off her wrists as if they were made of foil. There was no room for gentility in that moment, for he was moving and instructing her that they had to find the witch.

“I never did thank you,” she realized. “Please accept my thanks. We should be returning to the others. I am done here.”

The dead man was blocking the small alcove and he did not move. “If you would pay me for your freedom, then do so with a conversation.”

Since Morigan’s tampering, a shift in character had occurred in the dead man that Mouse was noticing more and more. He possessed a surety and steadiness to his manner—a lordly presence that was cultured and commanding. Mouse was usually immune to the charms of men, but she found herself warming to his demand.

“Very well,” she sighed. “But our sands are not unlimited. I am expecting someone.”

“I understand,” said Vortigern.

The dead man stepped aside and eased onto a dusty construction that must have been a chair, for it fit him like one once the sheet upon it was depressed. He was mournful and slumped, and looked off to study the storm. Mouse did not sit but tapped her foot from anxiousness.

“Why do you call yourself Mouse?” he asked.

An interesting question. Mouse smirked. “Magpie is too generic but that is what I am. Or was, for certain. A taker. A five-fingered patron. A thief. I squirreled my goods away in cubbies, floorboards, and mattresses. When I was caught, which wasn’t often, the name just seemed to fit. I wasn’t given much in life to call my own. But a name…that’s mine and mine alone. I chose it; I own it.”

“I suppose you were very young when you were brought here, so you wouldn’t recall any name that you were given.”

“Given?” scoffed Mouse. “By whom?”

“By your parents—they who surely named you.”

“I have no parents.”

With a piercing sadness Vortigern said, “Even I, as a man no longer living, cannot claim that. Have you never wondered where you came from? Or sought those ties of blood?”

“No,” declared Mouse.

That was a lie. Her pursuit of the truth of her abandonment had taken many years of her life. Once she was welcomed into the Watchers and
became aware of what resources were available to her, she spent every sand of her free time trying to find her parents. Yet each trail ran cold, and there were walls erected to hinder the deepest forays of her investigation. Political barriers, obstacles that could be nebulously traced to the Council of the Wise itself but without any actual names or facts to which to tie these obstructions. She knew that someone had left her at the Eastminster charterhouse, though she had no idea who, be that person male or female, relative or compassionate slaver. Years of inquiry and that was as far as she got before finally throwing her hands in the air. That the dead man would provoke her thinking on the matter again was an offense, and she was nearly done with their conversation. Following the uncomfortable silence to the drum and drip of the storm, he spoke again. His next question was equally stinging.