The Hidden City (63 page)

Well, no, he wouldn't. But in spite of herself, Jewel felt something a lot like hope. “Danger? Just that?”

“Well, sort of. I came up with a couple of other signals,” Jester added, “but for some reason, he didn't repeat any of those.”

Jewel could well imagine what they were; if Jester
had
a sense of humor, it wasn't actually funny most of the time.

“But Lander tried a couple more of Lefty's. It took an hour,” Jester added, with a shrug. “And Lefty's been trying since then. Lander doesn't always respond. But he does sometimes.”

“Lefty,” Jewel said.

Safely bracketed by Finch, Lander and wall, Lefty took the risk of lifting his head.

“Can you teach me those?”

He nodded.

“I think,” Carver said quietly, “that we should all learn them. If it's the only way Lander will talk, it's better than nothing.”

But Duster had had enough. Enough of games. She rose, and her expression was smooth as merchant glass, barred and uninviting. “There's another way,” she said grimly.

Jewel was on her guard instantly; Duster did that. Whatever it was that Duster was about to say, she wasn't going to like it much. But she nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

“You talk to that friend of yours?”

“Talk? About—”

“What you said you'd talk to him about. We need to find a few people.”

“I don't think—”

Duster glared toward the door, and the hall beyond it. Jewel, taking the hint without the benefit of Lefty's hand language, stepped out of a room that had offered hope like the scant rays of cold sun in winter. She felt their passing, and missed it.

“Lander and I,” Duster said, without preamble, “we had some of the same visitors.”

The word
visitor
sank like a rock. Like a rock dropped through Jewel, and down into a darkness that she had never really explored. Didn't ever want to. She let it go before it dragged her with it.

“How will that help Lander?” she asked.

“How do you think?”

Jewel shrugged. “I don't waste time asking questions if I already have the answers. Or think I have them,” she added, to be fair.

“He needs to know,” Duster said coldly, “that they're dead.”

“They're not dead.”

“Not yet.”

“How will that help him?” Because seeing a bunch of corpses wouldn't have done much for Jewel. She was smart enough not to say so.

Duster's glare was both hot and cold. Jewel thought the conversation had ended; when it was like this, it usually had. But apparently this was important enough to Duster that she was willing—barely—to make the attempt to get her point across. If she had to bury it to do so, that was just Duster.

“Because he'll know, if they're dead, that you're different.
We're
different.” The we hung in the air for just a moment, it had been spoken with such heat. It was . . . an invitation. An opportunity. The first one that Duster had offered Jewel.

And it came cloaked in death, always death. Duster was still talking, and Jewel's hearing caught up slowly with the rest of the words. “He'll know that we won't use him the same way. Won't sell him. He'll know, if they're dead, that they'll never hurt him again.”

“Doesn't mean that others won't.”

“No. It doesn't.” Duster seemed to deflate a little. “But you won't keep him here. Not like this. And don't think he doesn't know it. Don't think he's not waiting to be sent back to the place you dragged him from. Or sent somewhere else just like it.”

“We can't send him anywhere else.”

“The Mother's people will take him.”

Jewel was absolutely silent.

“You think I don't know? You might be willing to keep the cripple because you get the giant with him—”

Jewel turned and walked away. Duster wasn't the only person who could end a conversation in anger, and it wouldn't be the first time—in a mere three days—that Jewel had proved this. Duster followed, but only so far as the door to Rath's room; if Duster was willing to show all her edges to anyone who could see them, she kept them sheathed near Rath.

“I'll talk to him. I'll talk to him even though you haven't yet given me the promise I
need
from you. I'll get your damn information,” Jewel said, spitting the words out when she could unclench her jaw. “But damn you,
leave Lefty alone
.” And without knocking, she opened Rath's door. Kalliaris smiled upon her attempt at a dramatic exit; the door wasn't locked.

Rath was waiting for her, lit to one side by the magelight in its pedestal. He looked, in that lopsided glow, as if he had aged; as if his shoulders had suddenly taken the weight of years and bowed beneath them. The air in the room was cool and damp; although there was a small grate here, he hadn't bothered to feed it.

Jewel made her way toward it, and he lifted a hand, catching the bend of her elbow before she passed him.

“The door,” he told her quietly.

She looked back; the light was moon bright, although day had not yet passed beyond the meager window. She nodded quietly, and he released her sleeve. The door clicked shut as she turned again.

His smile was slight. “I told you,” he said quietly, “to let her go.”

She nodded. She didn't mention Duster by name. “Maybe,” she added grudgingly, “I should have listened.”

His brow rose in mock surprise. “But you have no intention of ridding yourself of her.”

She could honestly say she'd been thinking of nothing else for the last two minutes; Duster could rile her in a way that only her Oma had, while she lived. But—as her Oma had often said—thought and action were different. “I don't understand her,” she said instead.

“No, you don't. I think it highly likely that you will never understand her, and if you have no cause to do so, thank Kalliaris.”

“You do.”

“Thank the goddess? Hardly.”

Jewel frowned. Mockery was something she accepted in small quantities. Very small. But Rath's charity—inexplicable charity, as it seemed at this moment—was all that stood between Jewel and the cold Winter that was coming. And Jewel was the bridge between Rath and the snow for the rest of the children packed together in these rooms. She bit her tongue, held it. “You understand her,” she said at last, when she could.

“I've spent more years observing people.”

She couldn't argue with that, and didn't want to. She started toward the logs again, and he shook his head. “Leave them, Jewel.” He gestured to the other chair in the room. “And sit. Your pacing makes me think of caged animals.”

She dragged the chair across the floor, bringing it inches away from his knees. This was awkward, as it didn't leave any room for hers; she had to tuck them beneath her.

“Why does she treat Lefty like that? Arann almost hit her.”

“She almost stabbed him.”

Jewel, uneasy, said nothing; she looked at the magestone instead. “You heard that?”

“The dead would have heard it, had they bothered to listen.”

She looked at her hands; brought them to her lap. They were fists. “If it weren't for Lefty, it wouldn't be so bad.”

“Why? She questions your authority constantly.”

“I don't
want
authority,” Jewel told him quietly.

But his expression was odd as he met her gaze; she couldn't quite place it. “Don't you?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I don't want to tell other people what to do.”

“You already tell them what to do.”

“I don't—”

“You do, Jewel. Jay, then, if you prefer.” He rose, pushing his chair back. The pacing he had denied Jewel, he kept for himself. “You tell them what to do, and they listen. Even she does.”

“She
doesn't
. She won't leave Lefty alone. If Arann hadn't almost hit her, I
would
have.”

“And she wouldn't have stabbed
you
. Next time,” Rath said quietly, “hit her.”

Jewel had no difficulty with the idea of hitting people who misbehaved; she'd certainly felt her Oma's hand often enough that she'd lost count. But she
wasn't
their Oma. “I can't.”

He shrugged. “You don't understand Duster. Let me explain only this small part of her: she understands that life demands a victim. She understands that dens demand one. She understands that there is
always
a victim, and she's trying to ensure that it isn't her.

“Lefty is the obvious choice.”

“Lefty wouldn't hurt
her
.”

“Lefty wouldn't hurt a mouse. He sometimes tries to feed them,” Rath added, with mild disdain. “It makes him ideal for her purpose.”

“But she's not like that with Lander.”

“No,” Rath conceded. “She is not like that with Lander.”

“Why?”

“Because Lander has
earned
her pity. Or her sympathy. With Duster, I think the two are the same. She knows what he's suffered; she suffered it herself. The fact that it broke something in him might be worthy of contempt in different circumstances—but she has Lefty here.”

“That's not fair, Rath,” Jewel said quietly, still clinging to the sides of the chair. “I don't think she'd treat Lander that way if there were no Lefty.” She drew breath, and then said, “if she hadn't saved Finch, I wouldn't have taken her with us. I probably wouldn't have wanted to go there at all.

“I'm glad I did,” she added, seeing for a moment the fire that had consumed the building. Feeling the heat as if it were her own. “She saved Finch,” she added, turning the words over, revisiting them in the light of Rath's room.

“Yes.” It was a grudging syllable.

“And I think she wants to help Lander.” She looked at Rath carefully.

Rath, however, was not fooled. “What does she want, Jay? What did she ask you to ask me for?”

“Information.”

“What information?”

Jewel hesitated. She could see Lander's blank face in the magestone; the light was like the color of day off his unblinking stare. She was afraid to touch Lander. Afraid to wound him. Aware that at the moment these two things were the same.

But Lefty had reached him, somehow. And Duster? Duster, who was always so damn cruel to Lefty it
almost
made Jewel want to kill her, could sit in front of Lander, speaking the silent language of shared experience. Ugly experience. All of it painful. Jewel had been spared that fate. By her Oma, her mother, and her father after them; by Rath.

“Duster wants to help Lander,” she said at last.

Rath said nothing.

“Duster's not—she doesn't—” Jewel shook her head, and said in a strained voice, “She
saved
Finch, Rath.”

“And you saved Finch. It doesn't make you the same person.”

“No. It doesn't. But it gives us something
good
in common. I can't change who she is. I don't think—I don't even think I
want
to.” The last, defiantly.

She didn't; he could see that. It should have disturbed him. But after his brief visit to the Terafin manse—its gates cold with rain and dark with lack of sun—he felt that nothing would.

He should have
seen
it. He should have understood it clearly. Jewel, Jay,
this
poor urchin, the weight of her odd morals still burdening her in the face of starvation, had looked, had spoken, so differently he had allowed himself the false grace of illusion. Now, it was gone.

He could see the ghost of Amarais in Jewel, and it haunted him; would haunt him, he thought, forever. He was not a young child now; not a young man; he would never be the younger, naive brother to Jewel Markess. And because he was not, he could see her clearly.

It was bitter, this clarity, this vision.

She did not tolerate Duster because she could pretend that Duster was someone—or something—she wasn't; she tolerated Duster because she felt, on some primal level, that Duster could be
of use
.

“What does she want?” he asked quietly although he thought he knew the answer to the question.

“Names,” Jewel said flatly. “And places.” She paused, and then added, “We'll do the rest.” The edge in her voice was sharp, but it was hot. Untempered.

He did not pretend to misunderstand her.

“Do you think this will help Lander?” he asked softly.

“I don't know. I don't think it will hurt him,” she added. Her voice had fallen, trailing into something that was barely louder than a whisper. She looked up at Rath, her chin steady, her dark eyes clear. “Those people—those men—deserve to die.”

She surprised him, but then again, she always had. He had not thought she would put into words the whole of her intent. He almost told her how unwise it was. But Amarais was there again, in the straight, stiff spine, the width of determined eyes, the purse of lips.

Jewel hadn't the vision of his sister; she had never had the breadth of wealth and education that would give her that. The vision she did have was both more powerful and in the end, less ultimately useful in the situation she found herself in now.

“Do you deserve to kill them?” He asked her quietly, all motion ceasing as he knelt beside her chair, bringing their eyes almost into line.

She could have told him that she wouldn't be the one doing the killing. He waited for the words, expecting them, readying his reply. But he waited in vain; they didn't come. He felt a twinge of something that might be either pride or pain. If they could be separated.