Part 90 (1/2)

I don't give a s.h.i.+t about ”us.”

And Jewel's Oma said, Words are cheap. They don't say what we mean. The don't mean what we say. Judge, learn to judge, by other means.

Judgment had always been a top priority for her Oma.

Jewel tried not to judge now. Not Duster, who had done, in the end, what Jewel herself was afraid she could not have done; not the boy who had waited-she saw this clearly now-for Duster to keep her word. To kill the man who had hurt them both in their captivity.

The blood might never wash out, Jewel thought. But that was fair. The memories wouldn't either; they were just harder to see unless one knew how to read their signs and shadows in the ways the people who held them behaved.

Lander bowed his head, bowed it low enough that it could touch Duster's forehead; they stood this way for a long moment. Long enough, but Duster was not Jewel, and was not Finch; she was justice, judgment, death-but she could offer comfort for only so long before it became just another cage.

And Lander said, ”Thank you,” so softly it might have been signed. It was enough. Duster's eyes widened slightly. It was her version of surprise, and even grat.i.tude. But she didn't tell Lander that she hadn't done this for him. She didn't deride him. She had always somehow managed to be, if not gentle, then not cruel, while dealing with Lander.

Because damaged people were the people she best understood, and she wasn't terribly perceptive. It took very little to see Lander's wounds; it took more to see what might exist beneath them, when all the scabs had cleared. Let Duster do the former; let Jewel do the latter. They each had a role to play, and as long as they could, they would have a home, and a family. Blood bound them, and if it was not birth blood, it was enough.

”Go out the kitchen doors,” Rath told her. ”Left, here. They'll swing in. No one will stop you,” he added, his voice slightly lower. ”I have business here to which I must attend, but I will meet you at home before dawn.”

”And if you're not there?” Jewel asked, with just a trace of hesitation. It was not a question she had really dared to ask before. But many things had been torn from her this evening.

”I will be there,” he replied.

She could not doubt that tone.

”We'll be waiting,” she told him, and then, in a slightly louder voice, ”Kitchen, then; we'll leave that way. Do you remember how you got here?”

Teller said quietly, ”I do.”

”Good, because I have no idea how to get back.”

His smile was slight, almost shy, but there was a shadow across it that he would never, ever put into words; she saw that clearly as well. ”I know.”

She would love him for it for a long, long time, if the G.o.ds smiled, and if they were kind.

Rath watched them go. In silence, he watched, stood guard over the dead. The dead that would cause them all so much trouble, if the situation were not handled carefully, correctly. This, Ararath Handernesse, heir to a House among the patriciate that he would never claim, could do.

But there were other things that he could not do. Watching as they walked, this odd group of strange children who now circled and hid both their leader and her adopted killer, he felt a strange sense of something that was almost pride, and a bitter certainty that he had failed them all; that they were strong enough to bear his failure because Jewel was strong enough to bear it.

He had opened up his home to Jewel's intrusive presence, and he had lied to himself about his reasons for doing so. Or perhaps not; was ignorance truly lying? He had encouraged her in the end to do what he said he would not accept: invade it, by stealth and by determination, take it over, make it her own.

She had chosen her den, although she would never have called them that at the time; she had chosen as wisely as she could, given her circ.u.mstances-and never in ways that he could have conceived.

He had always known that she would be tested. He had intended-from the moment he had agreed to help her-that this would be her test. And it had been. And she had not only pa.s.sed it, but risen above his expectations in ways that were bitter and horrible to him now.

Pride in her, yes, and wonder.

But for himself he felt only loathing, and a blacker loathing than he had ever felt. He had fallen lower than he now stood many times in his life, starting with his abdication of all responsibility in the face of what he had thought of as his sister's betrayal. But he had fallen; he had paid the price for the fall, and he had struggled to stand, to walk, and to survive, aware of it.

This time, it was not his price to pay. He had never intended this to happen; he had never intended for things to go so far, so quickly. And he should have seen it. He should have known that Duster would fail in her duties. He should have known that somehow-somehow-the demons in the brothel and the Patris AMatie were so intimately tied, that AMatie would be a concern.

He had failed to see. He had failed to plan accordingly. And there she was, in the wake of his failure.

She could walk, surrounded by them. She could smile, or cry, or speak, could ignore it in their presence. But Rath was not Jewel; he did not live on hope. He lived, rather, by bitter experience, and he knew that the scars she bore would never truly fade.

And yet, in the end, she had all but denied what was completely obvious to every single child in the room, because to do less was to damage them. He had seen what was on her face; he had seen the dagger in her hand; he had seen the uncertainty, the revulsion, the horror and-yes-the desire for vengeance and death. And she had handed Carver the dagger instead, and by managing to do just that, she had become-did she know it?-the sheath for Duster that she had spoken of so carefully.

The ghost of his past was his sister, at that moment, his sister and her pale face, her abiding anger, her slow determination.

I did not understand you, Amarais, he thought, bitterly. And if I understand you now in some small measure it is because of Jewel Markess. An orphan in the poorest part of this city.

She had been hurt, and he knew why. Knew that in the end, Waverly was simply a tool. Knew, as well, that the hands that had wielded him had not yet been fully revealed; there was work to do.

He would dedicate his life to doing it, because only by doing so would he be free of the image of Jewel standing in her torn and b.l.o.o.d.y dress, her bruised face silent and still. And perhaps not even then.

Epilogue.

MAGELIGHTS IN DARKNESS. No moon, no sky, no lamps to hold them aloft. Held, instead, in cupped hands, carried with care and worry, they lit a small path, revealing cracked stone, fallen pillars, rocks with sheared edges that might have cracked centuries ago. Or days.

No snow here, and no rain; no weather to trouble the undercity. The only movement that could be seen was theirs; the den's. Jewel watched them, her hands empty. She had given her stone to Finch. She could not hold it herself.

But hold it or no, she followed where the light led, finding comfort in its presence. There was secrecy in this place, and in secrecy, a promise of safety. But more, there was history, and beauty, that lay untouched and undisturbed. The walk through the streets above had been cold and numbing, and she had welcomed that.

Duster walked by her side in utter silence, and trailing her like shadow came Lander, his shoulders black in the shadowed light, and not the red of blood. No one spoke. No one touched her. No one offered her words of comfort. This, too, was a blessing. She was shaking, and could pretend that this was because she was cold; they let her be.

Carver offered her his coat, and she shook her head; she had one, and she wore it. It hid much. Had she eaten, she might have thrown up.

But instead, she followed and led, surrounded by her den, the kin she had chosen, and the kin who had chosen her. She did not find the path into the undercity; Lander did. And Lander led only as far as the entrance, before giving way in silence to Arann. They entered it as they left it, aware of the things that had changed.

So much silence. The silence of the dead. The silence of a city that might be filled with ghosts, all mercifully still. The silence of fear, of regret, of anger. Too much silence.

The voice that broke the silence was hers. In the future, she thought, it would always be hers. But here, in the now, she had to struggle to break it, and when she did, she found surprise and some flicker of memory that was both attenuated and strong enough to cling to.

”I want to show you something.”

They stopped walking, as a group, and turned to face her, and she realized she was at the center of a circle. It was a good circle, if a bit lopsided.

Teller said, ”Here?” and light bobbed in his hand.

She nodded. Even managed a smile. There were so many things to cling to, all of them memory. But too many of those memories could be shared only with words, which were all that were left.

This one, this was different.

”Come,” she told him, told them all. And they nodded.