Part 9 (2/2)

”Mother, what is wrong?” Lily cried, rus.h.i.+ng to Mrs. Lockwell's side. Rose hurried after, a frightened look on her face, and Ivy as well. They patted Mrs. Lockwell's hand, and fanned her to help her breathe, and brought her water to sip.

Soon her color returned, and she said she had felt faint for a moment, but the moment had pa.s.sed, and she was perfectly well now, so they could stop their fussing. She waved them away and stood again, for she needed to see what Mrs. Murch was doing in the kitchen, having developed a sudden certainty that something was amiss with the supper. Lily departed as well, humming the song she had played on the pianoforte earlier, though somehow she made it sound not doleful but light and cheerful.

”Is there someone out there?” Rose said, and Ivy realized she had been staring out the window into the night.

The words of the riddle came to Ivy's mind, unbidden. When twelve who wander stand as one, through the door the dark will come....

”No, dearest,” Ivy said, sitting down on the sofa and helping Rose to pet Miss Mew.

However, she could sense the darkness slinking in through the window, as if the sash were raised and the gloom a living thing, and she knew the words she had spoken were false. There was someone out there. They were out there, the magicians who had come here looking for her father. Looking for something. Yet Ivy was now certain that, whatever it was they wanted, they would not find it in this house. And if she wished to gain their aid-in helping Mr. Lockwell, or in deciphering his riddle-then she must go to where she was more likely to find them.

She sat with Rose in the parlor, pa.s.sing the time quietly. An hour later Mrs. Lockwell called everyone to supper, and by then Ivy had formulated her plan. There was only one thing to do.

As soon as possible, she must go to Durrow Street.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

E LDYN'S MEETING WITH Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing was not so heartening as on the previous occasion.

He met them at Mrs. Haddon's coffeehouse in Covenant Cross, in request to a note he received at the Golden Loom. Their manner remained polite, yet he could feel a sort of unseen lightning crackling back and forth on the air while the coffee he had bought them with the scant coins in his pocket grew cold. There was a sharpness to their words that-however courteous-gave everything they said an urgent tone.

They had gone out of their way to accommodate the peculiar demands of his schedule, they informed him. Now the s.h.i.+p was ready to sail for the New Lands, and he had left them in an awkward position. In order to hold a place for him, they had put off other investors. It was an unfortunate situation; there was nothing else that could be done to resolve it. They must have the money he had promised them. If he did not deliver a hundred regals to them by sunset of the next day, they would be forced-regretfully, of course-to spread word among all men of business in the city that Mr. Eldyn Garritt could not be relied upon; no one would enter a contract with him ever after. Both of them despised the idea of doing this, yet there would be no choice. It would-rather, it must-be done.

”You know we hold you in the highest esteem, Mr. Garritt,” said Mr. Sarvinge as he rose from the table. He was long-limbed and thin as a whip, with a long face, a blade-thin nose, and long black hair that draped over very thin shoulders.

”Indeed, the highest esteem,” said Mr. Grealing, who was short and in every manner soft and round where his companion was lean and angular, and who bore a single patch of hair atop his round, soft head. ”We know you will not disappoint us, Mr. Garritt.”

They smiled and bowed, they gave him sharp looks, they smiled again, and the two departed, leaving their coffee cups untouched. For a time Eldyn could do nothing but sit at the table and tremble as if he was chilled to the bone, though the atmosphere in Mrs. Haddon's was, as always, close and stuffy and boisterous.

What was he to do? He fretted over this question again and again. But there was nothing to do; he was ruined, and his sister with him. Mr. Walpert would evict them from the inn, and Sas.h.i.+e would be forced to live on the streets. She would become a servant, a slattern. Or far worse. A vision came to him of her lying in a dank lane in Waterside, her once-pretty face dirty and slack, insensible to what the coa.r.s.e men who pa.s.sed by did with her, save whether they put another bottle of gin in her hand.

He dug the palms of his hands into his eyes, trying to grind away the unspeakable vision.

”h.e.l.lo there, Garritt!” a voice called out. ”Quit staring at your cup and come over and join us!”

Eldyn looked up. Orris Jaimsley, Curren Talinger, and Dalby Warrett sat at a table across the crowded shop. As usual, Talinger was banging a fist on the table, expounding upon some treatise or another, while Warrett grabbed for their cups to keep them from flying.

Jaimsley waved a skinny arm. ”Talinger still seems to think we need a king for some reason,” he called out. ”Nor will he listen to me. I need you to come talk some reason to him, Garritt.”

Had he been more in his right mind, Eldyn might have flinched at so brazen an advertis.e.m.e.nt. Only days ago, in The Fox, Eldyn had read how the White Lady had accused the proprietor of a tavern not five hundred paces from this spot of harboring conspirators against the Crown. The Fox had decried this as a falsehood and another example of the injustice rampant in Altania. All the same, the man had been swiftly convicted by the Gray Conclave-which had the luxury of convening its own courts-and the broadsheets might as well have been printed in the tavernkeeper's blood. Next week, in Barrowgate, he would hang.

Jaimsley gave him another wave. Eldyn granted him only a shallow nod, then headed for the door. He caught a puzzled look from his friend, then he was outside, into the coolness of the early twilight. The day had been short, the umbral was to be even briefer, and tomorrow would be a lumenal of no more than middling duration. The next sunset would come all too quickly. In a few hours, hope would be at an end.

But it is not yet, he told himself. The brisk air revived him after the torpid atmosphere of the coffeehouse. There has to be a way. But where could he get a hundred regals?

Once more he considered asking Rafferdy, but as quickly dismissed the notion. It was highly unlikely his friend would have such a sum about him. There was only one possibility Eldyn could think of. He reached into his coat pocket, touching the carnelian brooch and the pearl earrings-the last of his mother's jewels. He had taken them from their hiding place at the inn that morning with the intent of selling them, for he was running low on funds to pay Mr. Walpert. They were worth far less than a hundred regals, but if he could fetch a good price for them, he might be able to offer the money to Mr. Sarvinge and Mr. Grealing as a token of his good faith. Surely if he did that they would give him more time; they were honorable men.

Eldyn quickened his pace, hurrying to reach Gold Row before the shops closed.

A N HOUR LATER found him walking the streets of the Old City. Shadows gathered around him, soft, unbidden. Earlier, Eldyn had gone to every shop on the row, showing the brooch and earrings, and the best price he had been offered for the lot was five regals.

Five regals! It was an insult. No, it was a crime. The jewels were the last things in the world he had of his mother, save for the memory of her face, her gentle touch. When he was a boy, her hands had been like a balm against his face, soothing the sc.r.a.pes and bruises his father gave him.

He fingered the coins in his pocket. Five regals. That was all he had left of her now. It would do nothing to help his cause with Sarvinge and Grealing. Such a small sum could be only an affront to them. It was hardly enough to keep him and Sas.h.i.+e at the inn for another month.

A ghostly face appeared in the darkness. Eldyn stopped and looked up. Behind iron bars, an angel hovered in the gloom, dark tears streaking his pale, beautiful face. Only it wasn't an angel. It was just the statue of St. Andelthy. Eldyn's feet had led him again to the old chapel of St. Adaris, at the end of its narrow lane in the Old City.

He gripped the bars and peered through, but the churchyard beyond was empty and silent. There was no sign of the priests.

Eldyn reached into his pocket and took out a coin: not one of the regals from the sale of his mother's jewels but rather a circle of silver. One side depicted the moon as a smiling face, while the other showed a similarly humanized sun, framed with a radiant mane yet stern of expression. He spun the coin in his hand and saw the faces in alternation: moon, sun, moon. Yet never both faces at once, just like in the sky above.

Why the illusionist at the Sword and Leaf had given him the coin, and what it was for, Eldyn did not know. He might as well cast it into the gutter. The coin would not pay his way at the inn or buy an investment in the trading company. It was a thing of beauty: worthless.

He slipped the coin into his pocket with care and continued on his way to the Golden Loom, leaving the darkened church behind.

Another message was waiting for him at the inn, this one from Dashton Rafferdy. His friend thirsted for drink only slightly more than he did for company. Eldyn went upstairs to check on Sas.h.i.+e, but even as he opened the door to their little rooms, the door to hers slammed shut, nor could he elicit any answer from her through its wooden panels.

How long she would refuse to speak to him he did not know, but he was growing weary of this behavior. Couldn't she see that what he had done had been for her benefit?

And how exactly have you benefited her? He looked around at the cramped room, with its rickety chairs and the hard bench where he made his periodic attempts at sleeping.

He glanced again at Rafferdy's note, then leaned his head against the door to her bedchamber. ”If you do not need me tonight, dearest, then I will go out for the evening.” He caught the sound of the bed creaking; she had thrown herself upon it. She had heard him.

Eldyn brushed his coat-though in some places there was little coat left to brush-then returned downstairs. The scent of food wafted from the kitchens. His stomach uttered a noisy complaint; he had not eaten anything that day. He ordered a meal to be sent up for Sas.h.i.+e, but forwent anything for himself. He had already spent too much on the coffee.

Distracted as he was, Eldyn did not see Miss Walpert until he neared the door. By then it was too late, for she was coming in from the public room, a basket in hand, and there was no way to duck beneath the stairs before she saw him.

”Why, Mr. Garritt, there you are!” Miss Walpert exclaimed, and at once was upon him. She reached a hand up to her bonnet but succeeded only in making it more crooked yet. ”Every time I look for you, you aren't there, but somewhere else. I should hardly think you lived at my father's inn anymore for how seldom I see you.”

He made some soft, useless reply, then started toward the door.

”You are always in such a hurry to fly away, Mr. Garritt. I'd think you were a kind of bird if I didn't know otherwise.” She laughed, a sound not unlike what a horse might produce. He gave a tight smile and moved again toward the door, but she said, ”You have not eaten! Papa told me to send a meal up to your rooms, but just one, and Miss Garritt is there, I know she is, and so I thought to myself, Mr. Garritt can in no way have eaten properly, it is not possible, and he is so thin, so awfully thin. I've often said to myself, I could thread him and sew st.i.tches with him, he's that thin.”

Miss Walpert was herself somewhat plump, having a tendency to sample from whatever plates she was bringing from the kitchen.

Eldyn could not help but be touched by so genuine a concern, however crudely expressed. ”Thank you, Miss Walpert, but I am well.” He adjusted his coat, which indeed had grown looser of late. ”I am going out. I shall find something later.”

”You won't, though,” she said. ”You'll be thinner when I see you next, and one day I won't see you at all. You'll step in a crack in the street and slip right through, and no one will ever know what became of you.” She fumbled with the basket and pulled out half a small loaf. ”Here, Mr. Garritt.” She pushed the bread into his hands. ”Go on, now, let me see you take a bite. Right this moment.”

He hesitated, but the bread smelled good, and she was watching him. Eldyn took a bite; the juices flowed in his mouth, and his stomach let out a triumphant roar. Now that he had tasted food, it was beyond him to stop; he took several bites, gulping each down.

G.o.d in Eternum, was he some mangy animal scrounging in the street? He willed himself to lower the bread, to slip the remainder in his pocket. ”I will pay you for this.”

She shook her head. ”But you needn't. You could have all the bread you wished and never pay for a thing. Your sister too. My father says his knees do him no good. He says he wishes there was a young man about, one to help him with things around the inn. You wouldn't have to be so thin, Mr. Garritt. You wouldn't have to fly like a bird no more.” She smiled, a lopsided and yellow-toothed expression; even so, for all its flaws, it might have seemed a kindly gesture, save for the hunger in it-a hunger as fierce as any Eldyn had felt while consuming the bread, and one just as unsatisfied.

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